Fantastic Cinema Subject Guide

About 2,500 genre films are entered under more than 100 subject headings, ranging from abominable snowmen through dreamkillers, rats, and time travel, to zombies, with a brief essay on each topic: development, highlights, and trends. Each film entry shows year of release, distribution company, country of origin, director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, cast credits, plot synopsis and critical commentary.

About 2,500 genre films are entered under more than 100 subject headings, ranging from abominable snowmen through dreamkillers, rats, and time travel, to zombies, with a brief essay on each topic: development, highlights, and trends. Each film entry shows year of release, distribution company, country of origin, director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, cast credits, plot synopsis and critical commentary.

There is no cinema with such effect as that of the hallucinatory Italian horror film. From Riccardo Freda’s I Vampiri in 1956 to Il Cartaio in 2004, this work recounts the origins of the genre, celebrates at length ten of its auteurs, and discusses the noteworthy films of many others associated with the genre. The directors discussed in detail are Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Mario Bava, Ruggero Deodato, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Antonio Margheriti, Aristide Massaccesi, Bruno Mattei, and Michele Soavi. Each chapter includes a biography, a detailed career account, discussion of influences both literary and cinematic, commentary on the films, with plots and production details, and an exhaustive filmography. A second section contains short discussions and selected filmographies of other important horror directors. The work concludes with a chapter on the future of Italian horror and an appendix of important horror films by directors other than the 50 profiled. Stills, posters, and behind-the-scenes shots illustrate the book.

From the early days of the movies, "cavemen" have been a popular subject for filmmakers--not surprisingly, since the birth of cinema occurred only a few decades after the earliest scientific studies of prehistoric man. Filmmakers, however, were not constrained by the emerging science; instead they most often took a comedic look at prehistory, a trend that continued throughout the 20th century. Prehistoric humans also populated adventure-fantasy films, with the original One Million B.C. (1940) leading the charge. Documentaries were also made, but it was not until the 1970s that accurate film accounts of prehistoric humans finally emerged. This exhaustive work provides detailed accounts of 581 film and television productions that feature depictions of human prehistory. Included are dramas and comedies set in human prehistory; documentaries; and films and television shows in which prehistoric people somehow exist in historical periods--from the advent of civilization up to the present--or in extraterrestrial settings. Each entry includes full filmographic data, including year of release, running time, production personnel, cast information, and format. A description of each film provides background on the prehistoric elements. Contemporary critical commentary is included for many of the works.

From classics like King Kong, to beloved B–movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, to blockbusters like Jurassic Park, it’s easy to see that filmmakers and audiences alike love to see dinosaurs on the screen. This comprehensive filmography, arranged alphabetically by title, contains entries that include basic facts (year of release, country of origin, studio, and running time), followed by a concise plot summary, the author’s critical commentary, information on the production and the people behind it, and secrets of the often-ingenious special effects. Three useful appendices feature films with minor dinosaur content, planned but unfinished dinosaur movies, and the quasi-dinosaurs of Toho Studios. To be included, a movie must depict one or more representations of a “prehistoric reptile.” Inaccurate portrayals are included, as long as the intent is to represent a real or fictional dinosaur. Not eligible are films featuring prehistoric mammals, prehistoric humans or humanoids, and beasts of mythology—unless, of course, the movie also has a dinosaur.

Reveals the behind-the-scenes production secrets of the Hollywood films of the 1950s.

Those tales of old—King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc—have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very inception. From the earliest of Georges Méliès’s films in 1897, to a 1996 animated Hunchback of Notre Dame, film has offered not just fantasy but exploration of these roles so vital to the modern psyche. St. Joan has undergone the transition from peasant girl to self-assured saint, and Camelot has transcended the soundstage to evoke the Kennedys in the White House. Here is the first comprehensive survey of more than 900 cinematic depictions of the European Middle Ages—date of production, country of origin, director, production company, cast, and a synopsis and commentary. A bibliography, index, and over 100 stills complete this remarkable work.

In 1932, The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff, introduced another icon to the classic monster pantheon, beginning a journey down the cinematic Nile that has yet to reach its end. Over the past century, movie mummies have met everyone from Abbott and Costello to Tom Cruise, not to mention a myriad of fellow monsters. Horrifying and mysterious, the mummy comes from a different time with uncommon knowledge and unique motivation, offering the lure of the exotic as well as the terrors of the dark. From obscure no-budgeters to Hollywood blockbusters, the mummy has featured in films from all over the globe, including Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, and even its fictional home country of Egypt--with each film bringing its own cultural sensibilities. Movie mummies have taken the form of teenagers, superheroes, dwarves, kung fu fighters, Satanists, cannibals and even mummies from outer space. Some can fly, some are sexy, some are scary and some are hilarious, and mummies quickly moved beyond horror cinema and into science fiction, comedy, romance, sexploitation and cartoons. From the Universal classics to the Aztec Mummy series, from Hammer's versions to Mexico's Guanajuato variations, this first-ever comprehensive guide to mummy movies offers in-depth production histories and critical analyses for every feature-length iteration of bandaged horror.