Stephen Thrower once again pulls on his galoshes and wades deep into the mire of latex and tangled videotape that is the horror cinema underground. In previous books, Thrower has focused primarily on European output; but here he begins an epic assault on the American exploitation scene from 1970 to 1985.

For Thrower, these are halcyon days, when nothing got in the way of a fast buck and localised home-grown output could respond to current events and the national mood far faster, and often more effectively, than their bloated major studio counterparts. By the mid 1970s, however, the studios had caught on and began churning out schlock of their own, much of it lacking the hungry zeal, spontaneous panache or plain loopiness that makes the good stuff so appealing.