Desert Monster Movies and Horror Westerns Paperback – March 23, 2026

TWO BOOKS IN ONE! DESERT MONSTER MOVIES and HORROR WESTERNS!From John LeMay, the author of over sixty published works on western folklore and film history, comes an in-depth tome devoted to desert-set monster movies of the fifties and sixties, plus a look at the odd, underappreciated genre of the horror-western. Desert Monster Movies and Horror Westerns not only examines the making of these films, but also the real history that inspired them—even the infamous Billy the Kid Versus Dracula.In “Desert Monster Movies,” explore obscure flicks from 1946’s The Flying Serpent, based upon the legend of Quetzalcoatl, up to 1969’s The Valley of Gwangi, which Willis O’Brien dreamed up after reading reports of a real-life expedition into the Grand Canyon in search of the prehistoric Eohippus. In “Horror Westerns,” unearth the history of this obscure subgenre, starting with 1932’s Tombstone Canyon, complete with a Lon Chaney-inspired phantom, all the way up to 1977’s Wishbone Cutter, which touted itself as a “Witchcraft Western” and starred Sondra Locke as a supernatural seductress. Read more