Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Horror

Book Review: 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' edited by Richard Davis

2 / 5 Stars

'The Encyclopedia of Horror' first was published in 1981 by Octopus Books. This large trade paperback edition (192 pp.) was issued by Hamlyn in the UK 1987.

Richard Davis (1945-2005) was a major editor and advocate for horror fiction in the UK, editing the seminal 'Year Best Horror Stories' series in both Britain and the U.S. 

I had high hopes for this book, as usually these UK volumes on pop culture feature high quality illustrations, and tiny-type, informative text written by acknowledged experts in the field. Unfortunately, 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' falls short of its aims.

While some of the illustrations indeed are of high quality, many of the black and white movie stills used in the book have been tinted with pink or red colors. Others have selected features retouched (below). All of this is distracting and gimmicky.

The book is made up of chapters devoted to prominent aspects of horror media, as it stood in 1981. Thus we get Frankenstein; vampires and werewolves; the Devil and Satan; ghosts ('The Supernatural'); and zombies ('The Undead'). A final chapter, 'Travelling Beyond', covers sci-fi.

Inevitably, the contributions to the Encyclopedia suffer from the overly wide scope of the book. There is only so much space that can be devoted to each topic, and thus the contributors are pretty much left to shape their chapters according to their own attitudes about what is noteworthy. Thus, the book is something of a hodgepodge in terms of depth of coverage.

As a result, Tom Hutchinson in his chapter on 'Evil Monsters', which is intended as an overview of the phenomenon of horror, winds up expatiating on the trope of the monster from the era of Western mythology, up to the movie Alien. His overview focuses too much on philosophical and psychological analyses to be effective.

The chapters on Frankenstein, and vampires and werewolves, are a bit more engaging, but their authors (Michel Perry and Basil Copper, respectively) can really do no more than provide a superficial recitation of the vast body of books and films dealing with these subjects.

'The Supernatural', by Michael Ashley, is perhaps the best chapter in the book. Ashley wisely decides to concentrate on something manageable, and that is supernatural fiction from Geoffrey Chaucer all the way up to the late 1970s, and the works of Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell. While there probably isn't much here that will be new to aficionados of the genre, newcomers will find this chapter to be informative. 

Douglas Hills' chapter on horror in science fiction, 'The Beyond', is competent, but like much of the other contributions to the Encyclopedia can't do much more than provide a skimming of the large amount of relevant media.

'The Encyclopedia of Horror' concludes with two appendices. One provides an essay on horror comic books, most of these published in the USA. There is a comic book cover gallery and a listing of titles. The second appendix lists the more prominent horror films issued up to 1980.

Summing up, 'The Encyclopedia of Horror' is one of those volumes that by its very nature arguably was predestined to fail. I can't see it offering enough novelty and insight to be of value to the serious fan of horror in films and print media. I do think it could be of value to those new to the horror genre, albeit with an acknowledgement that its 1981 publication date makes it necessarily dated. Accordingly, I'm fine with assigning the book a Two Star Rating.