It was hard enough boiling a century of horror cinema down to 200 spook shows. Imagine having to whittle it down to 31.
I understand the significance of the number—just enough to watch a single picture on each night of October—but its skimpiness skirts inconsequence. Normally, I wouldn’t even bother with a book like Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond. I made an exception because its author is the David Bordwell of horror: David J. Skal, the writer of such essential tomes as The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen, and Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween.
So I was still all-in for the fairly inessential Fright Favorites— not because I thought I’d learn anything new about Skal’s mostly safe choices (Frankenstein, Night of the Living Dead, The Shining, etc.), but because I was curious to see how someone so informed would function under such stringent limitations.
Well, Skal found his way around unlucky number 31 with a bit of a cheat: the entries on each film include a little “If you enjoyed X, you may also like…” addendum. This is where Fright Favorites gets interesting as Skal strays from the well-traveled path to suggest that A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night might make a fine double feature with Cat People or The Black Cat could be the satanic sister of Rosemary’s Baby.
Some of Skal’s “you may also like” recommendations are a bit dodgy (Cujo as a nature-gone-wild mate for The Birds when Jaws doesn’t even get a mention in this book?). Some are straight-up bad (Sleepy Hollow, The Conjuring, Friday the 13th, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), and because these additions are discussed in small side bars, and his writing is more informative than argumentative, Skal doesn’t make strong cases for their quality.
There are also some glaring omissions despite measures to sneak in more than 31 films. Like Jaws, essentials such as King Kong, Psycho, and Alien are not invited to this Halloween party (Bride of Frankenstein doesn’t get its own entry, but Skal gives it more than a mention in his Frankenstein one). Among the 31 main entries, the twenty-first century’s rich vein of horror cinema is reduced to just one movie.
There are also some glaring omissions despite measures to sneak in more than 31 films. Like Jaws, essentials such as King Kong, Psycho, and Alien are not invited to this Halloween party (Bride of Frankenstein doesn’t get its own entry, but Skal gives it more than a mention in his Frankenstein one). Among the 31 main entries, the twenty-first century’s rich vein of horror cinema is reduced to just one movie.
All that being grumbled, I still enjoy reading Skal even under less-than-essential circumstances. Fright Favorites is also an attractively illustrated package full of movie stills, poster art, and behind-the-scenes shots.
