Film historian DAVID J. SKAL. He's an expert on the horror film genre. His books include Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen (W.W. Norton) and The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (Penguin, paperback). His newest book (written in collaboration with Elias Savada) is Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre (Anchor Books). Tod Browning was a film director who earned the reputation as "the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema." He directed Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi and made such films as "Dracula" and the "repellent. . . and pathetic" "Freaks."
Copyright 1995 Fresh Air