I received the new revised edition of Kim Newman's NIGHTMARE MOVIES in today's mail and have been spending a marvelous time with it. I rarely get excited about review books arriving in the mail; I hope they will excite me in due course. But this book stands out almost immediately for the quality of its writing, more particularly the quality of its insight, and as the most challenging thing for any creative mind to achieve: a masterpiece of organization. He also knows exactly what needs to be said in a short space and how each film dovetails to another by the same director or a different director working with similar themes, and delivers one knock-out punch after another. I've only pecked through it at random, but it has already shone light into some dim corners for me, showing me that I hadn't been thinking about some titles with the depth they deserved. I would be surprised if a more important book about horror movies was published this year.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Quick Note on NIGHTMARE MOVIES
I received the new revised edition of Kim Newman's NIGHTMARE MOVIES in today's mail and have been spending a marvelous time with it. I rarely get excited about review books arriving in the mail; I hope they will excite me in due course. But this book stands out almost immediately for the quality of its writing, more particularly the quality of its insight, and as the most challenging thing for any creative mind to achieve: a masterpiece of organization. He also knows exactly what needs to be said in a short space and how each film dovetails to another by the same director or a different director working with similar themes, and delivers one knock-out punch after another. I've only pecked through it at random, but it has already shone light into some dim corners for me, showing me that I hadn't been thinking about some titles with the depth they deserved. I would be surprised if a more important book about horror movies was published this year.
