Elliot Passantino's History of Horror Films (color)

After experiencing homelessness and great adversity pursuing his filmmaker dreams, author screenwriter and filmmaker realized horror films always guided him through the tough times of his life. From Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff being the "friends" guiding him through a traumatic childhood to horror films of the 70s and 80s being therapy during his parents divorce in college, horror films always inspired and helped him survive life and the film business. Thus in 2012 his horror historian decided to turn all his passion and knowledge into a multi media lecture, thus boring Elliot Passantino’s History of Horror lecture series.

Between roles in indie films, big budget movies and TV shows, Elliot’s lecture took him to libraries and museum in NJ Brooklyn and Albany over the next ten years. In the meantime his lecture inspired two Slamdance winning scripts and a series of films Elliot produced directed edited and starred in. After years of lecturing , in 2017 Elliot began turning his lecture into a biblical overview of the history of horror films. Come 2023 that book was finished with all the horror art Elliot created in a decade of challenges becoming the illustrations you’ll see in this book.

Inside this book you’ll find not only the history of horror films you love but a comprehensive history of almost every classic horror film ever made. Starting with how Mary Shelley came to write “Frankenstein,” this book starts its chronological overview of horror history with the literary origins behind horror’s birth before taking us to Paris where the ghoulish stage plays of the Grand Guignol and shorts of Georges Melies influence Melies’ to create the first ever horror film. As we come into the 20th century readers learn about the connective stories behind Europe’s first silent horror films before their influence inspires Lon Chaney and Universal Pictures to produce America’s first horror movies. Across the decades up until 1980’s production of “Friday the 13th” the book explores and celebrates the filmmakers who sacrificed all for art with their own personal tragedies often influencing the stories they brought to life on screen. In discussing classics from the 1930s into the slasher era of horror, you’ll at last learn about the lives of horror icons like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Hitchcock, John Carpenter, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, just to name a few. Through it all even the most die hard horror fan or trivia buff is sure to learn things they never knew about the films and performers who brought their favorite nightmares to life. Even more so is how all of the book is illustrated by me, art inspired by the films and icons the book discusses as well as the amazing online horror community.