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Although
published in association with the British Film Institute,
The BFI Companion to Horror is a wide-ranging compendium of
international horror rather than a completist guide to British
horror films.
Kim Newman explains in his Introduction: "A proliferation of
guides offer this approach ... It wasn't thought necessary to
duplicate their efforts."
Newman is referring to to Phil Hardy's
Aurum Encyclopedia: Horror.
(Or as it's known in the United States, the
Overlook Encyclopedia: Horror.)
Hardy also contributes to
The BFI Companion. Thirty-six contributors total, including
Newman, and their aggregate credentials are impressive. Some have
written for Sight and Sound, the BFI's magazine, but
there's nothing especially British about this BFI book. India and
Japan have their own entries. We learn the ghost story is very big
in Japan, and because ghost story is bold-faced
we know it has its own entry.
Entries exist for films, TV shows, radio shows, publications (Fangoria,
Pan Book of Horror Stories,
EC Comics), directors, writers (screenwriters as well as
novelists from past centuries), critics, composers, characters
(Elvira, Vampira, Vampirella, Van Helsing), techniques (Image
Animation).
Only seminal films have entries; you won't find obscurities (why
was House deemed worthy of
inclusion and so many others not? -- because Sean Cunningham
produced it?). Such tangential horror folk as Kafka, Fellini,
Bergman, and Disney are included. Because most B actors are
excluded, one wonders why Suzy Kendell and Meg Foster are in. They
have horror credits, but so too Cathy Lee
Crosby and June Chadwick. One problem with a work of such
wide-ranging scope -- all of horror -- is that selections are
bound to be arbitrary rather than definitive.
This is especially true of theme. Not surprisingly, there's an
entry for Vampirism (actually two entries, one "Before Dracula,"
one "After Dracula") but who would think to look up "Disfigurement
and Plastic Surgery" or "The Military"? Such entries make
The BFI Companion fun to browse, but less useful as a
reference.
You wouldn't think of the entry until you saw it. Helpfully, if
you look up Slasher, you're referred to "Stalk and Slash." Some
themes overlap. Violence and Torture have separate entries, as do
Rape, Sex, Incest, and Pornography. Other entries include: Dogs,
Dolls, Eyes, Heads, Jungle, Immorality, Victims, Minions (e.g.
Ygor or Renfield), Serial Murder, Mutation, Dreams, Giallo,
Heroines, Disease. A broad smorgasbord.
Still, the book emphasizes cinematic horror. How a theme has
functioned in horror films. How a novelist's works have been
translated to film. Some entries evince a British
perspective. Under "The Military" we read that films about
soldiers confirm "a continuing rejection of militarism in all
its forms." Contributor Philip Strick cites both British and
American films to support his point, but I suspect he more
accurately captures Brit rather than Yank sensibilities. American
films have portrayed the US military across the spectrum, from
barbaric (Soldier Blue) to
romantic (Top Gun). I know
that Strick wrote this entry because all entries are initialed by
their contributor -- a nice feature.
Kim Newman is well suited to research. Aside from
Nightmare Movies, he wrote the
extensively researched Great War dark fantasy novel,
The Bloody Red Baron. Yet I
find fault with some of
The BFI Companion's entries. Erzsébet Báthory is
described as a "Slovakian mass murderess." But as McNally
and Florescu state in In Search of
Dracula, though Báthory's estate was in present day
Slovakia, she herself was a Hungarian (Magyar) aristocrat. Not a
trivial point; she was able to kill with impunity partlially
because she was a Hungarian noble who initially victimized only
the surrounding Slovak peasantry. McNally also wrote the Báthory
biography, Dracula Was a Woman.
Another error: Newman's entry for Fritz Leiber cites "the
horror novel Conjure Wife
(1943)." Yet Leiber only completed the short story in 1943;
the novel wasn't published until 1953. Contributor Mike Wathen's
entry for "The Ghost Story" provides the correct year.
More leeway exists for critical assessments. Newman is half right
about Lloyd Kaufman: "Mastermind of the dumbing of American
horror." Newman would be closer to the truth if he instead
said, "dumbing of American exploitation," because it's
Kaufman's earlier, lesser known, horror films (Mother's
Day, Splatter University)
that have the most merit, and the most genre integrity.
The BFI Companion is lavishly illustrated, doubtless drawing
upon the BFI's archives. Even better, many of the stills are not
the usual suspects. Some publishers have a practice of releasing
oversized and overpriced horror film books containing scant pages,
rehashed text, and photos we've seen all too often. Happily,
effort seems to have been expended toward illustrating
The BFI Companion with rarely seen stills.
An attractive book printed on high quality paper, informative and
absorbing.
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