Joe Bob Briggs is a well of horror knowledge, and in “Profoundly Disturbing,” he is filled with amazing stories about some of the most game changing films in movie history. He re-visits the grindhouse and the drive-in once again to profile some truly incredible and unique films. Rather than explain why the movies altered cinema, he also discusses interesting facts about their productions and the odd effects they had on pop culture. Did you know on “The Exorcist” that the actress who could projectile vomit sued the studio for not crediting her as the vomiter? Did you also know Ellen Burstyn had at least five different stage names before she was Ellen Burstyn?
I quite like the premise of “Hell Comes to Hollywood.” Create a short horror story that in some way involves Hollywoodland and its devices. In that general framework, Eric Miller’s compendium of various horror stories from a cadre of actual Hollywood screenwriters and television writers makes Hollywood feel so bleak and hopeless. There are no happy endings in any of the stories presented here, and thankfully there isn’t a bad story to be read either.
Authors Geoffrey Macnab & Sharon Swart provide readers with a true insight in to what being a producer means, and seek out to break all the stereotypes about producers as a whole. Producers, as the book sets out to explain, aren’t all Hollywood fat cats who seek to remind you about budget. Sometimes they can be collaborators with directors. Sometimes they can be even more passionate about a movie than the actual director working on the film. And sometimes they can inject ideas in to a film to help make it much more entertaining and or approachable to audiences.