History Literature / PaperbacksFromHell

* GiantEnemyCrab: Chapter 3 discusses Guy N. Smith's long-running ''Killer Crabs'' series.

* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Chapter 8 involves a few novels about evil rock bands, most of which go all-in on EvilIsCool, which Hendrix finds rather annoying, dismissing a lot of the authors as a bunch of edgelords.

* VillainousIncest: Horribly, this can be found many times throughout the book. ''The Kill Riff'' (mentioned above under BlackAndGreyMorality) has an especially gratuitous example

%% * WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant: Chapters 2 and 4

''Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s {{Horror}} Fiction'' is a 2017 book by Creator/GradyHendrix, tracing the revolution in HorrorLiterature started in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Creator/IraLevin's ''Literature/RosemarysBaby'' and ''Literature/TheStepfordWives'', Thomas Tryon's ''Literature/TheOther'' and ''Literature/HarvestHome'', and William Peter Blatty's ''Literature/TheExorcist'', leading to thousands of novels in a variety of genres and ending in the early 1990s.

%% * AlienInvasion: Most prominently in Chapter 5, though it turns up elsewhere in the book too.

%% * AttackOfTheKillerWhatever[=/=]AttackOfThe50FootWhatever[=/=]WhenTreesAttack: Chapter 3

%% * TheBigRottenApple: Chapter 4
%% * BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: Chapters 5 and 7.
%% * {{Blaxploitation}}: Chapter 1, as a subgenre.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: Hendrix describes most of the splatterpunk genre as this, with there being little separation, morally speaking, between heroes and villains (for example, he describes one book in which a man takes revenge on a rock band after his daughter is crushed to death at a concert of theirs that went wrong, but it turns out that [[spoiler: he was sleeping with (ie, raping) his daughter, and his tragically dead wife didn't commit suicide, he killed her for finding out about it]], making him no better or sympathetic than his victims).

* CosmicHorrorStory: Several references to Creator/HPLovecraft and his work, including covers for ''Literature/TheDunwichHorror'' and ''Literature/TheColourOutOfSpace'', and works that carried on his influence.

%% * CreepyCatholicism: Chapter 1.

%% * DemBones: MANY covers featured skeletons.
%% * DemonicPossession: Chapter 1, of course, but this also turns up elsewhere in the book.

%% * GaiasVengeance: Type 2 in Chapter 3

%% * GothicHorror: Chapter 6

%% * HairRaisingHare: Chapter 3
%% * HauntedHouse: Chapter 4
%% * HollywoodExorcism: Chapter 1, since ''The Exorcist'' is the TropeCodifier.
%% * HollywoodSatanism: Chapter 1, though this turns up a few other places too.

%% * HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday[=/=]TwistedChristmas: Chapter 8.

%% * KidsAreCruel[=/=]TeensAreMonsters: Chapter 2.

%% * MadScientist: Chapter 5
%% * MagicalNativeAmerican: Very dark examples in Chapter 7.
%% * MarsNeedsWomen: Chapters 5 and 7.
%% * MonsterClown: Chapter 2

%% * {{Mummy}}: Chapter 7

%% * NunTooHoly[=/=]NaughtyNuns[=/=]NunsAreSpooky: Chapter 1.

%% * OurDemonsAreDifferent: Chapter 1.

%% * OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Chapter 7, though they turn up elsewhere as well.

%% * ReligiousHorror: Chapter 1
* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: Chapter 3 is about monstrous reptiles and insects.
* RevengeOfTheSequel: Robert Lory's ''Horrorscope #2: The Revenge of Taurus'' is discussed in Chapter 5.

* SerialKiller: Chapter 8. In fact, ''The Silence of the Lambs'' being designated as a {{Thriller}} rather than Horror is considered to be what killed the trend of horror novels.
%% * SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Chapter 8.

%% * SinisterMinister: Chapter 1.

%% * SnuffFilm: The subject of ''Below the Line'' in Chapter 8.
%% * SouthernGothic: As a subgenre in Chapter 6.
%% * SplatterHorror: Chapter 8, and Creator/JamesHerbert's ''Literature/TheRats'' in Chapter 3.
* StepfordSuburbia: The Trope Namer ''Literature/TheStepfordWives'' is mentioned in Chapter 4, though this also comes up in Chapter 2, which is about the TownWithADarkSecret.

* TakeThat: Hendrix is usually very jovial and tongue-in-cheek about even the most ridiculous horror stories, but becomes very serious about ''Franchise/{{Amityville}}'', mostly because he considers George Lutz, the original owner of the house, to be not only a lying profiteer who invented the whole thing, but an AbusiveParent, according to the man's son.

%% * TitleOfTheDead: C.L. Grant's ''The Hour of the Oxrun Dead'' in Chapter 7.
%% * TownWithADarkSecret: Chapter 4

%% * TheVietnamVet: The protagonists of William W. Johnstone's horror novels, in Chapter 4, Chris Stiles of T. Chris Martindale's ''[=Nightblood=]'' in Chapter 6, along with the villain of Alex Kane's ''The Shinglo''.
%% * VillainousIncest: Horribly, this can be found many times throughout the book.
%% * WesternZodiac: Robert Lory's Horrorscope series in Chapter 5.

%% * ScaryAnimalTitle: Chapter 3

%% * ExcitedShowTitle: ''Gila!'' in Chapter 3.

* AuthorAppeal: Hendrix is fascinated by the Satanic Panic, which returns in this book having been fictionalized by him in ''Literature/MyBestFriendsExorcism''.

* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder's ''Michelle Remembers'', which launched the disastrous Satanic Panic during the 1980s. Michelle claimed, among other things, to have watched a Satanic cult murder dozens of kittens and babies during an 81-day ritual to summon Satan while herself being tortured and sexually abused, and then to have been rescued by the Virgin Mary. Recovering memories through hypnosis is pseudoscience, and Michelle's story is demonstrably untrue (school records show no absences during the time this ritual supposedly took place, there is no building matching her description in Victoria, etc).