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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD
A film that in most particulars would appear to qualify for Profoundly Weird status, but which in the filmography of its director, Canada’s Guy Maddin, doesn’t seem too strange at all
BUFFET FROID
A very bizarre 1979 comedy by France’s Bertrand Blier that functions as a film noir parody, a cautionary essay on contemporary dehumanization and an unfiltered blast of surreal invention
FAUST (1994)
Jan Svankmajor does FAUST. Need I say more?
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
The “Most Amazing, Incredible, Remarkable True Story Ever Told”?
MIDORI-KO
The magnum opus of Japanese dementoid Keita Kurosaka
MANY DEAD THINGS: THE SPECIMENS OF LORD MERRYLIN
A deranged MD collects mythological creatures, represented by three dimensional sculptures. Neat!
STAR
A dark and idiosyncratic look at the dream factory, drafted in a highly dense and poetic style (“Explosively Hilarious” it isn’t)
ZARDOZ
A novelization as weird as just about any you’ll read, and no wonder: the film it novelizes, the 1974 science fiction oddity ZARDOZ, is one of the absolute nuttiest releases of its decade
HEARTSNATCHER
Boris Vian’s final novel, combining surreal fancy and disturbing child abuse
BEYOND THE THRESHOLD
The most morbid and sensationalistic funeral home expose you’re ever likely to encounter, written by an actual funeral director
THE AMAZING HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
THE AMAZING HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS by Daniel Krogh, is the first book devoted to H. G. Lewis, widely hailed as the Godfather of Gore. His flicks include such 1960s and 70s-era anti-classics as BLOOD FEAST, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS!…
THE OVERLOOK FILM ENCYCLOPEDIA: HORROR
One of the unfortunate things about web sites like the one you’re currently logged onto is that they’ve largely overshadowed books like this one
SPLATTER MOVIES
Apparently the most authoritative overview of the splatter movie phenomenon ever published—or so I’ve been told
THE HORROR…THE HORROR
The passing of Rick Hautala in March of 2013 was a great loss to the horror field, but he left behind nearly 30 interesting novels, and also this frank and instructive memoir
GOING HOLLYWOOD
This book, written by the director of LUNATICS: A LOVE STORY and ALIEN APOCALYPSE, is required reading for anyone considering a filmmaking career
1986: The Year in Bedlam
Fact: anyone who says the eighties were a “golden age” for film is wrong, wrong, wrong, as the year 1986 proves quite amply
TV Flashback: AMAZING STORIES
With a rebooted AMAZING STORIES debuting on Apple TV+ next week, it seems like a good time for a look back at the show’s 1985-87 inspiration
Remembering that Which is Better Forgotten: 666 and 1000
An example of “Prophecy Fiction” describing the events of the rapture and resulting tribulation period, 666 was not the “first” book of its kind, but it was a trailblazer
More Thoughts on Movie Titles
The big movie-related issue right now? That would be the disappointing February 2019 opening of the SUICIDE SQUAD spin-off BIRDS OF PREY, for which Warner Bros. had (unrealistically) high expectations
Dutch Horror Essentials
Continuing with my “Essentials” horror surveys (see here, here, here and here for the others) we arrive at the Netherlands, which isn’t exactly a hotbed for horror fare