room, though presumably it would be the length limita- tions imposed upon him by his publishers. More text might have proved useful to sketch out some of his argu- ments which might be ac- cused of being too general. In some cases, he could probably back up his asser- t ions a l i ttle more, and sometimes he stumbles on the details, as when he writes that CITY OF THE DEAD came before PSYCHO, which isn’t true. But, as the author himself points out, the hor- ror film is too big a genre to be encapsulated in one book. Perhaps then he will return to the field in future books; Hutchings might not be an outstanding critic at this point, but he is an unusually fair-minded and pat ient one (by which I mean he pat iently takes films on their own terms even if they aren’t neces- sari ly worth the effort , whether URBAN LEGENDS or BLACULA), and it should be interesting to see where he goes with further works, whether on horror or some other genre.
BEYOND HORROR HOLOCAUST A DEEPER SHADE OF RED
By Chas Balun
Fantasma Books,
www.fantasmabooks.com, 14 Amelia Street, Key West FL 33040 $22.95, trade paperback. Reviewed by Brett Taylor
Tired of all those academic books on horror
films? Chas Balun’s approach is pretty much the opposite. For you impatient readers, here’s a guy who gets right to the point. Of ZOMBIE ISLAND MASSACRE Balun sensibly complains, “There are no goddamned zombies in the pic- ture!” He doesn’t hesitate to call a disappointing film like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II “a shit-headed mess of apocalyptic proportions.” When a waterborne mechanical monster fails to
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convince, it “blows squid dick.” He describes a certain actress as a “mayo-spilling, fanboy poster girl.” (Usually such attractive starlets are flatter- ingly described as “boner-inducing.”) Balun kicks off this book, a sequel to his
1986 HORROR HOLOCAUST, by claiming that the horror film “remains much the same” as it always has, but this is belied by the fact that Balun is almost entirely concerned with films from 1963’s BLOOD FEAST on. Balun manages to make some often dumb films seem edgy and downright subversive, work- ing himself up over splatter with the fervor of a Jean Genet disciple exalting criminal acts. Balun calls these gory films “chunkblowers” and he means it as a compliment, while those that don’t measure up are deemed “bogosities” (a new one on me). Balun’s enthusiasm for bloodshed, dismemberment , and general
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