"Horror" Review: The Official Splatter Movie Guide by John McCarty (1989, St. Martin's Press)

This isn't the first time I've blathered on about a book on film. Cinema-themed non-fiction from the 80's and 90's are some of my favorite pick-up-and-read books on my shelves, especially when they have to do with horror, exploitation, or just plain terrible movies. I did a general overview on a few of my favorites two years ago, then came back for a more specific look at one of my favorites, Michael Weldon's The Psychotronic Video Guide back in August.

Now that six months have gone by, it's time to focus my attention on a new addition to my collection: John McCarty's The Official Splatter Movie Guide which, as the tagline explains, is filled with reviews of "more than 400 of the goriest, grossest, most outrageous movies ever made". It's a slim volume, clocking in at only 145 pages, but much of the celluloidal cancer McCarty covers isn't worth more than a couple paragraphs explaining where it all went wrong. Since four hundred reviews is a lot, even for a splatter connoisseur such as McCarty (who, several years earlier, coined the term "Splatter Movie" to describe a film which invests heavily in corn syrup and red food dye), he called in three friends for backup: John Brent, a former theater manager and gore hound; Ken Hanke, a guy who utterly adores Ken Russell's movies and who, in fact, wrote the book on Russell's oeuvre); and Dan Krogh, a man so entrenched in the field that he worked alongside Herschell Gordon Lewis on several of his movies, and wrote a book about the man's prodigious and violent output.

Together, these four Musketeers of Mayhem saddled up and rode forth into the valley of darkness (aka the local video rental palaces), where they did indeed rent, watch, and critique a ridiculous amount of movies in order to compile this guide to the greats and not-so-greats of the Splatter genre. That they got paid to do this only makes me more jealous. But then again, I was all of 11 years old when they were couch-potatoing their way into Splatter history, so I can see why they didn't invite me. Que sera sera.

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Entries in The Official Splatter Movie Guide are arranged alphabetically by title, from Alien to Zombie Nightmare, with each entry including the company responsible for distributing it on video, the date of its release, running time, and a run-down of the director(s), writer(s), producer(s), and actors responsible for its creation. This information is followed by a short review, usually only a paragraph or two, which isn't meant to explain the story so much as it is to explain what kinds of on-screen atrocities the viewer can look forward to enjoying(?) should they pop the tape into the VCR. Films with multiple titles are given a main entry under the one it's best known by, with other alternate title entries pointing the reader to that entry. If the movie in question produced any sequels or tie-ins, these will be noted, along with the alternate titles. It's a very simple, very easy-to-navigate format which lends itself well to both cover-to-cover and pick-up-and-put-down reading styles.

McCarty doesn't mince words, and doesn't try to convince you to watch something if it's garbage, although those who can't get enough of terrible movies will find themselves drawn to these bottom-of-the-latrine concoctions like druggies to the local crack house. (Guilty as charged, your honor...). As an example, I provide his review for Amityville 3-D:

Investigative reporter [Tony] Roberts moves into Long Island's most famous haunted house (the purchase price by now must be practically nil judging by the speed with which Roberts closes the deal) to debunk the place's reputation for paranormal goings-on. [Candy] Clark is his photographer's assistant, who signs on to capture snapshots of whatever is or is not present in the house. Not as gory as the second film, or as slimy as the first, but full of effects nontheless -- mostly of hideous demons leaping out of the screen, courtesy of 3-D. Without the 3-D, however, this last entry in the Amityville saga (thus far anyway) is a must-miss.

All of the reviewers write with considerable wit, turning phrases the way only die-hard word churners can, and make an effort to connect the dots for those less in the know -- stuff like "Director A was also Producer B on Movie X, and also wrote Movie Y for Director C". Valuable information back then, and even today to a certain extent, but redundant in a world where everyone on the planet can access IMDB on his or her smart phone.

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One thing it's important to remember when taking in a book like this is that the writers are offering up their opinions on the films they watch, and those opinions are tied to not just plot and acting, but also how much viscera gets dredged up for the unblinking lens of the camera. The reviewers all have their own feelings on directors, actors, sub-classes, and sub-sub-classes of Splatter, and I guarantee you'll find yourself disagreeing with all of them at one point or another. McCarty seems especially non-enamored with Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and much of Italy's most well-known and prolific gorehound directors, for instance, giving less-than-favorable reviews to films like The Beyond, Deep Red, and Suspiria. Surprisingly though, he doesn't seem to have issues with the likes of Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust or Umberto Lenzi's Make Them Die Slowly, which are obviously violent enough to satisfy any Splatter maniac regardless of dubbing issues or sub-par acting, and he actively praises Fulci in his review of Zombie, saying he "really knows what the genre is all about" and "can always be relied on to dish out the gore with eye-popping virtuosity".

On the other hand, McCarty and Co. have their share of critical mis-fires which have not held up at all: calling The Terminator an Alien clone (what?), castigating Aliens for being yawn-inducing (beg pardon?), and describing An American Werewolf in London as "hollow, pointless, and sleazy" (HUH?!) may have you questioning the writers' pedigrees. But again, remember these are ultimately opinions, and thirty-year-old ones at that. While it's easy to find fault with any critical reviews, it's important to realize that more often than not, these guys nail their targets like Jason with a speargun, and they aren't afraid to geek out over some especially well-produced scenes of bodily violence, nor revel in the bargain-basement, willing-to-do-anything-for-a-paycheck antics of folks like Cameron Mitchell, Linda Blair, and John Carradine. In other words: they like what they like, and if they skewer one of your sacred cows, don't worry because you probably hate something they praised to high heaven, and added around a hundred titles to your "I Gotta See This Movie!" list by the time you finished reading.

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The book isn't all text, either. McCarty gathered up three separate sections for pictures which, while only in black and white, consist of everything from movie poster artwork...

...to the kind of "hell if I know what's going on" images you'd expect to see pulled from the pages of Fangoria.

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Finally, a word about spoilers: John McCarty doesn't care about spoiling the entire movie in his reviews. Normally this would irritate me to no end, but the times he does it, the movies in question both A) absolutely deserve it, and B) usually gain from having their entire plots laid bare. We aren't talking about simple recitations of the story, so McCarty and his band of cinematic savages reserve their spoilers for special effects shots to be on the watch for. And honestly, in explaining who does what to whom only made me want to see some of these flicks even more, if only to enjoy the insanity of knowing what's coming. They don't give away the plot of every movie (I'd say maybe only 5% of the entries spoil anything even remotely important), but it does happen often enough to warrant mention.

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All told, The Official Splatter Movie Guide belongs on the shelf of anyone even remotely interested in that period of cinema stretching from about 1973 - 1989 when Splatter movies were at their peak, drawing audiences in droves with their controversial effects, each subsequent one attempting to up the ante and outdo previous efforts. It was so successful, in fact, that McCarty followed it up with a bigger, longer, bloodier sequel three years later, which was oh-so-smartly titled The Official Splatter Movie Guide Vol. II, which looked at several hundred more films (from the shockumentary Africa: Blood & Guts to the comically inept Franco-helmed Zombie Lake) made since the publication of the first book or simply left out due to time constraints, and which I'll probably write about later. You've been warned.

Otherwise, I have no problem recommending this guide to horror hounds and blood beasts everywhere.

Four hacked-off limbs out of five!