In 1977, Carousel Books published Monsters of the Movies by Denis Gifford, who only four years prior had released A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, one of the most popular, authoritative and influential book ever written on the subject matter.

But whereas the latter was a comprehensive panorama and review of the genre from its very beginnings to the early 1970s, spread out over 218 large format pages, Monsters of the Movies was a small (5x8"/12.5x20cm) booklet comprised of 96 pages which served to present and highlight 46 monsters from specific movies.

"From the Alligator People to the Zombies, here's an A-to-Z of all the memorable monsters that make horror films such a scream! Here are all the great stars, all the great films, and all the great monsters in one jam-packed, thrill-packed, picture-packed book you'll read and read again."

Clearly aimed at early teenage readers, Monsters of the Movies truly kept all of its back cover promises.

Each monster was allotted a double-spread of two pages, mostly featuring a full-page still image and an accompanying page with text providing readers with a brief summary of the movie in which the monster in question featured.

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

Of course most (if not all) of the films listed by Denis Gifford were completely out of reach in the 1970s, not just for teenagers thrilling to the delightfully eerie pictures featured in Monsters of the Movies, but for horror movie buffs of all ages. Quite often, the only way to view them was through abridged home movie versions on (Super)8mm, and Gifford actually provided a list of what was available in 1973 in that format in his Pictorial History of Horror Movies (VHS wasn't introduced until 1976, and "home videos" only started to catch on by the very late 1970s).

Denis Gifford (1927-2000)
from A Pictorial History of Horror Movies (Hamlyn)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

(Carousel Books / Transworld Publishing)

In due course, many of us who bought Denis Gifford's Monsters of the Movies would move on to his seminal Pictorial History of Horror Movies, where a happy reunion with all the ghouls, monsters and spooks from Monsters of the Movies (and many more) was waiting.

"The problem is that Gifford automatically equates age with quality.  For him, Son of Frankenstein was "The first of the new horror films, the last of the great ones"." (Branaghan, 2019a)

In that respect, Denis Gifford shared a burden also carried by another great British movie encyclopedist - Leslie Halliwell (1929-1989). Author of the famed Filmgoer's Companion since 1965, he actually acknowledged Gifford along with a few others as a predecessor in his introduction to the first edition of his Film Guide in 1977. And like Gifford, Halliwell was accused by some of having an overly nostalgic outlook.

"[Halliwell is] something of a grumpy old English fuddy-duddy [who] rarely has anything good to say about any movie made after 1960." (Emerson, 1990)

In fairness to Gifford, he seems to have written the bulk of A Pictorial History of Horror Movies twenty years prior to its publication, according to his introduction to the book (Gifford, 1973). And maybe he even had a little change of heart when compiling Monsters of the Movies, given that 5 out of the 46 movies portrayed were Hammer films.

Paladin, 1977

WHAT'S WITH KIDS AND HORROR IN THE 1970s?

Wall's ice cream advertisement from Avengers Weekly #1 (September 1973)

I enjoyed Enid Blyton's Secret Seven books (and others she wrote) because they often revolved around seemingly haunted castles and mysterious going-ons.

And with publisher Armada's Ghost Book series, things definitely dipped into (albeit mostly classic) spooky stuff.

Comic books with ghost-themed contents were also available.

The illustrations presented here are copyright material.
Their reproduction in this non-commercial review and research context is considered to be fair use
as set out by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. par. 107
and in accordance with the the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Page created 11 February 2023
Last updated 24 November 2024

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