DVD Review

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DVD: Midnight Madness: The History of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Films
Rating: Unrated
Starring: Various, narrated by Tom Proveaux
Written By: A. Susan Svehla
Directed By: A. Susan Svehla
Distributor: Midnight Marquee
Original Year of Release: 2011
Extras: None
Series:

Midnight Madness: The History of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Films

A guided tour through seven decades of genre film history

By Tim Janson July 30, 2011

Midnight Madness: The History of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Films
© Midnight Marquee 2011

Since the days of silent film era, horror, Sci-Fi, and fantasy have played important roles in the development and history of the motion picture industry. Nearly a hundred years of history are captured in this near four-hour documentary, Midnight Madness: The History of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Films. The film is the product of Gary and Susan Svehla, the longtime publishers of Midnight Marquee Magazine, the longest, continuously running magazine devoted to classic horror, Sci-Fi, and fantasy film.

The two-disc documentary is broken down into four distinct parts, each part running just shy of an hour. The film features interviews and comments from dozens of the actors and filmmakers who produced these classic films. The interviews have been culled primarily from Fanex, an annual gathering for classic horror and sci-fi film fans that ran from 1987 through 2005. Some of those featured in interviews include Vincent Price, Roger Corman, Forry Ackerman, Bela Lugosi, Jr., Sara Karloff, Dee Wallace, Christopher Lee, Robert Wise, Ingrid Pitt, Val Guest, and many more.

Part one looks at the Golden Age of horror films from the silent classics of Lon Chaney, to the great Universal Studios monsters of the 30s and 40s. Recruited to help provided commentary for this part is writer and historian Gregory W. Mank, perhaps the foremost expert on the subject of classic horror films. You get glimpses as classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Black Cat, The Wolfman, King Kong, Bride of Frankenstein, and countless others.

Part two takes viewers into the 1950s and the Golden Age of Sci-Fi films. You’ll see how many of these films were born out of the fear of atomic war and paranoia about UFOs, not to mention the anti-communist crusade of Senator Joe McCarthy. Get a look at legendary films like The Thing, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and This Island Earth. And of course there are the films that became legendary for a whole other reason like the ridiculously bad Plan 9 from Outer Space. This part also includes a tribute to Forrest Ackerman, the legendary editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and the man credited with coining the term “Sci-Fi”.

Part three takes a look at the low budget drive-in features of the 1960s. The film points out that at their peak in the 60s, there were over 4000 drive-in theaters in the U.S. Today there are less than 500. These were films largely geared towards teenagers who were the primary customers at drive-ins. They were cheap, schlockey…but a hell of a lot of fun. This part also features a long look at Hammer Studios who helped usher in a second age of classic monster films with their numerous Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing pairings.

The last part is entitled The Swinging Sixties to the Awesome Eighties and like the title suggest, it’s a stew with a lot of ingredients that includes a look at everything from the Roger Corman/Vincent Price films of the 1960s to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, to the first slasher films.

Any fan of classic horror and Sci-Fi will simply be transfixed by this incredible documentary. It’s not easy to condense over six decades of history into nearly four hours but the Svehla’s pull it off remarkably well, hitting the high notes you’d expect, as well as some you wouldn’t such as the early splatter films of the 1960s. The final part may have tried to cram a bit too much into its segment but all in all this is a documentary that is a must see for fans of classic genre films.

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