Customer Reviews

The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Miligan

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3 star:		(1)
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andy milligan made the kinds of movies that leave the watcher scratching his head and wondering 'what the hell...?' movies made in the most primitive of 'do it yourself on whatever you can find' equipment and on ridiculous budgets- that a good 30% of them are lost should come as no surprise- the surprise is that ANY of it was saved- and that is thanks to film buffs and historians.

sooner or later people will recognize that the value in these 'guerilla' film makers lies in the documentation of urban locales that would be lost if not for the denizens who frequented them and documented them so well. there will always be those who call bukowski a genius and fail to see people like andy milligan as anything more than a hack. the irony.

i personally found this book a treat- though it's subject matter was unsettling most of the time- and jimmy mcdonough's treatment of cafe cino and the deuce is worth ther read on it's own just for it's historical value alone. reading the book didn't make me stronger, and i still can't wash some of it off- but it was a dynamite read, and definitely worth the time i put into reading it.

if the merit of a biography is to interest the passive reader into delving further into it's subject matter, then jimmy mcdonough has succeeded where other biographers fail.

Jimmy McDonough does a superlative job of bringing the fascinating life of the late and almost completely unmissed misanthropic sexploitation/schlock horror movie maker Andy Milligan to light. Reader be warned, this is an unflinching look at life in the nightmarish rough trade underworld of New York. Milligan started in amateur theater before helping to create the boiling milieu that birthed the Off-Broadway Theater movement in the early sixties. Then he moved to the 42nd street grindhouses, making exploitation 'classics' that are eye scalding in their badness and impossible to forget, no matter how hard you try. Yet McDonough continually points out that, as bad as Milligan's movies were, they could only be made by Andy, being infused with the writer/director's utter contempt for women, family, and just about everything else humanity offered. Being a recalcitrant and secretive subject for McDonough, Milligan (as the author warns) sometimes fades from the narrative, but never from the world he inhabits. By the time Milligan leaves theater for the exploitation movie business we can fully understand why McDonough found Milligan such a hypnotically fascinating figure. For fans of exploitation movies, The Ghastly One is an essential book. Highest recommendation.

Many may be unfamiliar with the work of low-brow filmmaker Andy Milligan but he made a lasting impression (can be taken two ways!) on my film watching experience as an impressionable teen gorehound in the 70's/80's. To say his films are abysmal wouldn't be innacurate but,by the same token, there's something about them that stays with you long after you've watched them. An edge, a tone that exists under the surface and in the ways his characters interact that made on beleive that Milligan was more than just an exploitation filmmaker. Jimmy McDonough got to know Milligan and has revealed ALL in this amazing book. From Milligan's obvious hatred of women, his misantrhopy, sadistic personality, promiscous lifestyle, the works. The discussion of the films is fascinating, but more so the relationship between subject and biographer that developed. McDonough was there right to the very end.
Milligan was a true visionary, a fact that audiences would be blind to in their haste to call him a "bad filmmaker". He was a true sadist and his films prove this.
The best film-related book of recent times.

This is a scorching read. Andy Milligan, as you are all aware, is the no-budget director of such anti-masterpieces as "Torture Dungeon," "Blood thirtsty Butchers" and "Vapors." Milligan was indifferent to such technical niceties as editing, sound and coherency. More than any other schlock director, Milligan used his camera as a blunt tool for exorcising demons with claustrophobic stories involving perversion, murder, mutilation and incest. You probably won't enjoy an Andy Milligan film -- but you will never forget one either.

Jimmy McDonough does an excellent job chronicling Milligan's life and times: from sailor thrown out on a "lace discharge," to dress maker, to avant-garde stage director to finally an exploitation fillmmaker, "The Ghastly One" never fails to astound. Milligan was very much like the films he made. Abusive, extreme and awful. The stories on display in this volume are shocking and relevatory. The most naked and telling part of the book is when the author befriends Milligan in his Hollywood phase, while the director was dying from AIDS. Milligan remains cantankerous until his dying breath, with one last prank pulled on the material world.

I MUST include two criticisms; 1.) The book is overly reliant on footnotes (one on every page!). The anecdotal information is better left incorporated into the text. 2.) Minor inconsistencies here and there. McDonough says Milligan's "Monstrosity" is best-seen film of Milligan's next to "Fleshpot on 42nd Street" when it is only available on bootleg!

Other than that -- this is a must-read volume to all fans of low-budget filmmaking.

