After reading Michael Adams’ recent, yearlong diary of bad-movie-watching, titled SHOWGIRLS, TEEN WOLVES, AND ASTRO ZOMBIES, I found that I enjoyed it, but not quite enough to keep it for posterity’s sake. My home office has an entire shelf devoted to books on less-than-stellar films that often are more entertaining than watching the flicks they discuss. Although mostly all out-of-print, the volumes below — in order indicative of nothing, once you get past the first one — are well worth owning for the connoisseur of cinema’s cheesiest. Happy hunting!
THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM by Michael J. Weldon — As anyone who has this already knows, this 1983 volume is the Holy Grail of this genre. I first stumbled upon it college while visiting a friend of a friend’s apartment, where the book lie dog-eared atop the TV. Having just gotten into MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, I was immediately captivated and knew I had to have my own copy. Unfortunately — and this was pre-Internet 1991 — it wasn’t all that easy to find. Waldenbooks — remember them? — had to special-order it for me. It took months, but it was worth the wait. I read it cover to cover a couple of times, and still consult it to this day. Soon, I also discovered the magazine from which it came, and a couple years later, even had an article published in its issue #22, when I interviewed Don “The Dragon” Wilson. (My payment? More free copies than I had friends.)
THE PSYCHOTRONIC GUIDE TO FILM by Michael J. Weldon — Since the first PSYCHOTRONIC book happened before the VHS explosion, a sequel was a sure thing. It took seemingly forever for Weldon to get around to it, but again, delayed gratification proved most satisfying when it finally hit in 1996, and I spent many a weekend night thereafter reading this alphabetically, probably much to the chagrin of my lovely wife (yeah, I’m boring). My release-date enthusiasm for acquiring it during a lunch hour from work on its was only slightly dampened when I returned to my car, to find it wouldn’t start, and it wasn’t the battery. At least I had something to read while I waited for a ride.
THE PHANTOM’S ULTIMATE VIDEO GUIDE by The Phantom of the Movies — At the end of my first semester in college in 1989, I took my history final, then drove home, went to the dentist, caught a matinee of THE WAR OF THE ROSES, and then wandered into Waldenbooks, to see if they had this book, which I had read about that morning in USA TODAY while waiting for said history final to begin. They did, and while The Phantom didn’t quite dig as deep as Weldon, but his approach is indispensable, full of some great sidebars and with reviews organized by genre instead of the ABCs. Better yet, I aced that final.
THE PHANTOM OF THE MOVIES’ VIDEOSCOPE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE LATEST, GREATEST, AND WEIRDEST GENRE VIDEOS by Joe Kane — By the time The Phantom got around to delivering a sequel of his own in 2000, he no longer was hiding behind a pseudonym. Also by then, Kane was taking a page from Weldon by independently publishing his own zine, VIDEOSCOPE, from which probably all these reviews first appeared. This one’s not nearly as much fun as its big brother, probably because the Internet was starting to render these guides irrelevant. There was much less to “discover” in the decade-plus that had passed. It’s still never leaving my shelf, however.
THE MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 AMAZING COLOSSAL EPISODE GUIDE — I do not hide that MST3K is my all-time favorite television series. It got me — and many of my friends — into watching bad and B-level movies on purpose, with or without robot hosts, and that extends into today. But I know purists who think MST3K ruined the films. Lighten up! If you have many a fond memory of an afternoon spent watching the crew of the Satellite of Love, odds are you already have this 1996 guide, show by show, season by season. Every page is hilarious; the only drawback is that it only goes through the sixth season. I’d kill for an update.
MIKE NELSON’S MOVIE MEGACHEESE by Michael J. Nelson — After MST3K called it quits in 1999, host/head writer Mike Nelson was the first to jump into publishing, with this 2000 collection of essays. Basically, he does in here what he did on TV: ripping bottom-of-the-barrel cinema a new one, just all by himself. It made me so laugh so hard and so often, I kind of got tired of laughing. That make any sense?
