Nightmare USA

By: Salem Kapsaski

Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents by Stephen Thrower

FAB Press Online

This massive overview of the Horror genre’s development through the 1970s and 1980s features:

In-depth EXCLUSIVE interviews with twenty-five grindhouse movie makers, many of whom are discussing their work for the first time ever in print, including David Durston (I Drink Your Blood), Robert Endelson (Fight for Your Life), Frederick Friedel (Axe), Don Jones (Schoolgirls in Chains); and Joseph Ellison (Don’t Go in the House).
Over 175 individual films reviewed, with full cast and crew credits compiled by world-renowned cinema archivist Julian Grainger.
Vast quantities of previously unpublished stills, posters, press-books, plus behind-the-scenes photographs from the filmmakers’ own collections.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
-———————————————-
Section One: The Exploitation Independents
A 25,000 word essay charting the rise of Exploitation Horror: from Herschell Gordon Lewis and George Romero to the Slasher phenomenon of the 1980s

Section Two: Essays on Films and Filmmakers
Dirty Games in Hollywood – the career of James Bryan (Don’t Go in the Woods)
The Frozen Scream Is a Clean Machine – Renee Harmon (Frozen Scream)
The Fiend from Prime-Time – John Peyser on The Centerfold Girls
Carolina on My Mind – the films of Frederick Friedel (Axe, Kidnapped Coed)
It Came from New Jersey! – Douglas McKeown on The Deadly Spawn
Let’s Play Nasty – the films of Don Jones (Schoolgirls in Chains, The Love Butcher, The Forest)
Louisiana Screamin’ – James L. Wilson on Screams of a Winter Night
Satan Was an Acid-Head! – the films of David Durston (I Drink Your Blood, Stigma)
Don’t Make Me Do Anything Bad, Mother… – Joseph Ellison on Dont Go in the House
If You Go Down in the Caves Today – Mark Sawicki on The Strangeness
The Vigilante of 42nd Street – Robert Endelson on Fight for Your Life
The Living Dead at the All-Night Mall – Willard Huyck on Messiah of Evil
Hollywood After Dark – the films of John Hayes (Grave of the Vampire, Dream No Evil, Garden of the Dead)
What Really Happened to Tony Vorno’s Victims? – Daniel DiSomma on Victims
If At First You Don’t Succeed… – the films of Tony Malanowski (Night of Horror, Curse of the Screaming Dead)
Punished By the Sun – Marc B. Ray on Scream Bloody Murder
Growing Pains – John Ballard on Friday the 13th: The Orphan
Blood Relations – the films of Irv & Wayne Berwick (Hitch Hike to Hell, Microwave Massacre)
Mind Before Matter – Robert Allen Schnitzer on The Premonition
Spawn of Venice Beach – Stephen Traxler on Slithis
Beyond the Black Room – the films of Norman Thaddeus Vane (The Black Room, The Horror Star)
Robert Voskanian & Robert Dadashian – Raising The Child
Who’s the Ghostest with the Mostest? – the films of Fredric Hobbs (Alabama’s Ghost, Godmonster of Indian Flats)
To Sleep, Perchance to Scream – George Barry on Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
- supplemented in the text by a further twenty interviews with cast and crew members.

Section Three: Reviews
Reviews of a further 120 films, with additional notes and commentaries on the reviews by Roger Watkins (director: Last House on Dead End Street), Walter Dallenbach (writer: Psychopath), Jeremy Hoenack (director: The Dark Ride), Christopher Speeth (director: Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood), John Wintergate (director: BoardingHouse), Wayne Bell (composer: Death Trap), Michael Gornick (cinematographer: Martin), Don Leifert (star: Fiend).

This book kicks ass! An absolute MUST for every fan of Horror and Exploitation cinema!’

NEWS: Stephen Thrower has announced that his next book will take a look at the career and Films of Jess Franco (including his several unfinished projects). “Sadomania! A Guide to the Films of Jess Franco” will be published via FAB Press sometime next year. – Can’t Wait!

You might also like:
Video Nasty
Symphony of Trash

All the titles below are reviewed in the book (I will update the list as more titles get added to MUBI – Let me know if I missed any!)