John Landis' book is not a complete history of monsters in cinema but a fantastic collection of photographs and anecdotes from a hundred years worth of movie monsters.
Landis breaks up the creatures into categories, such as, "vampires," "werewolves," "mummies," "human monsters," etc. Within each category are many stills from all sorts of films featuring said creatures. Landis provides a comment or two for every still. Some just straight up saying who's in it and what movie it's from and others adding a little extra commentary from the author.
He doesn't stop there. He also includes chapters about the people behind the monsters. The make-up artists, the animators, the directors. Speaking of directors, he interviews directors such as Cronenberg, Dante, Carpenter, Del Toro and asks them what they think of monsters. Many of their responses are interesting and the interviews are very entertaining.
Landis' love for the genre comes through in spades and the reader clearly benefits. I have seen many films in here that I've never seen or haven't seen in a long time that I had to add them to the queue.
I bought it on barnesandnoble.com for $25. Can't beat that price for a hardcover book.
It's a great book for monster and film fans everywhere.
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