A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic is a film book like no other. It opens with the author's first-hand account of the Covid-19 pandemic and life in lockdown. His sense of dread, and anxiety about his state of health, were experiences shared with millions of others across the world. For author Richard Scheib, already committed to writing a book about plagues and pandemics in popular culture, Covid-19 felt like a perverse twist of fate. Media depictions of deadly contagions had, to this point, been speculative and often off the mark; his book takes an in- depth look at what filmmakers imagined would happen and contrasts it with the reality. International in scope, A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic examines films in a wide variety of genres, from the silent era to the present day. Black Death, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease, Bird Flu - it explores fictionalised accounts of plague and pestilence such as box-office hit Outbreak (1995), as well as documentary treatments of real-life incidents. Whether the threats depicted have a basis in reality - the biowarfare of the Cold War era, for instance - or are, like zombies and vampires, more fantastical, Scheib demonstrates how the fear of contagion has provided a wealth of inspiration for the big and small screen.

'Bizarre movies have always held a strong fascination for me, so too the places where such movies come from. Having spent years living in the bowels of the Lower East Side and arranging screenings for the rabid assaults of the Cinema of Transgression, North Korea felt like the obvious place to go next...' So writes Johannes Schonherr in Trashfilm Roadshows, an incredible account of underground films and his many years screening them in an age of busted projectors and fleapit cinemas. Schonherr, a gravedigger who had been kicked out of East Germany in 1983, quickly embraced the underground culture of the West. He became involved with the Cinema of Transgression in New York, screened 'Red Scare' films in Moscow, and later made secret deals with the North Korean embassy in Berlin as a diplomatic aide in search of film prints for Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. Across the inter-Korean border, Schonherr was the first person to semi-legally introduce vintage hardcore porn to the South. Revised and expanded, Trashfilm Roadshows is a roadtrip in an old Dodge with a true maverick at the wheel.

'Left for Good. Took the corpse.' Jorg Buttgereit has a reputation as one of the most original, innovative and dangerous of filmmakers, banned - and bootlegged - the world over. His work, notably Nekromantik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking and Schramm, traverses horror and art-house genres with a dry wit, dealing explicitly with themes of sex and death. He is perhaps the first and only true DIY filmmaker superstar, having been championed by a worldwide post-'video nasties' horror zine community. John Waters bestowed upon him the accolade that he had directed the first erotic film for necrophiles. Originally published in 1994, Sex Murder Art is the definitive account of the director's work, filled with contemporaneous interviews and framed around the author's visit to Berlin for the filming of Schramm. Unknown at the time, this ambitious psychedelic serial killer feature would prove Buttgereit's last; at the age of thirty he effectively retired from making movies. Revised and expanded, this new edition looks at the volatile era in which Buttereit emerged, and the youth culture of a Berlin divided by the Wall. It questions how and why a no-budget filmmaker, once outlawed on the pretext that he glorified violence, can still hold sway as a cause celebre. In the 2020s, the author returns to a very different Berlin for a new series of interviews, considers his own place in this changed world, and meets a fresh legion of Buttgereit fans while on a road trip to promote German Angst, an anthology movie of which Buttgereit is part. Detailed analysis of Buttgereit's feature films, plus the director's early short film work, complement this comprehensive and illuminating study. Sex Murder Art remains the ultimate testament to the obsession, paranoia and politics of underground filmmaking.

A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic is a film book like no other. It opens with the author's first-hand account of the Covid-19 pandemic and life in lockdown. His sense of dread, and anxiety about his state of health, were experiences shared with millions of others across the world. For author Richard Scheib, already committed to writing a book about plagues and pandemics in popular culture, Covid-19 felt like a perverse twist of fate. Media depictions of deadly contagions had, to this point, been speculative and often off the mark; his book takes an in- depth look at what filmmakers imagined would happen and contrasts it with the reality. International in scope, A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic examines films in a wide variety of genres, from the silent era to the present day. Black Death, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease, Bird Flu - it explores fictionalised accounts of plague and pestilence such as box-office hit Outbreak (1995), as well as documentary treatments of real-life incidents. Whether the threats depicted have a basis in reality - the biowarfare of the Cold War era, for instance - or are, like zombies and vampires, more fantastical, Scheib demonstrates how the fear of contagion has provided a wealth of inspiration for the big and small screen.

'Bizarre movies have always held a strong fascination for me, so too the places where such movies come from. Having spent years living in the bowels of the Lower East Side and arranging screenings for the rabid assaults of the Cinema of Transgression, North Korea felt like the obvious place to go next...' So writes Johannes Schonherr in Trashfilm Roadshows, an incredible account of underground films and his many years screening them in an age of busted projectors and fleapit cinemas. Schonherr, a gravedigger who had been kicked out of East Germany in 1983, quickly embraced the underground culture of the West. He became involved with the Cinema of Transgression in New York, screened 'Red Scare' films in Moscow, and later made secret deals with the North Korean embassy in Berlin as a diplomatic aide in search of film prints for Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. Across the inter-Korean border, Schonherr was the first person to semi-legally introduce vintage hardcore porn to the South. Revised and expanded, Trashfilm Roadshows is a roadtrip in an old Dodge with a true maverick at the wheel.

'Left for Good. Took the corpse.' Jorg Buttgereit has a reputation as one of the most original, innovative and dangerous of filmmakers, banned - and bootlegged - the world over. His work, notably Nekromantik, Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking and Schramm, traverses horror and art-house genres with a dry wit, dealing explicitly with themes of sex and death. He is perhaps the first and only true DIY filmmaker superstar, having been championed by a worldwide post-'video nasties' horror zine community. John Waters bestowed upon him the accolade that he had directed the first erotic film for necrophiles. Originally published in 1994, Sex Murder Art is the definitive account of the director's work, filled with contemporaneous interviews and framed around the author's visit to Berlin for the filming of Schramm. Unknown at the time, this ambitious psychedelic serial killer feature would prove Buttgereit's last; at the age of thirty he effectively retired from making movies. Revised and expanded, this new edition looks at the volatile era in which Buttereit emerged, and the youth culture of a Berlin divided by the Wall. It questions how and why a no-budget filmmaker, once outlawed on the pretext that he glorified violence, can still hold sway as a cause celebre. In the 2020s, the author returns to a very different Berlin for a new series of interviews, considers his own place in this changed world, and meets a fresh legion of Buttgereit fans while on a road trip to promote German Angst, an anthology movie of which Buttgereit is part. Detailed analysis of Buttgereit's feature films, plus the director's early short film work, complement this comprehensive and illuminating study. Sex Murder Art remains the ultimate testament to the obsession, paranoia and politics of underground filmmaking.