MCCARTY, John 1944-

PERSONAL:

Born 1944, in Albany, NY; son of Eugene Donald and Sally Ann (Jillson) McCarty; married Cheryl Ann Lee, April 28, 1979; children: Christopher, Jonathan. Education: Boston University, B.S., 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—3 Fairview Terrace, East Greenbush, NY 12061-2601.

CAREER:

Writer. WTEN-TV, Albany, NY, promotions assistant, 1970-71; WAAB-FM and WAAF-FM, Worcester, MA, copy director, 1971-72; WRGB-TV, WGY-AM, and WGFM-FM, Schenectady, NY, creative director, 1972-78; State of New York, Albany, media specialist, 1978-80; General Electric Corporation Marketing, Albany, senior writer, 1980-83; freelance writer, 1983—. State University of New York, Albany, adjunct professor of cinema. Co-director of video documentary series The Fearmakers.

MEMBER:

Horror Writers of America.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Bill Miller) You're on Open Line!: Inside the Wacky World of Late-night Talk Radio, S. Greene Press (Brattleboro, VT), 1978.

Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo: A Critical Survey of the Wildly Demented Sub-genre of the Horror Film That Is Changing the Face of Film Realism Forever, Fantaco (Albany, NY), 1981, published as Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1984.

Video Screams, Fantaco (Albany, NY), 1983.

(With Brian Kelleher) Alfred Hitchcock Presents: An Illustrated Guide to the Ten-Year Television Career of the Master of Suspense, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1985.

Psychos: Eighty Years of Mad Movies, Maniacs, and Murderous Deeds, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1986.

The Films of John Huston, Citadel Press (New York, NY), 1987, published as The Complete Films of John Huston, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1990.

(With Mark Thomas McGee) The Little Shop of Horrors Book, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1988.

The Official Splatter Movie Guide, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1989, published as John McCarty's Official Splatter Movie Guide: Hundreds More of the Grossest, Goriest, Most Outrageous Movies Ever Made, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

The Modern Horror Film: Fifty Contemporary Classics from "The Curse of Frankenstein" to "The Lair of the White Worm," Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1990, published as Tell Me When to Look!: Modern Horror Films from "The Curse of Frankenstein" to Today, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1997.

Thrillers: Seven Decades of Classic Film Suspense, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1992.

Movie Psychos and Madmen: Film Psychopaths from Jekyll and Hyde to Hannibal Lecter, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1993.

Hollywood Gangland: The Movies' Love Affair with the Mob, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1993.

The Fearmakers: The Screen's Directorial Masters of Suspense, and Terror, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Films of Mel Gibson, Citadel Press (Secaucus, NJ), 1997, revised edition, Citadel Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Hammer Films, Oldcastle Books (Harpenden, England), 2002.

Bullets over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to "The Sopranos," Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

NOVELS

Deadly Resurrection, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Atavar Speaks, Writer's Club Press, (Lincoln, NE), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

John McCarty is an adjunct professor of cinema at the State University of New York in Albany. McCarty is often credited with originating the term "splatter film" to describe horror films that include images of gore and graphic violence, and in 1981 he published Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo: A Critical Survey of the Wildly Demented Sub-genre of the Horror Film That Is Changing the Face of Film Realism Forever. He has also written a number of other books about film, including The Fearmakers: The Screen's Directorial Masters of Suspense, and Terror and Bullets over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to "The Sopranos."

The Fearmakers profiles twenty of the most famous directors in horror, including James Whale, director of the 1931 horror masterpiece Frankenstein; Tod Browning, director of the cult classic Freaks; and Stuart Gordon, perhaps best known for the 1985 film Re-Animator. Booklist contributor Mike Tribby noted that The Fearmakers "constitutes a convenient colocation of source material on the major creators of the horror genre." In The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, McCarty examines film personalities such as Ed Wood, considered the worst filmmaker of all time, and John Waters of Pink Flamingos fame. According to Tribby in Booklist, McCarty "presents a passel of entertaining and informative essays on the giants of grade-Z cinema."

Bullets over Hollywood "is an inherently fascinating and copiously informative history of the 'mob movie'," observed a reviewer in Library Bookwatch. In the work, McCarty offers "concise analyses of key crime films and well-drawn personal histories of the genre's central stars, directors and writers," remarked a Publishers Weekly critic. In particular, the author examines the work of film icons Edward G. Robinson,James Cagney, and Humphrey Bogart, whose portrayals defined the gangster persona. In addition, the author provides an exhaustive history of the gangster film. As Roger K. Miller remarked in the Chicago Sun-Times, "McCarty takes us through the several waves (and wavelets) of the genre, including the many inspired by real crimes and criminals, such as Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde; through the B films of the 1940s and '50s, like The Narrow Margin, that proved so influential though so cheap to make; through the world turned upside down in Martin Scorsese's 'Mob Quartet'; down to The Godfather, which opened the floodgates not only for the most recent wave of gangster films, but also for the blockbuster film in general." "The gangster drama remains a pop culture staple because it's flexible enough to be reinvented by each new Hollywood generation, yet familiar in its essentials. It's a point ably demonstrated in Bullets over Hollywood," wrote Variety contributor Wendy Smith. In the Hollywood Reporter, Gregory McNamee called Bullets over Hollywood "a learned joyride through the bullet-riddled gangster-film genre."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1993, Gordon Flagg, review of Hollywood Gangland: The Movies' Love Affair with the Mob, p. 407; October 15, 1994, Mike Tribby, review of The Fearmakers: The Screen's Directorial Masters of Suspense, and Terror, p. 390; April 1, 1995, Mike Tribby, review of The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, p. 1371.

Chicago Sun-Times, June 6, 2004, Roger K. Miller, "Movies and Mobsters: Made for Each Other," review of Bullets over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to "The Sopranos," p. 14.

Hollywood Reporter, July 30, 2004, Gregory McNamee, review of Bullets over Hollywood, p. 10.

Library Bookwatch, September, 2004, review of Bullets over Hollywood.

Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1984, Irwin R. Blacker, review of Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen, p. 5.

Publishers Weekly, May 17, 2004, review of Bullets over Hollywood, p. 43.

Variety, August 9, 2004, Wendy Smith, review of Bullets over Hollywood, p. 36.*