Since the late 19th century, film has been the ultimate medium by which to express and illuminate the darker, wilder recesses of man's imagination. An alchemical convergence of magic lantern experiments and new photographic technology led to the production of the very first moving images, including visual captures of magic, mystery, violence, cruelty, crime, sex, nudity, devilry and death.

SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE is an extensive and unprecedented 15-volume book series that reveals a flickering carnival of attractions and aberrations, from the ground-breaking motion capture experiments conceived by Eadweard Muybridge in 1872 to the shocking documentary footage of atrocity, destruction and horror which emerged from the ruins of war-torn Europe in the late 1940s. This is the ultimate multi-volume guide for those wishing to explore an alternative global history of the moving image in its inaugural decades - a history that reveals a wild, often disturbing and provocative world which includes Hollywood but also stretches far, far beyond.

SHADOWS IN A PHANTOM EYE Volume 9 covers the period 1930-1931, when Universal launched its iconic horror film series with the classics Dracula and Frankenstein, alongside the rise of violent gangster movies like Scarface and Public Enemy, as well as a plethora of exotic jungle narratives both real and fake, from Africa Speaks to Ingagi.

This volume references around 650 films from all countries and reproduces more than 300 rare photographic images, posters and illustrations, many newly unearthed from international film archives and never before published.