To continue my fascination with long-out-of-print horror genre reference books, I've decided to review a book that has gained almost religious significance to the dyed-in-the-wool horror aficianado over the last decade and then some. Author, editor, artist, and uber horror fanboy (the "Harry Knowles of Horror", in my mind) Chas Balun made his name in the early 1980's by writing, editing, and illustrating one of the greatest small-run fanzines ever, namely "Deep Red Magazine", and also producing countless and diverse columns and illustrations for magazines like "Fangoria" and its late, great sister publication "Gorezone". Balun really knows his stuff, and he keeps esteemed company; makeup artist/illustrator/writer Steve Bissette comes to mind in particular. So, it was no big surprise when Balun and team put together "The Deep Red Horror Handbook", as slapdash and high-energy a collection of essays and reviews as ever there could be. In the deep, dark days just before the dawn of the internet, devotees of extreme horror had a helluva time collecting solid information about their favorite genre films; information was not as widely available, in any case, and when it was available, it tended to be a diluted mix of other stuff...the latest "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" sequels, for example. That just wasn't good enough for some of us, of course. We had to get our hands on more obscure titles such as "Cannibal Holocaust" and "Deadbeat at Dawn", or at least read about them from someone who was lucky enough to have actually seen them uncut.
Enter "The Deep Red Horror Handbook". I've spoken with many, many folks over the years, and all have agreed that this book was absolutely indespensable to them; becoming a quasi-bible, a companion that helped them sort through the mountains of shite that made up the bulk of the videos available at the local video shop. I, too, have used the "DRHH" in such a fashion. I can remember many, many occasions when I took my dog-eared copy with me to the video store, and pored over the selections, choosing only the the films that were designated "four skulls, ten on the splat-o-meter" or conversely, "a bow-wow, ten on the splat-o-meter" (if I was in a particularly adventurous mood). In no time, I had seen and/or bootlegged nearly every film in that book. I still have most of them, of course, though the vast majority have been watched so many times that the tape is starting to wear thin.
Of course, "The Deep Red Horror Handbook" contained much, much more than just movie reviews...it contained some really well-written essays that wouldn't have seen the light of day had they not been published here. My personal faves are the pieces on the films of Dario Argento and the "Third World Cannibal Movies" essay. Those two alone kept me coming back time and again for more in-depth horror education...and what a great textbook it is! Obviously, we're talking about a time long before the advent of DVD, and when most of the movies referenced in the book were only available on really bad, third-generation dupes that, by today's standards, left tons to be desired in terms of image quality and content. Still, we were thankful to our greedy little hands on anything we could, and this unassuming little book proved absolutely essential on many a dreary Friday night.
It should be said that "The Deep Red Horror Handbook" is not without its problems. There are countless typos and editorial/layout errors. While this is never disctracting, it's painfully obvious at times that this book was literally put together by hand with minimal (if any) computer intervention. Still, all of this just serves to underline the already strong "amateur fanzine" vibe present in the book, and it's a credit to the tenacity of Chas Balun and his cohorts that this book got published in the first place.
Because "The Deep Red Horror Handbook" went through, at best, one or two printings before going out of print, effectively dating much of the information contained therein, it's quite entertaining to skim through its pages now and see things like advertisements that don't have web addresses attached to them, and that don't supply email contacts! I'm sure that many of the advertisers, fanzines, and suppliers that are mentioned in the pages of the DRHH have long since succumbed to an overabundance of web-based retailers/webzines, so it's really quite cool to feel that wave of nostalgia sweep over you when you peruse this guide.
Finally, I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that "The Deep Red Horror Handbook" is one of the most important genre reference works of its time. As anyone who is lucky enough to have a copy of this book can tell you, it's absolutely stuffed with great, funny, entertaining, and informative essays and reviews that still bring a smile to even my stone-like cynical face after all these years. You younger upstart fans out there would do well to seek out this book at all costs (and those costs might be high...a used copy in even "fair" condition can run as high as 50 smackers online). The greatest value this book has now is that it is a document of its time; a pontification on all the things that made the genre what it is today...the good, the bad, and the gory!
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