In 2006, monster authorities James Marriott and Kim Newman
published the first edition of The
Definitive Guide to Horror Movies: 333 Films to Scare You to Death. With our
current decade slouching toward its conclusion, Marriott and Newman have
updated their guide to a neat 365 films, so it can serve as a demon-a-day
calendar for horror freaks with plenty of spare time.
The additions are all limited to the eight years that have
passed since The Definitive Guide to
Horror Movies was last updated, and like the rest of the book, the
addendums consist of the essential (instant cult smashes A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Babadook, It Follows,
Get Out), the awful (V/H/S), and “How’d this get in here?” non-genre
pictures (A Field in England). The
new material also commits some glaring oversights. How did great stuff such as Black Swan, The Skin I Live In, Kill List,
and The Cabin in the Woods not make the cut? Surely there must be a better
explanation than “We needed to make room for The Human Centipede 2.”
For those who’ve never read any edition of Marriott and
Newman’s tome, it consists of half-page reviews written with an analytical eye
and a blob of cheeky wit. Finding 365 great movies in any one genre is pretty
tough, and the write ups are not always favorable, so don’t get too bent out of
shape about the inclusion of crap such as Last
House on the Left, Friday the 13th,
Sleepy Hollow, and Saw. Seven guest critics join the main
writers, yet the guests are the only contributors whose reviews receive bylines.
It would have been helpful if we’d known which of the others were written by
Newman or Marriott since there are sometimes conflicting opinions about certain
films (for example, the introduction to the chapter on 1930s films is way more
complimentary toward Tod Browning’s Dracula
than the specific review of the film is).
It also would have been nice if the expanded format extended
before 2010 so that absolute essentials such as Gojira, The Stepford Wives,
Gremlins, 28 Days Later, and Shadow of
the Vampire could finally take their rightful places in this book. The
older entries haven’t even been updated for this new edition, so an insert
about made-for-TV horror peters out in 2007, missing the rich vein of today’s
scary small-screen choices and the piece on Suspiria
indicates that the final chapter of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy has yet to be released when Mother of Tears came out all the way
back in 2007. There’s also no introductory chapter for all the new entries for
2010s films.
While no one ever pleases all fans with movie guides such as
these, Marriott and Newman get it righter than most. If you already own 333 Films to Scare You to Death, 365 Films to Scare You to Death may be
worth a double dip, and if you don’t, you’ll probably want to add it to your
Halloween wish list… and be sure to check back here on Psychobabble this coming
Halloween season, because I’ll be putting my copy to good use.
