Customer Reviews

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror; Revised Edition with a New Afterword

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have decided to review this book because it needs to be a little clearer about what you are purchasing here. The first half of the book focuses on what is clearly David Skal's expertise-- 30's monster movies. He covers biographies on Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi, James Whale's battles against the censors, the influences of war and the Great Depression, and the move from stage to screen. It was so pleasurable and enlightening to read all about the beginnings of the genre.

After 200 pages on this decade, I soon realized that the following 6 decades could not possibly get the same attention in the second half. Hammer horror from England receives two sentences in the book when it easily deserves at least a lengthy chapter. Italian horror (which has one of the largest cult followings within this genre) is completely unmentioned. To my shock, a film with such powerful cultural relevance as The Stepford Wives also remains completely unmentioned in the book. A chapter that I thought would discuss the cultural emergence and relevance of slasher films ends up covering plastic surgery. Basically the book is greatly unbalanced. There is so much passion in the first half that the second half of the book seems a drought by comparison.

However, if you are even reading this review, then I must say that this book is a must-own. The information is absolutely fascinating (even in the second half). The photos throughout the book are excellent and add so much to the experience of reading it. The information I regretfully did not get is now more accessible to me through the foundations and structure of this book.

Wonderfully witty and well written, this is a cultural history that well deserves its name. The first half plays up to Skal's strength as a film historian but the second half, which detours into comic books, Stephen King, monster models, the Adams Family, etc. is marred with passages of psychobabble and strained analysis. Mostly however this is an entertaining and near definitive exploration of things delightfully horrible. And the illustrations are great!

This is simply one of the worst books on horror I've ever read.

Before you purchase this book, know what you are getting: the first half of the book focuses on the horror films of the twenties and thirties, and is embroiled (as would be expected) with anecdotes, stories and information about people like James Whale, Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi. This is all highly interesting, but unfortunately the author makes some very far-reaching conclusions about the cultural place of horror films in the 1930s, and especially about Frankenstein and Dracula, the two subjects to which he devotes the most time. In the second half, the book starts collapsing under the weight of its own grand conclusions and impossible correlations. Gradually, almost unnoticeably, facts and figures are entirely replaced with dodgy social and cultural analysis.

Mr. Skal completely fails to mention Jesus Franco, Ruggero Deodato, Lucio Fulci and other famous Italian horror directors. Hammer Horror has less than a page devoted to it. Roger Corman is mentioned in passing in a rambling two-page essay about "Masque of the Red Death". Even Dario Argento, who should be known to all but the least knowledgeable cinephiles, is not mentioned at all in this book. Instead, Skal spends 80 pages discussing AIDS, vampirism and Anne Rice. The author reaches conclusions that are drawn from a set of banal connections: for instance, in the chapter "Bad Blood", Michael Jackson is made out to be a modern-day Lon Chaney. The connection? That both practiced physical transformation (Jackson is a pop star with plastic surgery, Lon Chaney was a make-up pioneer film-star. The connection is superficial at best). Horror icons are constantly made out to be "christ figures".

This book is full of holes when it comes to the subject it's supposed to be a "comprehensive" study of: Italian/Spanish horror, Indian horror and Asian horror are not mentioned at all, and neither is the VHS revolution in the 80s. To add to insult, the cultural analysis is weak and contrived, delivered in hyper-eloquent, grandiose prose and takes up about half of the book. Go with Steven J. Schneiders "The Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmares" instead, which covers much of the same subjects in an infinitely better package.

It sometimes seems that the history of horror films began with Universal's Frankenstein and Dracula, with an occasional nod to some silent film. It doesn't make much research to find out that there is much more to this history, as David Skal illustrates in The Monster Show. In fact, it is till almost the one-third point in the book that these landmark films are really discussed.

What happened earlier were such crucial films as Nosteratu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Phantom of the Opera. Skal also relates stories of early figures, including Lon Chaney and Tod Browning and some of the literary and dramatic predecessors to the horror film. Only after laying this foundation does Skal really get into the iconic movies of Dracula and Frankenstein. There were other horror landmark films in this era, including The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Island of Lost Souls, and between the early 1930s and 1940s, others would appear as well, most prominently the Wolf Man.

These films are quite tame by today's standards, but to many overly sensitive and self-righteous souls of the era, these movies practically heralded the end of civilization, leading to de facto censorship. The genie, however, was out of the bottle, and like any good movie monster, it could never be truly killed.