VIDEOHOUND’S CULT FLICKS AND TRASH PICS by Carol A. Schwartz with Jim Olenski — The VideoHound brand issued a ton of terrific, wonderfully designed genre guides, from horror and sci-fi to more niche subjects like martial arts and vampires. But only this 2001 title focused specifically on the bad (updated from a lesser 1996 edition). Like all its other siblings, the thick-as-a-phone-book effort rates movies on a scale of bones, rather than stars, and numerous spotlights on infamous actors, directors and producers fill out page after page of lively reviews. Man, I miss these.
BAD MOVIES WE LOVE by Edward Marguiles and Stephen Rebello — Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, MOVIELINE was one hell of a magazine. One of its regular features was the “Bad Movies We Love” column. In the periodical, if I recall, it barely merited half a page, but in this 1993 collection, the skewerings seem expanded, with exponentially more acidic wit. I read much of it when it came out in August 1993 as I took a road trip to the Grand Canyon with my gorgeous girlfriend, and I still have it … the book and the girl.
BAD TV by Craig Nelson — Yeah, this 1994 book is about television, but since part of casts its lasso to round up some truly terrible made-for-TV movies, I’m including it. (My website, my rules.) As wretched as some films are, the boob tube is an even bigger wasteland of dreck, and Nelson eviscerates much of its poisoned landscape with glee. That’s what I got when I read it while out of town for a wedding I had no interest in attending, but for which my wife served as maid of honor; while everyone else was rehearsing and fretting over details like flowers, I was in the parking lot, sweating in the car, but laughing my ass off.
JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN and JOE BOB GOES BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN by Joe Bob Briggs — A roundup of this kind wouldn’t be complete without the king of the drive-in movies, Joe Bob Briggs. I bet many of you didn’t even know this 1986 book and its 1990 sequel even existed. They weren’t exactly the easiest to find even then; I had to special-order them from my local Waldenbooks at the time, and I’ve never seen them on a shelf anywhere since. Too bad, because they’re absolutely awesome. If you’re familiar with his legendary syndicated columns, then you’re familiar with the contents here — why mess with perfection? You should also check out Joe Bob’s PROFOUNDLY DISTURBING and PROFOUNDLY EROTIC essay collections from 2003 and 2005; they’d merit their own entry, if not for focusing on mostly good movies.
SLEAZOID EXPRESS: A MIND-TWISTING TOUR THROUGH THE GRINDHOUSE CINEMA OF TIMES SQUARE by Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford — Like PSYCHOTRONIC, this 2002 book was born from a zine. Unlike most everything else here, it’s not really a movie guide, but a spare-no-gory-detail history of New York City’s grimy grindhouse-theater experience, right down to the sperm puddles on the floor. On one hand, I’d be afraid to visit such a filthy, dangerous venue; on the other hand, Landis (who passed away recently) and Clifford cover their territory with such nostalgia, it’s hard not to get caught up in their fervor.
RE/SEARCH #10: INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILMS by V. Vale and Andrea Juno — When I first stumbled upon this 1986 book in a secondhand record store in Dallas in 1989, I remember thinking, “Holy crap, not only have I never heard of this, but there are nine more volumes! I’ll go broke getting them all!” Untrue; this was the only RE/SEARCH-branded book dealing with the subject. But it did so wonderfully, with exhaustive interviews with trash cinema’s finest (?) purveyors, and loaded with titillating photos and vintage ads as illustrations.
VIDEO TRASH & TREASURES and VIDEO TRASH & TREASURES II by L.A. Morse — Probably the rarest books on this list, 1989′s VIDEO TRASH and its 1990 sequel stand out for being issued as mass-market paperbacks, instead of the usual trade editions like everything else above. Don’t assume they’re disposable; Morse is funny, and every page comes with a quote from one awful film or another. The first book focuses on monsters and serial killers; the second, titty flicks and action extravaganzas. Get both, if you can find them. Me? I located them in some mail-order joke/prank/novelty catalog in 1993. Never saw them anywhere else again.
Yep, I know there are more, and someday I’ll compile a “Son of 15 Great Books About Bad Movies” follow-up. In the meantime, discuss your favorites in the comments. —Rod Lott
Related posts:
- Scary Movies
- Mr. Skin’s Skintastic Video Guide: The 501 Greatest Movies for Sex & Nudity on DVD
- 8 Great Sci-Fi Books of 2005
- BOOKS 2 FILM >> The 5 Best “Worst” Stephen King Movies
- Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t make it very far into SHOWGIRLS, TEEN WOLVES, etc., because the author was more concerned with his not very interesting personal life than mining any new insights into the subject.
