My wife Daisy numbers Creatures from Lost Worlds (1979) as having one of the worst covers of all the books in my collection. Clearly, I married a Philistine.

As the title implies, the topic is lost worlds, so we get hidden dinosaur valleys and Atlantis. We also get giant monster movies like Harryhausen’s black and white creature flicks, King Kong (I suppose Skull Island is a bit of a lost world) and a selection of Kaiju. Seymour, at least earlier in the book, is quick to chart the fictional sources for the films he covers, including lengthy quotes from stuff like Burroughs’ Pellucidar novels.

Again, though, while this is clearly written for children, there are some curious inclusions, like Horrors of Spider Island (1960), an exploitation horror film that was also released under the title It’s Hot in Paradise. In it, a club manager and the dancers he hired survive a plane crash near the titular island. A spider bites the manager, turning him into a violent (and gross-looking) mutant who eventually dies by sinking into quicksand. It’s mostly an excuse to have wet, scantily clad women running around a jungle set and, well, not really for kids! But also, maybe not not for kids, too.