Thrifting is one of my favourite pastimes. Specifically when it comes to looking for books. Spending hours in some dusty basement of a store filled to the brim with books from yesteryear. This is probably the thing that I most miss from the pre-covid era, yes even more so than movie theatres. In order to combat that, I have become unhealthily obsessed with online book purchases. To celebrate the weird world of digital thrift today we will be talking about a book soley bought for its cover. Monster Madness: Godzilla, King Kong and Other Classic Creatures of the Silver Screen by Zach Zito, Mel Neuhaus, and Michael Lederman is a book that, although it advertises itself with Godzilla in the front, is about much more than the big G., In fact, Godzilla doesn’t even appear until the last few pages. Most of the book is relegated towards exploring a variety of familiar and some unfamiliar movies.
The book is split up into four sections; Gothic Tales of Terror, They Came from Outer Space, Science has Run Amok, and Prehistoric Throwback and Post-Atomic Mutants. Clocking in at 64 pages, the book is a quick read. The main selling point is the magnificent layout designs and the gorgeous photography. The main implementation of the book features a large splash page depicting a famous scene or poster alongside a page describing the origins and relaying the monster’s history.
For the most part, they have what you expect from a book such as this; Dracula, Frankenstein, and the like. However, there are a number of surprises. I was not expecting to see Day of the Triffids or IT! The Terror from Beyond Space make appearances. The information contained within is fairly solid, even giving credit to Milicent Patrick when talking about The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is something that is far too often overlooked. However, it should not be overly surprising that the information really takes a dive when it covers Godzilla.
In fairness, Godzilla in 1998 is still relatively difficult to research. The early days of the internet did not have the best track record for accuracy. For the most part, the book is complimentary of Godzilla and the effects. Although there is a backhanded compliment in regards to ‘toy crushing,’ it also references Rodan, Mothra, and even Gamera in a positive light!
The spirit of Godzilla is referenced well but let us go down a few of the mistakes. The book’s use of ‘Inoshiro Honda’ instead of ‘Ishiro Honda’ — this happened on a great deal of early VHS releases, so it is completely understandable. They call the American release of the original film Godzilla (1954) despite it being released at Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). They call Godzilla ‘400 feet’ which is about 250 feet taller than he was in the initial film. Dr. Serizawa is spelt as ‘Dr. Sarasawa’ in the book. Akira Ifukube is spelt as ‘Akira Ifukubu.’ And in the weirdest claim, which I had to look up to see if it was an obscure fact I didn’t know, the book claims that The Peanuts (Yumi and Emi Ito) had a cameo in the nightclub sequence in Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.
