David J. Skal should be a writer on every monster kid’s bookshelf. He has literally “written the book” on many topics related to horror and monster movies. As will be discussed next month, his The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, published in 1993, remains a seminal text on the U.S. cultural fascination with horror; early Hollywood and German expressionist films are a particular strong suit of Skal’s. Fright Favorites, meanwhile, serves as a distillation of The Monster Show. Commissioned by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and published through Running Press, the book is a compendium of 31 essential films for the Halloween season. The titles include many classic monsters and otherwise scary pictures, along with “hidden gems” of the genre. Some examples are silent cornerstones like Nosferatu and The Phantom of the Opera; Universal Classics like The Wolf Man; Atomic Age anxieties like Them!; hits from the 60s, 70s, and 80s like Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, Night of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street; and even family friendly flicks like Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice. The last movie in the collection is Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Skal curated the list with input from TCM.
The movies may be familiar favorites, but Skal’s effortless writing sucks you in with detailed synopses and tidbits. Deft thematic observations are also made (echoing his early Monster Show). Rosemary’s Baby, for example, is interpreted through more than a surface-level Satanic reading; rather, Skal convincingly contextualizes the film amidst the women’s sexual revolution of the 1960s. In the movie, Rosemary is given herbal concoctions to affect her reproductive system; likewise, women in the real world were taking the newly available Pill in the name of reproductive agency. This is one example of Skal’s keen eye for art imitating life.
Additionally, the book is sumptuously designed. The pages are filled with crisp poster art and production stills, along with a short summary of key production details (director, cast, runtime, etc.). The best element for each inclusion is an additional recommendation! “If you liked The Haunting (1963)”, for example, “you might also enjoy The Uninvited (1944)”; this movie is then accompanied by its own little blurb. It is a wonderful inclusion for those who enjoy a good double-feature; it also allows Skal to include some real diamonds-in-the-rough (The Devil Rides Out [1968], A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night [2014], and Sleepy Hollow [1999] among others). One pairing, however, seems odd. Skal recommends Cujo (1983) for fans of The Birds (1962). Considering the voluminous sub-genre of Nature-Run-Amok films, a choice like Piranha (1978) or Arachnophobia (1990) would be a more apt pairing with Hitchcock’s killer bird movie.
The nitpick aside, the only “downside” to Fright Favorites, lays in its very nature as a brief summary of the genre. Skal does a tremendous job pitching each entry as a must-see, but he can only dedicate 3-4 pages in doing so. Similarly, hardcore fans of the genre may bemoan the exclusion of certain titles (Jaws, Alien, King Kong). Nonetheless, taken for what it is, Fright Favorites is a handy-dandy book for your collection. Aficionados will thumb through the pages for a quick refresher before movie nights, while newcomers will whet their appetites on its splashy pages. And should this book fall into the hands of an impressionable youngster, look out; there’s a good chance they’ll get hooked on monster movies.
Full List of Movies in Fright Favorites:
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
The Hands of Orlac
The Phantom of the Opera
The Man Who Laughs
Dracula
Mark of the Vampire
Frankenstein
Frankenstein (1910)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde
The Mummy
The Awakening
Mystery of the Wax Museum
Waxworks
The Wolf Man
An American Werewolf in London
Cat People
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Them!
Earth vs. The Spider
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Shape of Water
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invaders from Mars
The Curse of Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Horror of Dracula
The Devil Rides Out
House on Haunted Hill
The Old Dark House
Black Sunday
Suspiria
The Pit and the Pendulum
Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Birds
Cujo
The Haunting
The Uninvited
Night of the Living Dead
Carnival of Souls
Rosemary’s Baby
The Black Cat
The Exorcist
The Conjuring
Young Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Halloween
Friday the 13th
The Shining
Carrie
The Thing
The Fly
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Insidious
Beetlejuice
Sleepy Hollow
Hocus Pocus
The Witches
Scream
Creepshow
Get Out
Hereditary
Camp Kaiju 