Full disclosure: SCARY MOVIES — the new collection of behind-the-scenes stories of landmark horror films — is written by A.S. Mott, a contributor to BOOKGASM sister site Hitch Magazine. Full disclosure continued: When I saw that his book only focused on six movies, I was prepared for disappointment, so I sat down Sunday afternoon to just thumb through it … and ended up reading the whole damn thing cover to cover.

In his lively, breezy style, Mott deals the dish behind Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, John Landis’ AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, David Cronenberg’s THE FLY and Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD II, offering lots of choice tidbits, anecdotes, sidebars, photos and opinions along the way (even if I don’t always agree with the latter; how can one possibly dislike THE EXORCIST?).

Given the book’s limited scope of films, this isn’t seminal like, say, the PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, but it’s an awfully fun history lesson, even if you already know most of the history. In making me want to revisit all the films discussed, Mott did his job well.