I love lists. I love horror. Ergo, I love THE BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR, edited by Amy Wallace, Del Howison and Scott Bradley.

A very specialized extension of the BOOK OF LISTS craze of the late ’70s, HORROR comes complete with guest contributions from film, music and book personalities like Edgar Wright, Johnny Ramone, Jack Ketchum, James Gunn, Richard Stanley, Ramsey Campbell and Stephen King, counting down the best — and sometimes the worst — in various topics all related to the horror genre, across all media. I say with certainty that it’s the only book you’ll ever read containing the recommendation “The sequences involving cat suffocation and incest are worth the price of admission.”

The movies comprise the first — and by far the largest — chunk of the book. Tony Timpone amusingly shares the 10 movies he wish he hadn’t put on the cover of FANGORIA, while HOSTEL director Eli Roth provides one of the most detailed and disturbing lists with cinema’s 10 nastiest genital mutilations (”I’d put this castration on par with the penis removal in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST,” he writes of RICCO THE MEAN MACHINE).

Lecturer Mark Goodall covers 10 real mondo movie deaths, while Matteo Molinari points out an equal number of onscreen bloopers. Editor Bob Murawski makes a case for a dozen of the best grindhouse movie posters, with visual evidence, and VIDEO WATCHDOG’s Tim Lucas discusses 10 horror movies that aren’t horror movies, yet still scare. Case in point: the donkey transformation scene in Walt Disney’s PINOCCHIO.

Novelist Edward Lee uncovers the most gratuitous nude scenes, with enough, um, in-depth descriptions to have me adding a couple of titles to my Netflix queue. Meanwhile, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE screenwriter Josh Olson tackles the best sex scenes.

As the section progresses, so does the weirdness. The finest cow deaths are selected by DOOMSDAY director Neil Marshall. Bob Burns chooses the worst monster costumes, and judging from the accompanying photographs, he’s correct. Author Vince Churchill actually found 10 scary movies in which the token black guy lived to the end, like LL Cool J in DEEP BLUE SEA (”We all know brothers can’t swim,” he writes hilariously, “so this should count as two”).

Shame on Victor Salva — not only for terrible movies like JEEPERS CREEPERS, but for coming up with 10 things we’ve learned from horror movies. Avoid back roads? Don’t throw away your weapon? Wow, how long did it take you to come up with such clichés? (Later in the book, author T.E.D. Klein takes a much more original approach with the 25 most familiar plots — with Peter Kuper artwork to boot!)

The “my favorite movies” variations get tired, but thankfully, there’s a variety of oddball lists to offset that. But a couple of entries are a little too specific, such as Prof. Paul M. Jensen’s 10 favorite “two-character scenes featuring Boris Karloff.” At least that’s horror, however — some contributors get away with including films that are anything but, from FIGHT CLUB to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

On the literature side of things, I really found the list of the 56 best-selling horror titles since 1900 to be very interesting. Same goes for separate pieces on novels’ memorable opening and closing lines. Even devoid of context, they’re pretty damned powerful.

Television merits its own short chapter, as does music, but the odds-and-ends section at the last is the most varied and thus, the most fun. Here, you’ll find lists on board games, video games, hoaxes, drink recipes and more. Steve Niles makes a case for the greatest horror comic covers, while someone named Charlie Black offers up the five greatest NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET tie-ins. Perhaps best of all, writer Scott Heim picks the 10 creepiest made-for-TV movies; not surprisingly, most come from the heyday of the 1970s. It’s about time the genius of DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW got some love.

For trivia buffs and horror freaks, this compilation is the mother lode. Don’t try to read all 410 pages in one sitting — it will set your brain afire. Lists are meant to be sampled and savored. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF DEL HOWISON:
• DARK DELICACIES edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb