Ah, Car Sinister. I remember you.

It might have been 1979, or it could have been 1980, when I was in a bookstore at the Southland Mall in Hayward, California and your cover caught my eye. A monstrous looking car zooming in from out of the desert, a skeleton perched behind its wheel, surely this book would be scary.

Turns out it was not scary, at all. The stories were science-fiction. No horror, no monsters, no nothing. At least not for a 12 or 13-year-old burgeoning bookworm brain that was starving for more of the stuff Stephen King was pumping out at the time.

I made it through the first two or three stories, then junked the book. So it goes.

But I never forgot it. As I aged and my reading interests expanded into wanting to read everything in the world, I came to regret junking Car Sinister. Ah, the silly naiveté of ones youth. I love and loathe it with equal measure.

Fast forward to sometime in the 2010s. I am browsing a used bookstore and what do I find? Why an edition of Car Sinister! I purchased it and placed it on my mountain of to-be-read books. Something I call, with great affection, Mt. Tsundoku.

It took some time, but I eventually got to cracking it open and worked my way through the entire book.

Although it has been 40-plus years, my recall of the first two stories, Devil Car by Roger Zelazny and Vampire Ltd. by Josef Nesvadba, were almost photographic. Everything after those read as new to me, even Zelazny’s Auto-da-Fe, which appeared in the anthology Dangerous Visions, which I read in or around 2000 or 2001.

Of the twenty stories in the anthology there were three I considered to be stellar. That made my jaw drop, my heart race, and my mind dance. I loved them.

Those stories were The Exit to San Breta by George R. R. Martin, East Wind, West Wind by Frank M. Robinson, and Along the Scenic Route by Harlan Ellison.

The remaining stories were a hodgepodge of sentient cars, nightmarish traffic jams, and variations of the automobile as a status symbol, personal or professional weapon, and even a form of clothing. Some of these tales aged better than others, but there were a few clunkers with no air in their tires, no gas in their tanks, and their oil pan bone dry.

Taste in these matters being subjective and idiosyncratic, the mileage for which of these tales qualify will vary from reader to reader. If you are the slightest bit interested, perhaps a test drive might be in order?

Like so many movie lovers in my age group, my introduction to film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert was via Sneak Previews, which aired every Sunday on our local PBS station. Although forty plus years have passed since that introduction, my memories of watching them excoriate both Halloween II and Cruising were so vivid that, when I sought out and watched the reviews on YouTube, I was stunned at how my personal memory of the reviews matched their reality with an almost synchronous exactitude.

I also recall there being an episode of Sneak Previews wherein Siskel held up the infamous Alien action figure released by Kenner Toys and derided the company for creating merchandise for children based on material that was inappropriate for them to see. Dude, chill. Kids love monsters. Always have, always will.

When Siskel and Ebert left Sneak Previews to create the commercially syndicated At the Movies, I followed. When they left At the Movies and started Siskel & Ebert & the Movies (which dropped & the Movies after a single season), I, yet again, followed. Most of their viewers did.

Why is that? How could Siskel and Ebert’s audience flourish and grow, while the shows they left and the critics that replaced them never escaped their shadow? Perhaps the famous line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them” applies?

Perhaps.

Because the elements that forced Siskel and Ebert together (and they were forced to be together, believe me) and forged them into a singular unit of the cultural zeitgeist were disparate and, it turns out, impossible to replicate.

Chicago-based public television station WTTW was looking to create something different. Instead of having a single critic orating an opinion on a movie, two critics would have a discussion about it. An intriguing concept that could become stuffy, pretentious, and frightfully dull. In the wrong hands.

As luck would have it, Gene Siskel, film critic of the Chicago Tribune, and Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, were already established commodities on local television stations and were the right hands for this job. Because these two very opinionated men could not stand each other, at first. That (early) animosity created a friction that would turn their discussions, even when they agreed on something, into insult laden shouting matches and made for incredible television.

Incredible television that lasted for almost a quarter of a century. Until Gene Siskel’s tragic death in 1999, at the age of 53, from brain cancer. While Ebert continued, the magic that had made Siskel and Ebert compelling television, as well as a cultural and critical force to be reckoned with, was gone.

What Matt Singer has done in Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever is show the birth, growth, and inevitable death of the magic created by this incredible duo. It is a great read and, by the end, had me close to tears.

This is the compelling story of two very different men who, despite an overwhelming amount of personal animosity and professional competitiveness, managed to become cultural icons and something akin to bickering and battling siblings.

I miss them.

One of my favorite podcasts is Best Movies Never Made. Hosts Stephen Scarlata (producer of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune) and Josh Miller (screenwriter of Sonic the Hedgehog), along with guests and/or interview subjects, go on hilarious and heartbreaking deep dives about “movies that never made it to, or through, production.”

That is why the very moment the spine of Untold Horror caught my eye during a recent bookstore browse, before I even plucked it off the shelf and gave it a look (only to find the book was shrink wrapped, thus keeping its treasure trove of concept art, make-up tests, and promotional materials hidden between its covers), I knew I had to get and read this book.

Turns out Untold Horror‘s reason for existing could qualify it for some Best Movies Never Made attention. Because, as Dave Alexander explains in his introduction, the book started out as a documentary feature.

Until they went down the rabbit hole of unmade movies, that is. So much material was uncovered, the planned feature morphed into a proposed television series. One that seems a perfect fit for a streaming service like Shudder, I think.

Only for the pandemic to strike and production grind to a halt.

So, with no documentary film, or TV series, happening any time soon, what could be done with all the fascinating stories and material that were just sitting around, gathering dust?

Turn it into a book, of course.

Untold Horror does not contain every interview they have done for the still in development project, of course. Only the ones with enough pre-production and/or concept art to fill a book were selected. This alone makes it a worthwhile investment for any and all horror geeks, or just movie buffs fascinated with unmade movies.

Some of the stuff covered in the book wasn’t new to me. Two of the projects, Tobe Hooper’s remake of White Zombie and William Malone’s Dead Star, were subjects covered on Best Movies Never Made.

I remember reading and getting excited about the promise of House of Re-Animator, back when it seemed like the thing would actually get made.

Thanks to a friend’s bootleg VHS, I was able to see Buddy Giovinazzo’s attempt at a proof-of-concept short for Joe Spinell’s Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie. Giovinazzo’s story of how it was made explains why it turned out the way it did. I am also somewhat familiar with the stories behind the attempt to make Jaws 3: People 0.

What I was unaware of were the many attempts at making a sequel to Ruggero Deodato’s infamous Cannibal Holocaust. Nor did I know anything about George A. Romero’s attempt at teaming up with Marvel, to develop a project entitled Copperhead.

Untold Horror is chock full of fascinating tidbits from behind the curtain of the movie industry. It offers an entertaining and informative look at what might have been, what might still manage to be, and also serves as a wonderful teaser for a documentary and/or series I hope manages to get finished and released.