American Scary: Conversations with the Kings, Queens and Jesters of Late-Night Horror TV Paperback – December 19, 2011

A couple of years ago (gosh, it seems so much longer) I had no idea that there were any horror hosts that existed outside of my sweet home, Chicago. Having grown up an avid fan of our local legend, Rich Koz's Svengoolie, the term "horror host" is one that has special meaning to me and something I felt compelled to investigate further. After watching the quintessential documentary on the subject, "American Scary," I was blown away by the "new" (at least to me)crazy characters and personalities that existed outside of my viewing range. I was not only taken aback by the hosts themselves but of their fans as well. It seems my fellow monster movie fans (often isolated by our interests) were experiencing the same devotion and kinship to their local host as I had with my own. This eventually led to my best friend, David (another Svengoolie fan who grew up with Koz when his show aired out of a Boston channel), and I to forge our own blog, "Terror from Beyond the Daves" (terrordaves.com). Our site routinely features horror hosts and won the Rondo Award for "Best Horror Blog of 2011." We could NEVER have achieved this without the support of horror hosts as well as the invaluable work of host historians such as Michael Monahan, who not only produced the film, "American Scary," but now offers this amazing book version! During the course of filming, many classic hosts including the late Maila Nurmi (Vampira) were interviewed and this book contains the full versions of these sessions. The book is loaded with so many great facts and photos, you'll be hard pressed to put it down once you start reading! Monahan also grew up a fan of commercial TV horror hosts and this love is evident throughout the book; once again highlighting the common thread we horror host fans all share. Monhahan definitely does his research and I was not only given some great insights on horror hosts I'd been unfamiliar with but even learned a few new things about my own host, Svengoolie! I strongly recommend this book; one I have not only read through but find myself making numerous "return visits" for reference purposes. Without the invaluable work of historians such as Monahan, many of these personalities (who often performed "LIVE" or had their weekly shows "taped over" by their local stations), would be lost. Books such as these are worth their weight in gold and just as scarce. But don't just take my word for it...BUY THIS BOOK and see for yourselves!

This is basically the compainion piece to the American Scary documentry, which is also wonderful. I myself grew up watching Commander USA, Elvira and Joe Bob Briggs. I was kind of surprised to learn that TV horror hosts have been around for a very long time. I got quite the history lesson thanks to this book. These are the same interviews shown in the movie, but complete and uncut. I recommend it.

Good book about late night horror host. The book is a great read.

i needed it for a research paper. it had all the information I needed.

Awesome.

This has 23 interviews with TV horror movie hosts, thus, do not expect a completer history, instead, you get the 23 interviews with a lot of monochrome pics that include TV guide ad art and local journal covers.