The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

Michael J. Weldon's reference guide catalogues the strange corners of cinema, a category he calls psychotronic. The term covers films from the mildly offbeat to the wildly bizarre, made on no budget or on millions of dollars.

The range is deliberately wide. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and E.T. sit in the same book, as do Angel's Wild Women, Hellcats of the Navy, Dismember Mama and Let Me Die A Woman. Some entries are sincere social commentary, others pure trash.

Entries run from A to Z and cover more than 3,000 movies, each with cast, crew and characters listed. Rare illustrations are scattered through the pages. The reviews are short, eccentric and opinionated, written in the voice of a man who has watched these films obsessively since he was six.

The casts are as mixed as the plots: former models, former sports heroes, dead rock idols, future presidents, would-be Marilyns and assorted has-beens. The book suits anyone who stays up late for odd movies on TV or queues at revival houses, and it works as a browsing guide or a reference for tracking down a half-remembered title.