Customer Reviews

Horror Film Directors, 1931-1990

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This book which looks at ninety-nine directors leaves me in a quandary. It is a detailed, informative, and seemingly meticulously researched book, but I came away unsatisfied because by the time that I read it, so much of it was woefully out-dated.

Fischer states in his Introduction that he doesn't cover any of the silent film directors in his book because info is hard to come by on them and their movies, and since most of the movies, of all kinds, from that time period are now lost, they therefore can't be examined or viewed. Fair enough. He also mentions some twenty-eight directors that are not covered in this book because the body of their work is more sf than horror, although he seems to be splitting hairs here. I mean, Joe Dante is here, but Jack Arnold is not?!? What this book does do is look at all directors that directed a number of horror movies, major and minor, between the book's stated time period.

The book is divided into two separate sections, "The Major Directors" and "The Hopeless and the Hopeful: Promising Directors, Obscurities, and Horror Hacks". There is also an Appendix detailing classic horror films by non-horror directors, or films by directors that rarely make horror movies. There is also an annotated bibliography of interesting non-fiction books and magazines, so people can do their own research.

The directors that are covered in "The Major Directors" section are Dario Argento, Roy Ward Baker, Mario Bava, John Brahm, Tod Browning, John Carpenter, William Castle, Bob Clark, Jack Clayton, Larry Cohen, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, Sean S. Cunningham, Joe D'Amato, Joe Dante, Jr., Amando De Ossorio, Brian De Plama, Terence Fisher, Robert Florey, Freddie Francis, Kark Freund, Robert Fuest, Lucio Fulci, John Gilling, William Gridler, Jr., Stuart Gordon, Piers Haggard, Curtis Harrington, Gordon Hessler, Seth Holt, Inoshiro Honda, Tobe Hooper, John Hough, Erle C. Kenton, Harry Kumel, Reginald Leborg, Ulli Lommel, David Lynch, Roman Polanski, Michael Reeves, Mark Robson, George A. Romero, Don Sharp, Jacques Tourneur, Edgar G. Ulmer, George Waggner, Peter Wlker, James Whale, Robert Wise and Jean Yarbrough.

In part two "The Hopeless and the Hopeful" Dennis Fisher covers Al Adamson, Clive Barker, Lamberto Bava, Larry Buchanan, John Carl Buechler, Kevin Connor, Don Coscarelli, Richard E. Cunha, Dan Curtis, Ray Danton, Fred Dekker, Abel Ferrara, Jesus Franco, Richard Franklin, William Fruet, Sidney Hayers, Frank Henenlotter, Tom Holland, Neil Jordon, Frank LaLoggia, Jeff Lieberman, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Armand Mastroianni, Ted V. Mikels, Andy Milligan, Steve Miner, Jacinto Molina, Philippe Mora, Dan O'Bannon, Samantha Raimi, Fred Olen Ray, Stephanie Rothman, Joseph Ruben, Jimmy Sangster, Cirio H. Santiago, Peter Sasdy, David Schmoeller, Jim Sharman, Gary Sherman, Jack Sholder, Alfred Sole, Ray Dennis Steckler, Tibor Takacs, Lewis Teague, Kevin S. Tenney, Fred Walton, Fred Walton, Edward D. Wood, Jr., and Jim Wynorski.

Each director gets, on the average, a one to ten page look at their career. And you can tell which director Fischer either respects or likes, as he uses a subjective objective direction to his examinations. As thorough as he can be, he makes no bones that what he's saying is his opinion, and nowhere is this more clear than his examination of directors like Mikels, Milligan, Lewis, or Fulci all of whom he considers, and says, are no talent hacks that make abrasively incompetent trash, and whose careers he summarily dismisses. And yet, while knocking Lucio Fulci he actually gives the supremely non-talented Ulli Lommel's career (up to 1990) a serious look, and gives the impression that Lommel is an interesting and promising talent.

On the other hand he gives respectful and detailed looks at directors in the classic mode of horror movies, directors like Tod Browning, Karl Freund, James Whale, or Seth Holt.

He gives grudging respect to some directors like John Carpenter, but ultimately seems to declare them minor talents. Fischer also shows his carelessness at times, such as when he gets his fact wrong in the Bob Clark section (Keir Dulla was NOT the killer in "Black Christmas", and "Turk 182! was NOT a comedy), but all-in-all this isn't a bad volume, but you can really tell who he likes and who he doesn't, and those that he likes are the chapters that are the most informative. The 1990 cut-off point hurts when it comes to examining a lot up-coming talent, who are mentioned, but whose careers, which would blossom past the cut-off point, are given short shrift. Those directors who have died or retired by 1990 are usually given by Fischer the best of career retrospectives, and its these that are the true keepers in this volume.

"Horror Film Directors, 1931-1990" is a book that needs to be updated, even if the 1990 cut-off point is kept. If I had reviewed this book back in 1991, then this book would have gotten a four star rating, but after all of this time it can only get a three star rating, and this is for two major reasons. The first is that, except for the older directors, this book is out-dated, as so many of the directors written about here have added to their careers since this book's publication. The other reason that it gets a demerit is because of his attitude towards directors like Ted Mikals or Lucio Fulci, a serious look at their movies, movies of questionable quality to be sure, would have been welcome. You don't have to like a director to take a serious look at their career, and a serious examination of their works would have been most welcome.

Also, because of this book's age, Fischer has missed the recent Asian invasion of horror, all the newer turks of horror, animé horror, and the works of the increasingly popular direct-to-disc studios. Inexplicably, he has also somehow failed to write about any horror directors from the south of America's border.

This book has tons of information, each director gets a complete filmography of their directorial work, and those that he takes seriously get detailed examinations of their horror movies, but time has passed a lot of it by, and unless you can get it cheap, I can't give it a higher rating than three stars. Although Amazon seems to promoting a paperback version of this book that will be published this year, let's hope that it is an updated work.