Stephen Jones produced some of the classic books in this arena with his line of illustrated movie guides (one each on vampires, dinosaurs, werewolves, and Frankenstein monsters) and recently with The Essential Monster Movie Guide: A Century Of Creature Features on Film, TV, and Video.

Essential starts with an over-long introduction by “Mr. Filmonster” [author:Forrest J Ackerman]. (Ackerman was the founder and long-time publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland, the most successful SF/horror film magazine of all time.) In this personal memoir, Ackerman discusses his love for monster movies and what he considers the archetypes of the monster film (vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein monster, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, zombies, mummies, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera, Quasimodo, and King Kong). I imagine the essay would be far more interesting to someone who knew less about monster movies, but it bored me.

Luckily, it is the only boring part of The Essential Monster Movie Guide. Filled with wonderful film images, including the missing spider footage from King Kong and a Frankenstein monster scene from the little known 3-D short film, Third Dimensional Murder, and mini-bios of prominent people from monster filmdom, this book is creature movie fan’s delight.

The meat of this book centers around the monster movie types mentioned by Ackerman. And it is with the movie reviews themselves that Jones really shines. His critiques are often right on. How could you argue with a man who says that King Kong (1933) is the greatest monster movie of all time? ( )