So, you’re on a first date, and things are going pretty
well. You’re having the old getting-to-know-you chat, and the discussion lands
on “what’s your favorite book?” You say, “The
Haunting of Hill House, of course!” Your date just gives you a blank stare.
OK, so let’s move on to your favorite film. “Obviously, it’s Peeping Tom, the movie that practically
destroyed Michael Powell’s career!” Peeping
Tom? Michael Powell? Never heard of them. “Fine, fine. Fair enough.” Well
then, what about your favorite periodical? “Four words: Famous Monsters of Filmland.” At that point, your date stands up
and heads for the door, probably not understanding that Filmland is one word.
Just last week, there’d be no way to salvage what had been,
up to this point, a lovely evening. But now, there’s hope. Don’t let your date
leave. Throw yourself in front of the door, and plead, “If you’ll go out with
me again, I’ll give you a present!” Then immediately sprint to your local
bookstore and grab a copy of Vuckovic’s
Horror Miscellany.
In fewer than 100 easily digestible pages, horror filmmaker,
historian, and all-around superfan Jovanka Vuckovic will fill in that massive
blank spot in your potential wife/husband/sex monkey’s horror education. Vuckovic’s Horror Miscellany offers a
far-reaching historical, biographical, and trivial smorgasbord of all things
monstrous from movies to literature to art to television to poetry to mythology
to comics to fanzines to radio dramas to pulp magazines to video games to stage
plays to music to real-life killers to breakfast cereal.
Because this is Vuckovic’s
Horror Miscellany and not Vuckovic’s
Horror In Complete, there are some blind spots here too. There is barely
any mention of werewolves, and such essential horrorphernalia as Val Lewton,
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “The X-Files,” horror-comedies, and Halloween (the
holiday, not the movie) are ignored. However, Vuckovic makes up for such rare
oversights by expanding her horror overview to drop such oddities as Kafka’s The Trial, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Mondo Cane,
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and The Bible (which she correctly categorizes
as a “novel,” much to my delight) into the cannon. She also places the most essential
items—Frankenstein, Halloween (the movie), King Kong, Black Sabbath, and E.C.
Comics—on a level playing field with such relative obscurities as Japanese
writer Edogawa Rampo, Brazilian boogeyman Coffin Joe, and Witch Hunt treatise Malleus Maleficarium. So while your
future date may not learn anything about, say, An American Werewolf in London, she/he will know that Carol Clover
is the film theorist who coined the term “The Final Girl.” That should be
enough to get you through that crucial second date.
