Horror fans are many things: rabidly obsessive, immensely knowledgeable, and generally a little intense. We’re also often fervent collectors of genre ephemera. Whether it’s stacks of screen-printed art, movie one sheets, statues, action figures, masks, or the rare and obscure, nearly every horror fan I’ve ever met collects something. Usually a few different things.
Longtime Fangoria editor Michael Gingold took obsessive collecting to a new level by publishing his personal collection of horror ads from the 1980s in the form of Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s. He’s now followed up that tome with the equally delightful Ad Nauseam II: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1990s and 2000s. Where the original often focused on the growth and evolution of the slasher and franchise boom of the 1980s, the sequel helps illustrate just how diverse– and often weird– horror cinema was in the 90s and 2000s. Viewers are also privy to the subtler, less gruesome, and, frankly, more homogeneous advertising style that became fashionable during those later decades.
For horror fans who grew up collecting news clippings, scouring trailers, and studying promotional materials and movie posters, Ad Nauseum II is an absolute delight. Imagine a coffee table tome that’s equal parts art compendium and hindsight genre analysis, and you’ll begin to understand the nature of this text. The clippings themselves– most in newsprint black and white and some in color– are presented by year and highlight franchise blockbusters and forgotten gems alike; where accompanying text does break up the imagery, Gingold frequently highlights critical reception or behind-the-scenes information and analysis of the films being highlighted. Even folks with little interest in the horror genre will appreciate the painstaking detail and beautiful synthesis of material here. Flipping through the pages is a nostalgia trip, but the images– lots of floating heads, movie star glamour shots, and some atrocious photoshopping– provide a vivid window into marketing at the time.
The book is equally perfect for in in-depth read or casual viewing, and the lack of structure beyond chronology makes this immensely fun to flip through. If there’s any complaint I have about the book, it’s that it could be longer and the layout could better maximize the page dimensions. That minor gripe notwithstanding, however, this is a fun and informative complement to the collections of many horror fans.
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