Cinemusings

Book excerpt: John McCarty began his writing career as a film reviewer and interviewer for such cinema-oriented periodicals and “fanzines” as Cinefantastique, Take One, Film Heritage, Filmaker’s Newsletter, Today’s Filmmaker, Fangoria, Starlog, Filmfax and many others before he turned to writing books about his favorite subject since grade school – the movies. In Cinemusings, he has drawn from this output of more than 50 years to take us on a personal journey with him of the films and filmmakers he has come to cherish over a lifetime of obsessive movie-watching. They include favorite essays, reviews, profiles and interviews selected from these magazines (many of which are no longer in existence) and from several of his long out of print books (Splatter Movies, The Modern Horror Film, and Thrillers). They cover subjects here and abroad that span the history of cinema itself – from directors Alfred Hitchcock to Paul Morrissey, Fritz Lang to Frank LaLoggia, Charles Laughton to David Cronenberg, Sam Peckinpah to George A. Romero; and films ranging from The 39 Steps, Double Indemnity, and Heavenly Creatures to Orders to Kill, The Fly, The Wild Bunch, and much, much more.