[Book Review] ICONS OF FRIGHT – Mike Cucinotta, Rob Galluzzo, Adam Barnick, Jason Alvino

The early years of “horror on the net” were interesting times. I should know, I was there. I started Savini.com in 1997, and compared to today, the community was small, really small. It wasn’t about making money, selling ad space, starting your own productions – it was about meeting your heroes, being, in some small way, involved in the genre that you loved, it was about fandom.

By 2004, when the ICONS OF FRIGHT site burst upon the scene, the groundwork for the horror internet world we know today was already being constructed, and news and review sites were popping up weekly, but ICONS OF FRIGHT was different; they featured in-depth interviews with horror royalty. Friendly, congenial conversations with our horror heroes. There was no one doing anything like that back then – ICONS OF FRIGHT were groundbreakers in the online world – and this book – ICONS OF FRIGHT: 100 INTERVIEWS WITH LEGENDARY HORROR FILMMAKERS is a celebration of not just the site and the dudes who created and ran it, but of that long-gone era when ordinary joes could walk up to a celebrity and spend 20 minutes shooting the shit about their lives, films, and thoughts.

The book is constructed as a time capsule, presenting all the interviews conducted in a given year, starting in 2004. Fittingly enough, the very first interview is with Tony Timpone, the longtime editor of Fangoria Magazine. Each interview is prefaced with a brief recounting of that person’s contributions to the genre, and then the full conversation. This collection is a treasure trove of information, and the true gems are the interviews with those who are no longer with us.

The first one to get to me was Ben Chapman. One of my core fanboy moments is of sitting with Tom Savini and Ben Chapman in a small theater in Akron, Ohio, watching a 3D screening of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. The actual definition of surreal. Ben was an amazing human, and the interview that the ICON OF FRIGHT guys captured is magical – and right there lies the reason that this book is so damn good. These interviews are not press junkets; they are not pre-scripted mumbo jumbo, they are real fans doing their fanboy thing, and the celebrities are being open, honest, and unrushed.

While the guys have more than their fair share of chats with legends, they also spoke with a lot of (at that time) up-and-comers. The likes of Adam Green, Oz Perkins, James Wan, and Joe Lynch.

Each chapter brings interesting talks with amazing people, and they keep these conversations short and to the point. You’ll rip through half this book before you know what hit you – and you won’t be able to stop flipping pages till you hit the final page.

The book ends with a handful of more recent interviews conducted in 2024 and 2025. Oh, and I forgot to mention the forward by Neil Marshall – that makes this book 100% must read from cover to cover.

There is a lot in these 470 pages – and it’s all fanboy gold, every word of it.

I obviously can’t recommend this collection of conversations enough, while the chats with the heroes of my era, the aforementioned Ben Chapman, Gunnar Hansen, Dick Durock, are my sentimental favorites – I also dug the talks with Marcus Dunstan, James Wan, Mick Garris, Rob Zombie, and Greg Nicotero. If I’m being honest, I loved all the interviews. This is one of the finest collections of insight into the horror genre I’ve ever stumbled across. Get your hands on it and geek out.

You can CLICK HERE and get yourself a copy sent to you right now.