The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan

When a friend gave me copy of this book, and said to read it, I thought he was nuts! Having long considered Andy Milligan one of the worst directors who ever lived, I couldn't think I would care about his life, but my friend insisted, and told me even if you think Andy's films stink, that his life was worth reading about, and damned if he wasn't correct! This is a completely fascinating look at a fascinating life. Milligan comes out of an avant-garde theatrical groupd centered around Cino's Cafe in Greenwich Village, and it makes for deeply compelling reading. I can say this book almost - I say ALMOST - makes me want to revisit his films. Can't recommend this enough.

Not for the prudish or faint of heart, this is one of the most incredible film director bio's ever. The 'Raging Bull' of grindhouse biographies. It's a tribute to the skills and passion of author McDonough that he makes an unattractive subject matter such a compelling read. Milligan really is a pretty hideous character, but McDonough finds humanity, charm and the eternal quest for love and acceptance in this often seedy story, all the while casting a honest unblinking eye on his bitterly angry subject and his horrendously dysfunctional family. McDonough cleverly structures the book with two streams, one is the straight ahead bio of the events, people and environments that shaped Milligan and the other is Milligan's own first person account. This drips with anger and cynicism as well as trenchant, intelligent observations on the human condition.

Jimmy McDonough does a superlative job of bringing the fascinating life of the late and almost completely unmissed misanthropic sexploitation/schlock horror movie maker Andy Milligan to light. Reader be warned, this is an unflinching look at life in the nightmarish rough trade underworld of New York. Milligan started in amateur theater before helping to create the boiling milieu that birthed the Off-Broadway Theater movement in the early sixties. Then he moved to the 42nd street grindhouses, making exploitation 'classics' that are eye scalding in their badness and impossible to forget, no matter how hard you try. Yet McDonough continually points out that, as bad as Milligan's movies were, they could only be made by Andy, being infused with the writer/director's utter contempt for women, family, and just about everything else humanity offered. Being a recalcitrant and secretive subject for McDonough, Milligan (as the author warns) sometimes fades from the narrative, but never from the world he inhabits. By the time Milligan leaves theater for the exploitation movie business we can fully understand why McDonough found Milligan such a hypnotically fascinating figure. For fans of exploitation movies, The Ghastly One is an essential book. Highest recommendation.

Many may be unfamiliar with the work of low-brow filmmaker Andy Milligan but he made a lasting impression (can be taken two ways!) on my film watching experience as an impressionable teen gorehound in the 70's/80's. To say his films are abysmal wouldn't be innacurate but,by the same token, there's something about them that stays with you long after you've watched them. An edge, a tone that exists under the surface and in the ways his characters interact that made on beleive that Milligan was more than just an exploitation filmmaker. Jimmy McDonough got to know Milligan and has revealed ALL in this amazing book. From Milligan's obvious hatred of women, his misantrhopy, sadistic personality, promiscous lifestyle, the works. The discussion of the films is fascinating, but more so the relationship between subject and biographer that developed. McDonough was there right to the very end.Milligan was a true visionary, a fact that audiences would be blind to in their haste to call him a "bad filmmaker". He was a true sadist and his films prove this.The best film-related book of recent times.

This is a scorching read. Andy Milligan, as you are all aware, is the no-budget director of such anti-masterpieces as "Torture Dungeon," "Blood thirtsty Butchers" and "Vapors." Milligan was indifferent to such technical niceties as editing, sound and coherency. More than any other schlock director, Milligan used his camera as a blunt tool for exorcising demons with claustrophobic stories involving perversion, murder, mutilation and incest. You probably won't enjoy an Andy Milligan film -- but you will never forget one either.Jimmy McDonough does an excellent job chronicling Milligan's life and times: from sailor thrown out on a "lace discharge," to dress maker, to avant-garde stage director to finally an exploitation fillmmaker, "The Ghastly One" never fails to astound. Milligan was very much like the films he made. Abusive, extreme and awful. The stories on display in this volume are shocking and relevatory. The most naked and telling part of the book is when the author befriends Milligan in his Hollywood phase, while the director was dying from AIDS. Milligan remains cantankerous until his dying breath, with one last prank pulled on the material world.I MUST include two criticisms; 1.) The book is overly reliant on footnotes (one on every page!). The anecdotal information is better left incorporated into the text. 2.) Minor inconsistencies here and there. McDonough says Milligan's "Monstrosity" is best-seen film of Milligan's next to "Fleshpot on 42nd Street" when it is only available on bootleg!Other than that -- this is a must-read volume to all fans of low-budget filmmaking.