From the author of SYNTHESIZERS AND SAXOPHONES: MONTAGE POP AND MUSICAL MOVIES OF THE 1980s comes a celebration of late-1980s horror: CLASS OF 1988: FRIGHT FILM ANNUAL!

When you mention 80s horror films, the mind conjures up images of noisy home video transfers, or a title sequence drenched with skippy dropouts that send the soundtrack into a buzzy frenzy. Shock cuts of rubber heads frozen in a scream, neon blue floodlights masquerading as moonlight – junk food for some, but for some a cinematic delicacy. The 80s was such a seminal decade for horror films that it’d take more than one book, and so Big Retro Video has started with one of the biggest years for scary cinema, 1988.

By the end of the 1980s, big-screen horror had gone mainstream, with popular franchises churning out numbered sequels with bigger-than-ever budgets. But by the early 1990s, computer graphics spectacle moved in to take over the multiplex, and we never went back. CLASS OF 1988: FRIGHT FILM ANNUAL captures that magic moment when horror flicks got the popular attention they deserved, and the technology of prosthetics, animatronics, and gore make-up had reached a kind of zenith where makeup artists and horror actors alike could gain name recognition and a rock-star like following.

Included in the book are articles on almost 40 different movies, with capsule reviews, synopses, budgets and box office and behind-the-scenes facts! Not content with a simple rating system, the book uses a seven-stage evaluation that lets fans hone in on the exact type of movie they like the most – with categories like Rubber, Raunch, and Rock and Roll!