I've just recently Discovered FAB Press' DVD Delirium in volumes 1 - 3

http://www.fabpress.com/vsearch.php?CO=FAB074

I can't put these books down! This may seem funny, but I keep one volume on each level of my home, that way I can pick one up at a whim and thumb through them. Each volume is jam packed with honest, concise reviews of genre films from a genre fan.

I was wondering if anyone else has had the pleasure of reading the DVD Delirium series or if anyone knows of any other good cult/genre movie referece guides?

Oh yes. Suffice to say those 3 volumes are my bible(s). They are very informative and have saved me from buying the wrong region disc on a number of occassions. The reviews are very informative. They don't hold back when a film is dire too.

I'm forever flicking through mine incase I overlooked a gem that I must own!

Looking forward to volume 4.

I don't know of any other books that give dvd reviews, at least not for cult/genre films.

I have got a book called Gore Score: The Splatter Years 2001 by Chas Balum which is good. Ok, it's a little out of date but it's great for hunting down those splattery horrors in the 80's and 90's. His reviews are entertaining and he gives a score for how gory the film is as well as one for how good it is overall. A fun read.

Here are some other books I have but they're not set up as a reference book per se. They are invaluable none the less:

Chas Balun's "Beyond Horror Holocaust: A deeper shade of red"
(which is a follow up to his book "Deep Red" which I haven't had the pleasure of reading)

Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema by Jamie Russell (Which is just fucking brilliant)

Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies, 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill & Pete Tombs

I like The Psychotronic Movie Guide for reviews of 50's - 90's exploitations. It's not all inclusive but I always find something new whenever I flip through

I also like the Video Hound Movie Guides for all purpose reviews and they have nice indexes of actors director writers and cinematographers. In addition they publish companion books like Trash Pics and Cult Flicks.

My standby is however a magazine. Video Watchdog (nothing to do with video hound)...This guy (Tim Lucas) used to write for Gorezone and Fangoria back in the 80's and 90's and started his own thing quite a while back. The content is across all genres and is not focused in any way on the hollywood blockbusters. I suggest checking it out very strongly. The cover price is about 8 bucks US.

I definitely want to check out dvd delerium. See ya.

Video Watchdog is terrific.

The Aurum Encyclopedia of Horror is a good overall reference guide to the genre. Immoral Tales is an outstanding work covering European sex/horror hybrid cinema.

A good general guide to the genre is Kim Newman's Nightmare Movies - this was my bible when I was starting to broaden my horror genre knowledge in the early 90s.

As a lover of British sexploitation I also love Simon Sheridan's books "Keeping the British End Up" and "Come Play with Me!"

Any fan of Giallo cinema will love Stray Cat Publishing's "Blood and Black Lace" book.

I love the Gore Score... it was the Splatter Bible for Ben, myself and my brother when we were teenagers getting into horror movies. I think I bought the first edition in 1988 or so, and then the updated version conatined in the Deep Red Horror Handbook in the early 90s.... it really is the book that first introduced me to Romero, Argento, Fulci, Lenzi etc. I haven't bought any of the later editions, although I keep thinking I must...

Like Bladesew, Kim Newman's Nightmare Movies was also a hugely important book for me in the early 90s... it's still one I dip into regularly. I know Ben is a big fan of the DVD Delirium books... again, I really must go and get 'em...

I find the length of the DVD Delerium reviews perfect for a quiet moment 'on the can'.

Melo, yeah i've got Book Of The Dead too excellent read. I bought Immoral Tales yeaers ago, before DVD and can remeber thinking back then "I'll never see half of these films ". Then along came dvd. How great it is to be wrong.

Bladesew Blood & Black Lace is a fascinating read for anyone with an interest in Giallo. Problem is I'm still waiting for a lot of the more obscure titles to come out on dvd. Come on Blue Underground. I recently subscribed to Video Watchdog after hunting it down on the net (It's difficult to get hold of in England, i've only ever seen it in the cinema store in London). Just got issue 128 which has some interesting reviews. Gonna have to pick up the criterion Equinox dvd.


Acouple of others worthy of note are:

The Eyeball Compendium which is a collection of writings from the magazine including reviews and interviews from cult film-makers from around the world.

Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca M. Palmerini & Gaetano Mistretta. This book is full of interviews with people in Italian genre cinema. It's a little dated now but a fascinating read non the less.

Eyeball Compendium is terrific, I agree. FAB Press are a terrific company - I'll pretty much buy anything they publish.

The best book I've found so far on British horror is English Gothic - highly recommended.

I'm a big fan of:

The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren

Midnight Movies

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez

Classics of the Horror Film (Waaaay outdated -- it ends with the release of The Exorcist -- but it contains some of the best coverage of silent horror and Universal monster movies that I've yet found)

The Silent Clowns by Walter Kerr

Cult Flicks and Trash Picks

City of Dreams: A History of Universal Pictures (more good coverage of the classic monster era)

The Films of John Carpenter by John Kenneth Muir

The Films of Sam Raimi by the same author (he also has a "Films of Tobe Hooper" that I'd like to read at some point)

Gilliam on Gilliam

Lynch on Lynch

Woody Allen on Woody Allen

How I Made a Hundred Films in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime by Roger Corman

...and countless more.

-CSJ

I finally got my book on Tsui Hark today that I ordered from HK. It's called A Swordsman and His Jiang Hu: Tsui Hark and the Cinema of Hong Kong. It looks at Tsui's incredible influence on Hong Kong cinema during two of its most creative and turbulant decades, the 1980s and '90s. It is comprised of essays written by those who worked with Tsui - script writers, composers, cinematographers, and other directors - along with interviews with Tsui. It is also full of production drawings Tsui has made for many of his films, as well as an extensive and detailed filmography and tons of awesome screencaps. The book is in both Chinese and English. I have read the first two essays, and so far it is totally amazing.

I Love FUTURE NOIR: THE MAKING OF BLADE RUNNER by Paul M. Sammon
This is a great book on the making of one film world's greatest sleeper hits.
Sammon started out just writing an article on the making of the film way back when and hundreds of pages and 15 years later he finished the penultimate book on Blade Runner.
I would love to see films I love covered with the same amount of detail.

Oh, thanks for reminding me:

The Battle of "Brazil" by Jack Mathews. Absolutely golden chronicle of the near-unmaking of one of my favorite movies.

and

Losing the Light (I forget the author's name), which is a thorough re-capping of the "Baron Munchausen" ordeal. Sad but fascinating reading.

I've heard good things about the Blade Runner book. I want to check it out at some point.

-CSJ

The Bloomsbury movie guides are pretty essential reading, they concentrate on a particular film and are full of interesting trivia about the making of etc. I have Jaws, Apocalypse Now ( an A-Z), Goldfinger and Performance. They also have Blue Velvet, Spinal Tap and the Alien Quartet.

Got an extra title to throw at y'all



The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft

(review taken from Amazon.com)


The Lurker in the Lobby is a guide to films and television shows based on and inspired by jazz-era author H. P. Lovecraft, arguably the most influential horror writer of the 20th century.

From the Back Cover
YOU CAN'T KILL WHAT WON'T STAY BURIED

Cosmic horror author H. P. Lovecraft never wanted his gothically nihilistic works adapted for the screen. Oh well! The Lurker in the Lobby munches popcorn where angels fear to tread, with reviews of the famous, infamous and just plain obscure films and television shows that have been directly inspired by Lovecraft's work- or that want you to think they are. Of course, Hollywood isn't the only place to make a Lovecraft movie. Essays by more than fifteen amateur and student film-makers explore the depths of their passion for these Lovecraftian labors of love- and the hard realities of zero-budget film-making that go with them. Countless stills and movie posters accompany the text, and as a special treat we present the Shadow Over Innsmouth Sketchbook, containing acclaimed artist Bernie Wrightson's illustrated designs for the never-produced film. So draw the shutters, dig out your copy of the Necronomicon, and brush up on your sixth-dimensional hyper-geometry- the dark globe of Lovecraftian cinema is on a collision course with Earth!

Highly recommended if you are interested in all things -ooky.

It's beautifully illustrated and I found a copy on Buy.com for $11.99 US.