JP Nunez
When you think of classic horror monsters, what comes to mind? Vampires? Zombies? Slashers? Those are all great picks, but there’s another class of time-honored genre villains that’s arguably just as important: mad doctors. From The Cabinet of Caligari down to The Human Centipede and beyond, these malicious scientists have been providing moviegoers with thrills and chills for over a century, and now, with the new book The FrightFest Guide to Mad Doctor Movies, you’ll be able to learn everything you ever wanted to know about them (and maybe even a bit more!).
The FrightFest Guide to Mad Doctor Movies is the seventh in a series of FrightFest guides to various horror subgenres, and it’s written by Dr. John Llewellyn Probert, a practicing (and, in case you’re wondering, not at all mad) surgeon, with a foreword by Tom Six, the director of The Human Centipede. The book starts off with an introductory overview of the mad doctor subgenre, and then it provides readers with reviews of over 200 of the subgenre’s most important films.
I don’t know about you, but I think this news is super exciting. I’m an avid reader and a horror history buff, so the prospect of getting to take a deep dive into this often-overlooked subgenre is really cool. What’s more, since the author of the book is a doctor himself, he’ll be able to give us some insight into how accurate these movies are. That’s a really cool treat that we don’t normally get in film reviews, so I, for one, can’t wait to see what Dr. John Llewellyn Probert has to say.
A hardcover edition of The FrightFest Guide to Mad Doctor Movies will be available at FrightFest for £25, but if you can’t make the festival (which runs from August 24-28), don’t fret. It’s also available for pre-order at FAB Press, and those pre-orders will be shipping out the first week of September. Then, just a month later, a paperback edition of the book will become available on October 23.