Skal zips from this era to the age of early television, when a new audience got to see these movies (often introduced by figures like Vampira) and the fan base expanded to a new, ardent generation. Then it's on to the era of more modern horror, ushered in by Psycho: not only is horror more gruesome (the result of better special effects and more relaxed ratings standards). As earlier films could be allegories for war or the Depression, newer films could provide symbols for AIDS and birth control. And new or old, sex and religion were always entangled in the themes.

This book is subtitled A Cultural History of Horror, but as fascinating as it often is, perhaps it should be a Cultural History of American Horror made by Major Studios. There is a lot that is omitted here that should be found in any reasonable history of cinematic horror. Val Lewton, the influential horror producer of the 1940s, has only one of his movies really described (Cat People) and only gets a couple pages of text. Roger Corman and his Poe movies are hardly mentioned at all. Most glaringly, Hammer Films, which reinvented horror in the 1950s (when American horror was at its nadir), is discussed in little more than a couple of scattered sentences (let alone any non-English films after the initial German movies).

Despite these omissions, this is still a pretty decent book, but the flaws keep it from earning more than four stars. If you're a horror movie fan, this is worth reading. Skal is pretty knowledgeable on the subject and can add an extra level of appreciation for this film genre.

Horror historian David J. Skal is the rare combination of an authoritative voice with a truly entertaining and readable writing style. His in-depth insights into everyone from Bram Stoker to Tod Browning are fascinating, and his combination of little known facts, biographical details, rarely seen photographs, and analytical insights into the broader social context of each major horror phenomena makes The Monster Show a must read. Highly recommended.

I received this book from my little brother - he had used it as a textbook in film school. What a tremendous book. A fascinating and erudite study of horror films. Thirty years ago I was a child with dozens of pictures from the magazine *Famous Monsters of Filmland* plastered all over my bedroom wall. This book has given me a great deal of insight into the genre with which I was once obsessed. The book is fun and the pictures are a hoot as well.

Much better cover on this revised edition then the Edward
Gorey illustration on original hardcover.

Simply one of the best cultural reviews of movie horror ever
written. The chapter on Fifties' drive-in horror alone is
worth the cost of the book. Loads of documentary information,
intelligent commentary, trenchant insights. The only drawback,
as others have mentioned, is David J. Skal's habit of leaning
a little too heavily on certain prejudices or opinions in order
to make a theory or speculation of his fit a little more neatly
then it otherwise would have. Mr. Skal, your "post modernist"
academic roots are showing! (Though this stealth editorializing does not intrude too much in The Monster Show, it truly gives
you the creeps while struggling through much of his Screams Of Reason.)

Anyway, this book is a MUST for anyone devoted to American history, horror trivia, cultural pathology --
all that cool stuff and much, much more! Nicely researched and

written, a great reference and resource for the Crypt Keeper-
Monster Mash kiddies out there (like me). If you know what I mean, you ought to own this book.

'The Monster Show' plays to David J. Skal's strengths - specifically the genesis of early-twentieth century Hollywood Gothic - and the results are a book that belongs on the shelf of any serious fan of the genre. Well-written and riddled with original and interesting research, Skal treads what will be a familiar path to many horror fans, but crucially places it in context and finds a few truly novel angles on the topic. Not everybody will agree with all of his analysis - I certainly didn't - but 'The Monster Show' manages to be provocative in just the right measure.

I really enjoyed this book... I do think you can go overboard using culture to PREDICT the future (1991 being roughly equivilant to 1931), but looking back on it as history, it fits. I do not think it is any coincidence that we got all the evil child, and childlike things during the time of the heated abortion debate in this country. Or that vampires have come more to the front in the age of AIDS. But just as I would be mistaken to say we are now headed into a depression because of all the 30's style clothes I see in the stores in NYC right now, you can't make some of the furture pridictions he makes. We may look back in 70 years and say, hey, look what the fashions predicted, but not now.

At any rate, for the cultural evolution of our monsters and a beautiful and loving (?) tribute to Tod Browning, this book is worth its weight in gold.

I especially loved the plastic surgery discussion, and the photos of plastic surgery-man himself, Michael Jackson.

If you're a fan of the classic horror movies, this book makes for fascinating reading. It's full of facts about the movies from the thirties and forties especially.

But sometimes the author over analyzes, perhaps goes too far into the psychology and meaning of it all.

Nonetheless, this book was a good read. Recommended, despite the caveat!