When I was a kid I loved horror movies. One of my most prized possessions was the book “Monsters and Vampires” by Alan Frank. I'd bought this with money from my birthday (along side a companion volume “Science Fiction Movies” by Philip Strick) from the London Bookshop in Porirua shopping mall when I was ten or eleven, so 1977 or 1978.
I loved this book, and subsequently bought many similar volumes. The great thing about these types of book was the overview of a genre they gave my young mind. By the time I was twelve, I had a pretty good sense of the evolution of the horror movie from the primeval form, in the German expressionists, and the foundational works of the Universal studio, Val Lewton, monster movies of the fifties, then Hammer and related out-croppings, and a smattering on European directors like Mario Bava and Paul Naschy, among others.
Yes, I was one of THOSE kids.
