Joe Bob Briggs is the Drive-In Movie Critic, whose legendary reviews tend to consist of a list of whatever bodily evisceration and nipple count said film contained. He was the only critic to my knowledge to point out the connection in head-explosion technique between Frankenhooker and Pulp Fiction. But there's a respectable, even brainy, side to the man.

Ranging from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari to Reservoir Dogs, Briggs turns in a string of sober, detailed and readable chapters on a bunch of films that had audiences quivering in the aisles. (Some readers may suspect the influence of Briggs's alter ego, writer-satirist John Bloom.)

Some subjects - The Wild Bunch, Caligari, Dogs - are already drowning in critical appreciation elsewhere, but Briggs devotes equal attention to Blood Feast, Deep Throat and And God Created Woman.

It 's not just for slasher-movie nerds. Briggs writes entertainingly about each movie's reception in middle America, and, as such, works as a kind of social history of each mini-era.

· Plexus Publishing,£14.99