From slaughter to auteur…

HALLOWEEN: THE OFFICIAL MAKING OF HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN KILLS & HALLOWEEN ENDS

★★☆☆☆

Long on (sometimes extraneous) detail but sadly short on penetrating insight, Abbie Bernstein’s thorough but disjointed account of the making of David Gordon Green’s reboot trilogy is one for hardcore Haddonfield fans only. For the most part, it merely recounts plot points in chronological order with quotes from cast and crew, reading like an extended director’s commentary. The highlight is the BTS photography (on-set candids, grisly prosthetics); otherwise, this longs for an editor as brutal as Michael Myers.

GOD AND THE DEVIL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF INGMAR BERGMAN

★★★★☆

Described in the intro as a ‘novel about Bergman’s life’ rather than a standard biography, this is a commanding portrait of the Seventh Seal director, one that consistently ties events in his life to specific scenes, themes and locations in his movies. Having met Bergman in 1969 and corresponded with him until 1995, veteran film author Peter Cowie is able to channel first-hand knowledge of Bergman into a book that’s respectful without being overly reverential.

PANDORA’S BOX: THE GREED, LUST AND LIES THAT BROKE TELEVISION

★★★★☆ PETER BISKIND PENGUIN

Need help navigating the bewildering array of streaming services, cable networks and pay-per-view options? You could do worse than read Biskind’s (Easy Riders, Raging Bulls) latest. While this potted history of ‘peak TV’ may lack the precision of his previous works, it’s still a witty, fast-paced chronicle of how decades of play-it-safe telly got usurped by tech-savvy upstarts who used algorithms, open cheque books and binge-watching to attract both audiences and talent.

What HBO, AMC and others stumbled upon was the appeal of the ‘good-bad guy’: anti-heroes like Tony Soprano and Walter White whom viewers would root for no matter how heinously they behaved. Netflix and Showtime also explored the flipside (‘females with failings’) in Orange Is the New Black and Homeland. The Netflix formula, Biskind observes, has always been to ‘spend its way to profit’. (Something Apple/Amazon, with their lucrative alternative income streams, don’t require from their original programming.)

Biskind has lost none of his gift for pith: take his description of one exec’s tenure as a ‘reign of error’. The closer his tome gets to the present day, though, the grumpier it becomes, making later chapters harder to get through than they should be.

THE WICKER MAN: THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE FILM

★★★☆☆

JOHN WALSH TITAN

Fresh interviews and archival images flesh out this return to Summerisle. Walsh grills everyone from art director Seamus Flannery to Britt Ekland; producer Peter Snell remains a reasonable voice amid accounts of conflict. Barrels are scraped (an extra’s breakfast reminiscences) but details are plentiful. A tribute to composer Paul Giovanni and some lush pagan artwork help justify reopening the case on the cultist’s cult film.

FRIGHTFEST GUIDE: MAD DOCTOR MOVIES

★★★☆☆

DR JOHN LLEWELLYN PROBERT FAB PRESS

Sporting a foreword from Tom Six (The Human Centipede), this lively compendium runs from 1908’s The Doctor’s Experiment to 2022’s Morbius and features all the usual suspects: Frankenstein, Moreau, Orloff. The USP is that it’s written by an actual clinician, who knows his stuff. A consultant urologist surgeon, Probert seems as happy discussing the unconvincing innards in 2009’s Grotesque as he does taking the, ahem, piss.

BFI FILM CLASSICS: THE RED SHOES

★★★★☆

PAMELA HUTCHINSON BFI/BLOOMSBURY

Defining the Archers’ ‘ballet horror’ as a rapturous display of art for art’s sake, film academic Hutchinson explores how Shoes abandons realism for a rarefied reverie on pride and punishment, delirium and dance. She’s en pointe on everything from the ballet’s ecstatic agony and queer readings to the film’s influence, and at her best showing how Shoes frames a key question: ‘How far would you go for art?’