Beyond Terror: The Films Of Lucio Fulci

Stephen Thrower's Beyond Terror is an exhaustive examination of the filmmaker's life and career.

Published by FAB Press in 2018, the revised and expanded edition — with a whopping 120 extra pages! — is a thing of beauty.

Produced with the blessing of Fulci's daughter Antonella, who also pens the foreword, the tome boasts the largest collection of Fulci posters, stills, press-books, and lobby cards in print. With 1,100 illustrations and 80 color pages, the book also contains substantial appendices — including complete filmographies for all actors.

At the time of writing, a special edition of the book is still available from FAB Press. Housed in the Eibon box, it includes a bonus interview chapter and comes with a free bonus DVD containing Fulci trailers.

Lindsay King-Miller's The Z Word is a fun blend of horror, humor, and heart.

As the LGBTQ+ community in San Lazaro, Arizona celebrates Pride week, Wendy is not only thrust into the drama of coming face-to-face with her ex but must also face a deadly outbreak turning members of the queer community into violent hordes resembling zombies.

A sapphic survival story with a timely serious message, the book's queer lens — from the importance of found family to socio-political commentary surrounding the targeted infection — feeds into an interesting approach to classic zombie lore.

In tribute to Fulci's Gates Of Hell trilogy, another couple of fiction pairings we had to mention are directly inspired by the films: The Beyond: Stories Inspired By The Lucio Fulci Death Trilogy, an anthology curated by Raffaele Pezzella, and David Sodergren's And By God's Hand You Shall Die.

Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema

The wee caveat here is that we're including an unpublished book (preorder via the above link); however, we're super excited for this title, which will be on our shelves as soon as it's out!

Corpses, Fools and Monsters by Willow Maclay and Caden Gardner is "[a] radical history of trans images in film, and an exploration of the political possibilities of the new trans cinema movement.

Analysing the work of trans cinema directors Isabel Sandoval, Silas Howard, and the Wachowski Sisters, it also discusses the trans film image in everything from pre-talkie films and Ed Wood B-movies to Oscar-winners, body horror and slashers.

Going beyond reassessing notable films, performances, and portrayals, Corpses, Fools, and Monsters instead brings to light films and artists not given their due, along with highlighting filmmakers who are bringing trans cinema out of the margins in the twenty-first century."

Bound In Flesh: An Anthology Of Trans Body Horror

Bound In Flesh, edited by goop maestro Lor Gislason, presents a collection of 13 body-horror stories as diverse as the trans and non-binary voices behind them.

Ranging from the graphic to the surreal, each immersive entry pushes boundaries in every sense; from (sexualized) surgical transformation to shape-shifting across gender and species; a parasitic plague to dysphoria surrounding reproductive challenges; and the most satisfying reverse exorcism to the symbiotic relationship between sadist and masochist in the dance of perpetual death.

An incredibly nuanced and articulate anthology, Bound In Flesh will both shock and stimulate — staying with you long after you turn the last page.

In Shocking Representation, Adam Lowenstein explores how horror films engaged the haunting social conflicts left in the wake of World War II, Hiroshima, and the Vietnam War.

From Georges Franju to Michael Powell to David Cronenberg, Lowenstein reveals how such directors' work allegorically challenged "comforting" historical narratives and national identities intended to soothe public anxieties in the aftermath of national traumas.

Encompassing the emerging field of trauma studies, the book examines the relationship between the genre and real horror — both past and present.

Emil Ferris' My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a hauntingly beautiful coming-of-age graphic novel, illustrated in the crosshatched ballpoint style.

Set in 1960s Chicago, the novel is presented as the notebook of 10-year-old horror-obsessed Karen. As she attempts to solve the murder of her upstairs neighbour Anka, a Holocaust survivor, her investigation unravels a complex neighborhood network of stories — exploring class, sexuality, race, and gender — that connect past and present.

Karen is half-Mexican and queer, and her love of horror is used as a lens to navigate her identity and personal and sociopolitical experiences; she draws on horror's subversive power of representation in her art, inking herself as an androgynous werewolf detective and her gay Black friend, Franklin, as Frankenstein's monster.

Written over a six-year period — though she would eventually regain motor function, Ferris was left paralyzed from the waist down, with loss of movement in her right hand, after contracting West Nile fever from a mosquito bite — it's not only a testament to her resolve and talent, but an award-winning masterpiece.

Horror Noire: A History of Black American Horror from the 1890s to Present

You've no doubt watched the superb documentary Horror Noire: A History Of Black Horror, but the source book by Robin Means Coleman is required reading.

Horror Noire: A History of Black American Horror from the 1890s to Present chronologically charts the representation of Blackness in horror, from Hollywood to Blaxploitation to Nollywood.

The second edition, released in 2022, is expanded to include participation and roles behind the camera, with new sections dedicated to the 2000s and 2010 onward.

With a particular focus on films from the past decade, the book explores fears and anxieties surrounding race, and how race relations are represented and challenged onscreen.

The Black Girl Survives In This One: Horror Stories

Featuring 13 stories led by Black girls who come face-to-face with monsters — both mundane and supernatural — and survive, this YA anthology is a celebration of Black women in horror.

Edited by Desiree S Evans and Saraciea J Fennell, the collection is crafted entirely by women of color, led by a foreword exploring the history of Black women in film and literature by award-winning author and educator Tananarive Due.

Each story is immersed in Black culture and showcases the resilience, vulnerability, and strength of its protagonist, as the Black heroine saves herself in tales with themes ranging from generational curses to witchcraft to afrofuturism.

As the title states, each story demolishes the historical trope of Black characters being sidelined in supporting roles in horror, reclaiming and commanding this space for central Black heroines in a key evolutionary text that goes beyond literary representation.

Recreational Terror: Women And The Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing

Isabel Cristina Pinedo's Recreational Terror analyses how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female-identifying spectators.

An incredibly important book that explores the enjoyment of watching horror, challenging the argument that violent horror films only degrade women and incite violence, and instead discussing the ways the genre is a cultural outlet to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.

From race horror to culture politics, Recreational Terror not only comments on the complexity and contradictions inherent in confronting violence onscreen, but makes every single female-identifying horror fan feel seen.

Medusa: The Girl Behind The Myth

Jessie Burton's Medusa retells the titular character's story, focusing on feminism, sisterhood, and the power and connection of stories.

This horror-adjacent work is full of foreboding, charting Medusa's lonely existence after being cursed for her beauty — transformed into a 'monster' by the jealous Athena — and her relationship with Perseus.

Complemented by full-color illustrations by award-winning artist Olivia Lomenech Gill, Medusa's heartbreaking story is reclaimed and humanized in this breathtaking book.

As ever, thank you for reading. If you missed part one, you can read it here.

We’ll be back next week with part three of our bumper book list; until then, stay spooky!