From personal experience, I can say that making movies is very, very hard, and I have a low tolerance for smug put-downs of any film, but the books on your list are overwhelmingly ones written by people with real affection for quirky films. It’s a great list.
Since consistency has never been my long suit, I have to admit I am a stone Mystery Science Theater/Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic junkie, because some very witty people are involved. By the way, Kevin Murphy’s diary of a year of bad moviemaking, name of which is escapes, is much, much better than the SHOWGIRLS tome (at least based upon what I read of the latter).
Max you’re thinking of A Year at the Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey by Kevin Murphy. I have that MST3K book actually signed by all the writers somewhere in my collection. But yeah that list is pretty top notch having read a good number of the ones you mention.
I went to the Amazon link for the Re/Search book and it said that the second edition will be coming out on August 1 of this year. Although I have most of the books you wrote about, there’s always room for one more so thanks for the tip.
For the record, Mr. Collins is right about the teen wolves book although it got better as it went on. I know this because I read it all. The punch line was that the author claimed he had found a movie that is worse than Manos–the Hands of Fate. I’d have to see that one to believe it…..
Note that Roger Ebert has written two books about bad movies–they mostly consist of collections of his reviews but that’s all right with me. They are on my shelf next to Joe Bob’s volumes and I think they rate a mention in the Son of the 15 Worst article.
Re: Ebert
Bookgasm’s already been there: http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/entertainment/frames-o-reference-she-hate-me/
FYI – L. A. Morse also wrote a few mysteries
http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/thrillers/bullets-broads-blackmail-bombs-mans-world/
Wow, I have or have had all 15 of those books. I agree about the Michael Adams book that it loses its way when it veers from bad movies to his boring personal life, and the Kevin Murphy book is more interesting. The L.A. Morse (pseudonym?) books I have never seen anywhere since I bought them (don’t remember where, just that it was in the early ’90s), and rarely have I seen them discussed. Very underrated, IMO.
When I was a kid (we’re talking junior high school here) I read the two L.A. Morse books so often I literally tore them into pieces. I eventually had to throw Part II away because it no longer resembled a book in any real conceptual sense, but I still have my much abused copy of Part I. The same fate awaited the first Phantom book.
My only quibble on this list would be the inclusion of SLEAZOID EXPRESS, which I found to be just okay and rife with factual errors (ie. Spalding Gray did not play the evil sheik in ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHEIKS). True, PSYCHOTRONIC is just as faulty, but can be forgiven for volume alone.
That said, can we all agree that ANYTHING with the name Medved on it can be automatically disqualified from any list? I have no problem acknowledging that they helped father genre, but in retrospect the Golden Turkey books are far too mean-spirited and nasty to be enjoyed: http://houseofglib.blog-city.com/a_pointless_and_completely_trivial_post_i_had_to_write_anywa.htm
If you have not already please do yourself a favor and seek out L.A. Morse’s three works of fiction. The first two (The Big Enchilada and Sleaze) are an over the top parody of hardboiled private eye fiction. Those two are brutally violent,laugh out loud funny and guaranteed to offend. The third (The Old Dick) is the story of an elderly former p.i. embroiled in one last mystery. It’s almost as violent and just as funny but has a somewhat sweeter tone.
Great minds think alike, Rod. Most of these books are in my library and are referenced frequently. For a follow-up column, you should check out GORESCORE 2001: THE SPLATTER YEARS, by Chas.Balun, which carries an introduction by Jack Ketchum and a foreward by Stephen R. Bissette. RIP Chas.
many thanks for this article and, in particular, jogging my memory re: the L.A. Morse titles. I had purchased those when they first came out, loved them, but had to give them up many girlfriends ago (each girlfriend always brings their own stuff and I am always paring down my stuff to make room). I have been wanting to locate these titles again but for the life of me could not remember the title(s) or L.A. Morse’s name. Amazon had used copies and I have already ordered them.
I look forward to the subsequent “Son of…” article about this topic (maybe you will jog my memory on some other titles).