Cult Movies 3: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird and the Wonderful by Danny Peary

Cult Movies 3: 50 More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird and the Wonderful Reviews

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  Jill Hutchinson

  I have read the first two books in this series and enjoyed them immensely. I am an avid fan of cult, noir, and "so bad they are good" films so this series is right up my alley. This third book, however, was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe the author was running out of films and ideas. The writing was uneven and had too much technical and seemingly unrelated information for my taste. It is not to say that it wasn't interesting, it was just not up to the standards that were set in the first two books. It is worth the read for the fan of off-beat films but I would recommend the first book
  Cult Movies: The Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird, and the Wonderful for a better look at this genre of film.
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  Matthew Krause

  If you want to know more about Danny Peary's Cult Movies books, I give an overview of Volumes I and II. Volume III is more of the same, and as it is published in 1988, it includes more films from the 1980s, some that made sense as "cult" films (Blade Runner, Blue Velvet), and some that did not (Body Heat, American Werewolf In London). Hey, I'm not complaining. I've probably seen and loved more of the films in Volume 3 than in either of the previous two volumes, so this book qualifies as my favorite of the trilogy. In addition to the aforementioned titles, Peary offers excellent analyses of Diva, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Night of the Hunter, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The Road Warrior, Touch of Evil ... just to name a few (and these are all films I try to watch at least once a year). If you liked the first two books, this one does not disappoint, but if you call yourself a film fan and don't have these books on your shelves, turn in your AMC Movie Watchers Card right now!
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  Susan Chow-Dukhan

  Cult Movies 3 is better than the first volume that covered 100 movies, but not as good as Cult Movies 2, which also covered 50 movies.
  Many of the essays became boring due to the amount of information that did not appear relevant to the movie being discussed, or too much information on an aspect of the movie, that gave the impression that the author was more concerned with the size of the essay, rather than the content. An example of this is shown in the essay for The Terminator. When one of the characters speaks of powerful computers united against humanity and causing a nuclear holocaust, the director "bombards us with images of contemporary machines to emphasize our growing dependency on technology". Danny Perry then proceeds to list the 37 images that the audience is shown, using 84 words in his narrative, which feels like extra padding in an essay that is not required when trying to make his point.