Edited by Eric McNaughton & Darrell Buxton
Thanks to his excellent and long-running digest magazine We Belong Dead, Eric McNaughton is one of the more prominent and respected names in the UK genre magazine scene. Recently, his imprint has expanded to include the beautiful large-sized books Unsung Horrors, A Celebration of Peter Cushing and the truly phenomenal 70s Monster Memories (which I reviewed for the pages of Weng's Chop magazine in their ninth issue from 2016). Now Eric has ushered in 2018 with another absolute treat for the classic horror fan with Son of Unsung Horrors.
Featuring an introduction from filmmaker John Landis (Joe Dante introduced the first volume), Son of Unsung Horrors follows the same format as its predecessor, with a number of genre film writers taking a look at some of their favourite overlooked or underrated horror films from the silent ear to the early-1980s, with a large majority of them coming from the 1960s and 70s (a beloved era of horror for many of the people this book is aimed at). Most films are given between two to three pages, and each essay is accompanied by a rare and often stunning selection of still, posters, lobby cards and other original promotional material, the majority of them in full colour. Some of my own favourite films covered in Son of Unsung Horrors are the atmospheric Italian film The Embalmer (1965), Paul Naschy's Night of the Werewolf (1981), Irwin Allen's outrageous killer bees disaster epic The Swarm (1978), the wonderfully strange Brit biker horror Psychomania (1973), the messy Satanic Panic pulp The Devil's Rain (1975) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956, a film I recently discussed myself HERE as part of Diabolique's regular webite column on Universal Horrors).
Of course, there are quite a number of films covered which, to many film buffs, are not really considered to be "unsung". Certainly, Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962) is rightly regarded as a classic and highly influential piece of surrealist genre cinema, and movies like William Castle's The Tingler (1959) and Madhouse (1972) have many admirers and have been written about extensively in the past. Likewise Peter Bogdanovich's 1968 thriller Targets with Boris Karloff, and Peter Weir's haunting Australian mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) are widely considered classics that have large followings outside the general horror audience. But on the whole Son of Unsung Horrors offers a pleasing and very interesting cross-section of titles and the writing is kept fresh by the number of contributors and their varying writing styles (some analytical, some informative, and some just plain appreciative).
The hefty cover price of Son of Unsung Horrors (UK 30 pounds plus another 20 for shipping if you are outside the UK) will restrict its appeal to mostly hardcore horror fans and collectors, but there's no doubt that if it is your cup of tea then the cost will be more than worth it to have this beautifully lush volume sitting on your shelf or coffee table for others to envy. Almost half of the limited print run for Son of Unsung Horrors has already been sold on pre-orders alone, and the rest are not likely to remain available for too long. Both 70s Monster Memories and A Celebration of Peter Cushing sold out quickly and go for mad money these days, so get in fast if you want to secure your copy of this one.
Son of Unsung Horrors is available direct from the publisher's website at www.unsunghorrors.co.uk. Click HERE for more details.
