The "Bibliograpy of Fantastic Film" is an anotated bibliography of the international secondary literature on fantastic film and television. It considers the whole range of fantastic film from the silent era to nowadays including horror, science fiction and fantasy as well as animation and experimental film. In addition, neighbouring genres like catastrophe and disaster films, martial arts films or psycho thrillers are also focused.
The bibliography indexes both books and magazine articles as well as academic publications and so called "gray literature". A main area and a special personal interest of mine is the registration of literature on religious themes and subjects in film.
I started to work on the bibliography back in 1991. During the years the regulary updated project has grown to an unforseeable extension and meanwhile has become one of the largest genre bibliographies worldwide. Since August 2008 the bibliography which formerly was only accessible via email inquiries is available as direct access internet database.
The bibliography includes a person, film title and subject index. The subject index is available in German and English. You can browse one of these indices and check the complete lists of all persons, film titles and subjects mentioned in the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" in alphabetical order. Clicking on an item will produce the related literature list. This is the best way to get proper results because the index items are predefined and You will have no problems with typing errors or keywords containing special characters.
You can also perform a free search by typing Your own keyword(s) in a special formular. You can either search one of the indices which will produce a list of all predefined index items matching Your search term, or You can search the whole bibliography in full text mode. Please note that depending on the speed of Your internet access the search procedure may take some time!
If You are not pleased with the results, if You got technical problems, or if You have a special question You certainly can send me an email with Your personal enquiry. The mail text should be either in German or English. Make sure that the word "info" is part of the subject line. Please note that I do send out only literature lists but neither the literature sources (books, magazines, articles) themself nor any additional material like posters, celebrity adresses and so on. I'm a researcher, not a trader and particulary I don't have any information where to buy or rent special film copies.
By using the free search function the search term that You type in the formular field has to consist of at least four characters. The only reason for this restriction is to prevent misuse of the bibliography. A search for a single space, punctuation mark or letter would probably match all entries of the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film". Keywords like "and", "or", "in:" would create similar results. Please note that some specific terms like "on the", "edited by" and others are also not permitted. If You use one of these terms You will get a related failure message.
The "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" is a non-profite project and private use is free of charge. Nevertheless You have to consider the copyright rules!
You can download each online generated literature list as an ASCII text file by clicking on the download link at the top of the related literature list site. Please note that some special characters available at the HTML onscreen sites will be replaced in the ASCII text version.
Although the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" is a free non-profit- project it is protected by the following copyright regulations:
The literature lists of the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film", in whole or in parts, may be copied and reproduced both in printed and electronic form if the text points out to the source. The source citation must contain the name of the author (Holger Schnell) and the name of the bibliography (in German or English). If the lists are edited or supplemented with additional material or included in other publications this must be indicated in the source citation.
In literary sources film, literature and music titles are often emphasized by quotation marks, italics or bold letters, small caps or other accentuations. To harmonize these different practices the main texts of the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" (excluding the indices) mark all film, literature and music titles with italics.
All film titles mentioned in the indices of the bibliography are followed a year indication except TV series which have a (TV) attribute. Please note that the date following the film title has no scientific approach. It should only help the user to identify the related film title especially if the same title apperars with different films or film versions. Sometimes the year attribute shows the year of production, sometimes the year of the first release. Normally I follow the "Internet Movie Database" (which, however, often is inconsistend too!) because it has established itself as a quasi standard on the Internet. For exact research of filmographic data, however, You have to consult the usual scientific reference sources!
The "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" uses HTML, CSS and PHP. It has been successfully tested with the following browsers: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and higher (recommended!), Opera 9.10, Netscape 7.1 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. and higher.
The "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" shows literature from many different countries in many different languages. Whenever possible and practical the original spelling of each language was kept including its special characters. Please note that by downloading the literature lists as ASCII text files some special characters are going to be replaced, so the download version is not an exact copy of the online HTML text version.
The Internet presentation of the bibliography is in English except the subject index which is available in German and English. Mails to the author should be either in German or in English.
If You found mistakes or bugs, if You have any questions not answered at the faq site or if You know literature titles related to Your search that are not yet mentioned in the "Bibliography of Fantastic Film" feel free to send me an email with Your suggestions.
