100 Pages of Horror –The FrightFest Guide to Grindhouse Movies by Alan Jones

The Frightfest guides are an invaluable series penned by fantastic authors, showcasing a wide range of horror movies both mainstream and unusual. Published by FAB in conjunction with the London based horror festival of the same name the FrightFest series has grown over the years and with the latest release it looks like there is no stopping it.

From their Guide to Ghost Movies by director and author Axelle Carolyn to their Guide to Werewolf Movies by Gavin Baddeley and Guide to Monster Movies by Michael Gingold each volume includes a host of chillers and thrillers from the given subject, reviewed in detail with glorious gory pictures and posters included as well.

Interestingly not only is the latest instalment the second to be written from Frightfest’s own Alan Jones but it takes a slightly different more personal form which makes it one of the most fascinating FrightFest guides yet.

Having already given us his Guide to Exploitation Movies Jones returns to take on the Guide to Grindhouse Movies a subject that seems very close to his heart indeed which is something you can tell from his opening that visits the various Grindhouse classics past and present that have been screened at FrightFest.

After running through his extremely impressive credentials which include not only his many years of writing on film but also the multiple festivals he has run including FrightFest and the various books he has written on subjects from Dario Argento to Disco we are treated to a foreword by Jane Giles, the award-winning author of Scala Cinema 1978-1993 who tells us a little more about how this book came to be.

It turns out that the Guide to Grindhouse Movies is actually made up from diaries Jones wrote on all the films he saw between 1965 to 1981. As he says “For sixteen years… I kept a yearly film diary of every Horror, Science Fiction, Sexploitation and Fantasy title I saw, where I saw it, in which cinema, on what date and exactly what I thought. It just so happened that this period coincided with the richest and grubbiest era in the Golden Age of Exploitation, with cheap thrills, seminal gore, full frontal nudity and taboo subject matters displayed across beyond belief marquees”.

Talking about his diary he says “What you will read in the main body of this book are my embellished notes and thoughts” spell checked and fact checked of course but raw notes and thoughts nevertheless captured by a young Jones at the blossoming of his career as a film reviewer unaware that they would be revisited by his adult self so many years later and transformed into the tomb of exploitative excitement.

Going further into this in his highly personal and informative introduction we not only get a history lesson on the Grindhouse genre but take a trip with Jones down memory lane as he details the many movie palaces he frequented in his youth and the dodgy customers he had to contend with.

Surprisingly it turns out the main motivation for Jones and many other audience members to see a Grindhouse film was how garish and exciting the poster appeared. Going through the billboards and banners that remained in his mind we learn that most of the posters not only over sold the excitement and horror the film actually contained but also some included images that never even appeared the finished product revealing one of the key factors in all Grindhouse films which was to make money by whatever means necessary.

After breaking down “The Five Capital T Rules of Exploitation’: Tat, Titillation, Trash, Terror and Treasure” with an example of films that make up each category it’s on to the main event with nearly 200 pages devoted to a walk on the wild side of chronic B-movie adoration, guided by the one person who knows the astonishing, once maligned, now lauded genre better than anyone else.

Staring with 1953 black and white Freudian nightmare Dementia and ending with 1986 sleaze-fest Mondo Sexualis The FrightFest Guide to Grindhouse Movies takes on everything from sick splatter pics to cash-in sex comedies to surreal Sci-Fi’s and so much more making it one of the most eclectic and unusual guides in the series so far.

A ripping read that will definitely have you hunting down some of the more insane and inciting films it contains so you can witness them yourself this is a great resource for horror hounds looking for rare thrills they may never have known existed.

Absorbing and entertaining the reader with every review many of the movies Jones describes are pure garbage but his depth of knowledge and personal connection to each make even the worst films worth learning about.

Perfect for fans of the foul and the unusual from the curious spectator to the cult connoisseur Alan Jones has managed to give the underrated and under supported Grindhouse genre a guide to be proud of even if it contains some of the worst movies ever made.

The FrightFest Guide to Grindhouse Movies by Alan Jones is available to order now directly from FAB along with all the other amazing The FrightFest Guides just click HERE. You can also read the rest of our 100 Pages of Horror by clicking the HERE.