This is a beautifully written, brutally honest, well-researched, wholly unsentimental, and non-judgemental portrait of low-budget sexploitation filmmaker Andy Milligan. While some of the violence and depravity displayed by Milligan and his players is portrayed in such graphic detail as to occasionally make the reader feel thoroughly soiled, McDonough's book is like a particularly devastating car wreck-it's a horrifying spectacle from which it's impossible to turn away. After having read this, I have no desire to see a single scene from an Andy Milligan movie, but found this book to be an incredibly rewarding look at the seamy underbelly of low-budget American cinema, as well as the fascinating putative beginnings of New York's off-Broadway theater.

McDonough does a remarkable job chronicling the offbeat, the eccentric, the forgotten, and I'm now especially eager to read the author's long-time-forthcoming biography of Neil Young.

OK, OK...I know who Andy Milligan is...or do I? I've seen a few of his films. As the great Psychotronic famously mentions, "If you're a Milligan fan, there's no hope for you." Milligan's movies, to put it bluntly, suck. Even his fans admit this. But there's something about McDonough's bio that goes beyond the subject and straight into the heart and soul of an artist and what makes him tick. Yes, Andy Milligan was an artist. There can be no denying it. The first part of the book delves into the rather interesting subject of underground (or Off-off-Broadway) theater in New York circa 1960. Milligan was there and all indications point to the fact that he was an artistic if not commercial success. Why then is he known as a maker of schlocky, boring, thread-bare horror pictures (most of which are long lost)? I think the answer is spelled out pretty explicitly in this book. Even if you don't know who Milligan is it's still an interesting read since it cuts across two completely different worlds in 1960s NYC. Milligan doesn't come off as a good guy but if you're even a little bit interested in 60s homosexual sub-culture, underground theater or 42nd St. grindhouse then this is the book for you. I liked it better than McDonough's Russ Meyer bio.

After reading the reviews posted here I felt compelled to add my two cents worth. While most of the reviewers praise the book a few seem obsessed with and critical of the often distatsteful subject matter. Surely they knew this was not a book about Mother Teresa? Some reviewers also seem to have a bone to pick with either the director or the author and appear to have allowed that to color their review (that is assuming they even read the book). For myself, I wanted to learn more about the man who created "The Ghastly Ones", a movie I saw at the impressionable age of eleven that left an indelible mark on me. To paraphrase South Park's Cartman "This movie has warped my fragile little mind!"

Having finished the book I can honestly say I found it riveting, informative, funny, outrageous and more than just a little sad. The end days of Mr. Milligan left me more than just a little depressed and contemplative of my own destiny. If you want to know more about the twisted life of Andy Milligan and the colorful characters and places he surrounded himself with (and are able to put personal judgements aside) I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

When a friend gave me copy of this book, and said to read it, I thought he was nuts! Having long considered Andy Milligan one of the worst directors who ever lived, I couldn't think I would care about his life, but my friend insisted, and told me even if you think Andy's films stink, that his life was worth reading about, and damned if he wasn't correct! This is a completely fascinating look at a fascinating life. Milligan comes out of an avant-garde theatrical groupd centered around Cino's Cafe in Greenwich Village, and it makes for deeply compelling reading. I can say this book almost - I say ALMOST - makes me want to revisit his films.
Can't recommend this enough.

Not for the prudish or faint of heart, this is one of the most incredible film director bio's ever. The 'Raging Bull' of grindhouse biographies. It's a tribute to the skills and passion of author McDonough that he makes an unattractive subject matter such a compelling read.

Milligan really is a pretty hideous character, but McDonough finds humanity, charm and the eternal quest for love and acceptance in this often seedy story, all the while casting a honest unblinking eye on his bitterly angry subject and his horrendously dysfunctional family.

McDonough cleverly structures the book with two streams, one is the straight ahead bio of the events, people and environments that shaped Milligan and the other is Milligan's own first person account. This drips with anger and cynicism as well as trenchant, intelligent observations on the human condition.

Oh Please! I was a lead actress in Monstrosity. There is not much to write about Andy. He was as basic as peanut butter and jelly. Not complex. Not dark. He paid us on time and was nice to be around. His movies were awful. He was well intentioned. Doing a Milligan film was a memorable "Hello to Hollywood" for us young upstarts who were new to town and short on cash -- and the competition to get into one was tough. (As ridiculous as that sounds.) We could act -- but he directed us in a way that made us look and sound -- AWFUL -- and we were embarrassed when we saw the end result. However, there was No mystique. No need for book about Andy.