I got an e-book version of this book for free from NetGalley.com. I’m glad I was able to read this! I only know one or two of the big names from the beginning of history, but now I know about so much more. This is a great resource to learn about the big names and the history of the industry. Very knowledgeable and entertaining!

A must-have for horror movie fans. Selway's journey through horror movies begins with Tod Browning, creator of Freaks, and travels forward through the likes of Christopher Lee, Lon Chaney, Elsa Lanchester, Vincent Price, and John Carpenter sharing details of the individual's life and contributions to horror. Unlike some other nonfiction works I have read, Selway presented lesser written about aspects of the person--the real person with all their flaws. It was an interesting read.

Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword for the opportunity to read an advance reading copy.

This was a very informative book about different films, directors, actors, etc. I was surprised to find out about movies I didn't know about before.

If you are a horror fanatic and want to learn more about the horror world I recommend picking this book up!

I really enjoyed this book. I am a sucker for any book about the film industry, and I love (/hate - sometimes it is too scary for me) horror. I really enjoyed this look into the classic horror and monster movies. Very informative!

Based on a Netgalley ARC.

As a huge fan, I've read numerous books on the history of horror movies. The standard is probably Dennis Gifford's 1973 "Pictorial History of Horror", but there are plenty more which analyse, critique and judge horror films through the 20th century. Many do it through pictures, which adds a necessary level of understanding to some of the studies.

Jennifer Selway's "Making of Horror Movies" is different. It's subtitled "Key figures who established the genre" and is a series of essays, each devoted to an actor or director whose name is synonymous with horror films. Starting with Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi, it moves across the decades to Terence Fisher, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, to Ingrid Pitt and John Carpenter. Eighteen in total. (There are a few pictures, although being an electronic ARC, my copy added them all at the end - I assume they will be distributed throughout in the print version).

Jennifer Selway is a film and TV critic and is also a playwright and newspaper columnist, and I'm assuming, also a fan of horror films. So the quality of the writing is without question. Even the introduction is a wonderful potted history of horror, with enough asides and anecdotes (Ingrid Pitt was once imprisoned in a concentration camp) to keep fans interested.

Across the eighteen chapters there is a further wealth of history, anecdotes, and reflections to make this a worthy addition to a horror fans bookshelf. Plenty of references to the films in which the actors and directors were involved, Wordy, yes, even a bit dry in places, and (I assume) light on pictures. Each chapter gives concise biographies of the actors and directors who saw their careers defined by their association with horror movies, and some of this may well be familiar to hard-core fans, but even so, the many contextual observations and anecdotes balance this out. I'm a huge fan of Nigel Kneale, whose work is legendary - but he wasn't a particularly nice man, or generous in his praise for his chosen genre. So I was especially drawn to his chapter, and was pleasantly surprised by the re-telling of his journey to Quatermass and beyond.

But Ms Selway has clearly done her research but hasn't just regurgitated it - there's a genuine taking apart and search to understand how horror has evolved..

I'll definitely be seeking out a copy of this when it is published, and I'd urge even dyed-in-the-wool fans to give it a go.