JOHN McCARTY 1944-2025

John McCarty circa 1964-1965

Although no "official" obituary has yet to appear for author John McCarty as of this post, long-time McCarty collaborator Joseph Citro posted the announcement on his Facebook account on 12/01/25, upon learning of his friend's passing. All that is known at this point is that John McCarty has passed away.

McCarty's name is held in high regard among my generation, that is, if you were among the denizens who imbibed every horror film released during the 1980s. John McCarty wrote a little book called Splatter Movies, published by every gorehound's favorite company in those days, Fantaco.

Among the Fangoria set back then, Splatter Movies was a tome you could not do without.

But, did without some of us did. If I recall correctly (and my recall seems to grow sketchier with each passing year), ordering the mass-market softcover from Fantaco would only set you back about $10. Keep in mind, we could go see a movie for less than that, so if you were a teenage fan of slasher flicks back then with a limited budget, you definitely had to make some choices. I saved my money for some time and eventually ordered my copy from Fantaco, and I have to be honest, it was akin to a kid today discovering a website like Rue Morgue or Bloody Disgusting, and realizing you've just barely scratched the surface of the movies you really liked!

This was an age before immediate information. Yes, we had Fangoria and a smattering of other mags to whet our beaks of what was Coming Soon, but a book like Splatter Movies gave the reader a lineage of horror movies that directly related to what was currently showing up at our local theaters.

In 1981, the year Splatter Movies was first published, it was the bible for catching up on things you wanted to see or didn't even know existed. The book became so crucial at that time because not every splatter fan in the United States had access to every zine published, nor were all of us aware of just how many zines were being self-published around the same time. For example, Michael J. Weldon's Psychotronic Video, which went on to become a powerhouse for educating many of us on the movies we never knew existed, started as a regional zine in 1980. It wasn't until 1989, when the zine blossomed into a full-out mag, that guys like me in the Midwest were even aware of it. Splatter Movies was a book; once you bought your own copy, it became dog-eared and highlighted with pen or marker, circling movies you sought out at the myriad mom-and-pop video stores within your traveling distance.

If John McCarty's legacy had begun and ended with that book, it would still be an impressive feat, but McCarty chose to throw caution to the wind, and he became a full-time researcher, biographer, and writer in 1983. But, before that, he was a pretty impressive guy.

John McCarty was born in New York in 1944. He graduated from Boston University in 1966 with a degree in broadcasting and film. After graduation, he spent three years in Los Angeles banging out unproduced television scripts for shows like Death Valley Days and the CBS hit show Family Affair. In the 1970s, he found himself in a dead-end job as a copywriter for General Electric. Upon publishing his first book, You're on Open Line! : Inside the Wacky World of Late-Night Talk Radio in 1978, a tome that detailed the wild west of AM talk radio at the time, McCarty never went back to work for GE, nor any other company.

With the success of Splatter Movies, McCarthy went on to write another twenty-plus books filled with research on various subjects in the entertainment industry, including the hugely successful book Bullets Over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to "The Sopranos." That book was turned into a celebrated documentary series that aired on the Starz network in 2005.

Despite McCarty having penned books like The Movies of John Huston (1987) and the gorehound fav The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking (1995), it will undoubtedly be Splatter Movies that John McCarty will be remembered for.

So, why does the graphic that accompanies this blog post boast the tag line "Influential Author"? Well, to be quite honest, it is the truth. John McCarthy not only influenced the movie-watching habits of guys and gals like me back in the 1980s, but his style and straightforward approach to the subject matter have had an absolute influence on those of us who write and publish books within the same vein.

Most recently, I was fortunate to aid writer Robert Freese in his book The All-Night Video Guide: Slashers. During the months of phone conversations I had with Rob about the book and the direction it was taking while he was actively writing it, we both realized that there was a definite influence from McCarty's Splatter Movies. This revelation was not lost on either one of us. It was not just the subject matter of Rob's book and McCarty's Splatter Movies book that tied the two together, but an honest style that didn't bash these films for what they weren't, but what they actually are! Bloody good entertainment.

Rest in Peace, Mr. McCarty.