Horror Show
Greg Kihn
Tor Books, 1996
ISBN: 0-812-55108-7
There’s niche markets and then there’s niche markets. Somewhere along the way, and I’m sure much to his surprise, a man named Edward D. Wood Jr. became sort of famous. “Sort of famous” is the best kind of fame you can ask for, and it’s probably even better after you’re dead. He of course was a film director in 1950s Hollywood who made “bad” movies, wore women’s clothing and eventually had a biopic about him made by Disney. Ed Wood had a wonderful imagination, but I bet he never would have thought that one up.
I bring that up to bring this up, there’s something about the guy (or more specifically the idea of the guy) that has been the fuel for countless creative types. Artists, movie-makers, writers etc. etc. And Greg Kihn is one of them and Horror Show is one of those works. It’s not strictly about Ed Wood but it wouldn’t have been the same without him.
Greg Kihn took an interesting route to paperback horror, he was a fairly successful rock ‘n’ roll singer, scoring hits with “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em) and “Jeopardy” which had an accompanying music video right out of the Night of the Living Dead. He’s also a radio personality and then along the way he wrote some books, all with a similar 50s/60s rock ‘n’ roll meets Famous Monsters of Filmland-vibe.
It’s a good vibe.
We start in the now (or the now of 1997) where Clint, a film reporter for Monster Magazine is sent on a quest to track down Lawrence Woodley, a low-budget shlock director of monster movies. What Clint doesn’t expect is a real-life tale of monsters and horror that happened in 1957 Hollywood. A tale that's sort of like James Ellroy meets Roger Corman.
Woodley is a mash-up of William Castle, Al Adamson, Ed Wood and a dozen more low-budget schlockmeisters. He’s got a circle of friends around him that he makes movies with Buzz, the make-up man/lunatic; Neil (half-Wood here), the writer who dresses like a woman; the Bela Lugosi analog and heroin addict Jonathan Luboff; Tad, a leading man with perfect hair and little else; Chet, the stone-face cameraman; etc. etc. Also in his purview is Devila, the local horror movie host that’s totally not Vampiria; and Albert Beaumond, a renowned Satanist who has some tuning fork that might just actually summon the devil himself.
They're all about to start work on Cadaver, a new horror picture really shot in the L.A. county morgue about zombies. But first they have to throw Woodley’s annual Halloween bash complete with guillotine related pranks and too much booze. That’s where Beaumond falls for Devila and wants to impress her with his devil-related shenanigans. What follows is filmed demonic possessions, real-cadavers becoming movie stars, the drudgery of low-budget filmmaking, naked ambition, booze, pills and life in Hollywood.
Kihn has mashed everything up he likes into one book and I love him for it. There was a sweet-spot in the 90s where this kitschy-retro thing was hot enough for this book to be published by Tor. I doubt if it would happen now. When I first got into it I didn’t know if it would work for me. I have a decent knowledge of the life and career of Ed Wood and 50s sci-fi and horror in general and there were times when I thought the in-jokery would be too much for me to get through, but by the time the book got into its groove I had fallen for it hard.
It's choppy in parts and it definitely has the tell-tale signs of “first book,” an incredibly excited first book where the author is anxious to cram all his favorite things into it and show it all to the world. For a while the actual horror element felt a mite tacked on, but it rounded the book out nicely, in a Twilight Zone finish.
There’s also really no central character. You hop around between all these various and slightly sleazy Hollywood hopefuls, innocents, users and abusers. At first I thought it might have helped to focus in on one of the characters to flesh someone out more fully instead of them all feeling like stock somewhat stock (wild though) characters. But the more I thought about that, the more I realized it was perfect. 1950s B-Movies had characters in them to advance the plot, not analyze their psyches. Besides who’s that deep in Hollywood, anyway?
I bought into this book hook-line-and-sinker, it like that Ed Wood is a niche market. I think it would help to enjoy the book if you had a mildling interest in horror/sci-fi of the 50s or just at least liked Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Horror Show is the first in a loose trilogy with Big Rock Beat and Mojo Hand making up the rest. It's practically a Halloween night treat for fans of that specific time and place in horror.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.