Humanoids from the Deep (alternatively known as Monster: Humanoids from the Deep) is a 1980 science fiction monster movie, starring Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow. Roger Corman served as the film’s (uncredited) executive producer, and it was distributed by his New World Pictures. It was directed by Barbara Peeters (aka Barbara Peters) with additional scenes of nudity and gore added. The musical score was composed by James Horner.

The movie was originally offered to Joe Dante  (Piranha, The Howling) but he turned the project down. Barbara Peeters took the job instead, and shooting commenced in October 1979. Peeter’s version of the film was deemed to be lacking the required exploitation elements needed to satisfy the movie’s intended audience. Second unit director James Sbardellati, who would eventually direct Deathstalker was brought in to spice up the movie, and it was he who was reportedly responsible for filming the sex, nudity and gore scenes.

After Peeters and Ann Turkel saw the additional sequences they asked for their names to be taken off the movie but this was refused. Several people who went on to bigger and better things worked on the film, including composer James Horner, make-up artist Rob Bottin (who designed the humanoid costumes), editor Mark Goldblatt, and future producer Gale Anne Hurd (Aliens, The Walking Dead TV series) who worked as a production assistant. The actress who portrays the Salmon Queen (Linda Shayne) later became a film director.

In 1996, a remake of Humanoids from the Deep was produced for Showtime cable TV by Corman’s production company, Concorde-New Horizons, starring Robert Carradine and Emma Samms. Although it included some special effects footage from the original version, the sex and gore aspects — the very elements that had distinguished the first film — were toned down for TV and it was not a success among fans or critics.

‘Humanoids From the Deep is a fast-paced and energetic camp classic that should please horror and sleaze fans with its graphic gore, abundant female nudity, and sardonic humor. The creepy humanoid costumes were designed by makeup legend Rob Bottin (The Howling, Legend). They look pretty slimy and cool, especially for such a low-budget film, and in fact the production crew only had three of them! Through the use of some clever camerawork and tight editing, there seems to be many more of the ghoulish creatures prowling around and creating bloody mischief.’ GoArticles.com

Buy Humanoids from the Deep on Blu-ray Disc from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

New high-definition transfer of the Uncut international version presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1)

Never-before-seen deleted scenes

Trailer, TV and radio spots

Leonard Maltin’s interviews with Roger Corman on the making of the film

“The Making of Humanoids From The Deep,” featuring new interviews with composer James Horner, second unit/assistant director James Sbardellati, editor Mark Goldblatt and more!

“Whatever Peeters’ vision might have been, it’s inarguable that the grotesque and silly “assaulted by sea creatures” moments make this movie, elevating it from talky pseudo-scifi yawner to something akin to exploitation classic. Certainly, the less said about the storyline, the better, and while there are some nicely suspenseful moments, the payoffs that don’t involve non-naked girls are lacking. Besides—and how anyone associated with the film wouldn’t understand this going in is beyond me—without the boobs and grue, it just wouldn’t be a Corman film.” Tom Becker, DVD Verdict

“Humanoids from the Deep has everything that I like about horror movies. There is a decent story, cute girls get naked, gory monster attacks abound (especially during the chaotic finale), and the cast consists of a number of name actors spouting off cheesy lines.” The Video Graveyard

“Finally, lets not forget the effects by the soon-to-be-legendary Rob Bottin. While they may just be creatures in rubber suits, they’re impressive looking rubber suits for a low budget flick. The attacks that take place also have some decent makeup effects. Thankfully Shout! Factory has released the uncut version of Humanoids, titled Monster as it was originally released in International markets. I know one additional scene includes a decapitation. Good stuff, indeed.” Horror Digital

Posted by Will Holland

Thanks to Movie Blog Spot for kind use of the images with caption Moviequiz.blogspot.com

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Night Tide is a 1961 horror-thriller film, written and directed by Curtis Harrington and starring Dennis Hopper (Queen of Blood). The title was inspired by a line in Edgar Allan Poe‘s poem ‘Annabel Lee‘. Harrington managed to persuade top Hollywood composer David Raksin (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Laura, Whirlpool) to provide the film’s score for “virtually nothing” simply because he liked the movie. It was filmed on a budget of $50,000 in 1960, premiered in 1961, but was held up from general release until 1963 (see below).

Night Tide was restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

Seaman Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper), on shore leave, finds a “Mermaid” sideshow attraction at the marina, operated by Captain Murdock (Gavin Muir). The “Mermaid” Mora (Linda Lawson), who lives in a hotel above the marina merry-go-round (the movie was filmed at the Santa Monica pier) and Johnny fall for each other. Everyone around them is wary of the romance, as her previous lovers have died mysteriously…

The production company, Virgo, defaulted on their Pathe Lab loan of $33,793 and Pathe were preparing to foreclose of the picture. Roger Corman asked the lab to hold off on their legal actions to allow Filmgroup to distribute the film, guaranteeing Pathe $15,000 within 12 months of the film’s release. Pathe agreed, and Filmgroup released through American International Pictures.

Buy remastered Kino Classics Blu-ray from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Blu-ray features:

1080p/AVC encoded sourced from the 2007 restoration of the film by the Academy Film Archive

Audio Commentary by Dennis Hopper and director Curtis Harrington

Two Curtis Harrington Interviews from 1987

Trailers for Night Tide, The Stranger, and White Zombie.

“Night Tide is all about its hypnotic atmosphere. The pier where Mora works is sunny but desolate. Captain Murdock lives in a crumbling, not-yet-gentrified part of Venice Beach that wouldn’t be out of place in Eraserhead. The whole film has a dreamy undercurrent that obfuscates what’s real and what isn’t. It’s haunting, but in a subtle, uncertain way.” Casey Broadwater, Blu-ray.com

“Barely a horror film in the traditional sense, Night Tide is soaked in atmosphere from the opening frames. Harrington’s skillful use of the desolate seaside locations (mostly shot around the Venice and Santa Monica Beaches) yields some terrific results, but the stately pacing and deliberately low key acting may put off drive-in monster buffs.” Nathaniel Thompson Mondo Digital

“Despite its somewhat crude special effects and superlatively wacky storyline, Night Tide, like Carnival of Souls and the surprisingly neglected work Incubus (1966) starring William Shatner, is a work that still holds up today.  Bordering the line between American cinematic art and B-grade schlock, and being of interest to Occultniks, Night Tide is surely a work that deserves to have a larger cult following than it actually has.” Soiled Cinema

Buy Curtis Harrington’s Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood memoirs from Amazon.com

Buy Night Tide: 50th Anniversary Edition DVD from Amazon.com

Image courtesy of VHSCollector.com

Wikipedia | IMDb | Tumblr | Related: Carnival of Souls

Posted by Will Holland

Nurse Sherri is a 1978 American horror film, with possession, nurseploitation and blaxploitation themes, directed by trash auteur Al Adamson from his own story. The screenplay was by Michael Bockman and Greg Tittinger (both of whom were also editors) and it was produced by regular Adamson collaborator Sam Sherman (as ‘Mark Sherwood’) for his own Independent-International company. In classic exploitation movie manner, the film has been released under a plethora of alternate titles, including The Possession of Nurse Sherri, Beyond the Living, Black Voodoo, Hospital of Terror and Killer’s Curse.

A hospital nurse is possessed by an evil spirit, and proceeds to kill off the hospital’s patients.

The film stars Geoffrey Land, Jill Jacobson (as Sherri), Marilyn Joi, Mary Kay Pass, Prentiss Moulden, Bill Roy, Erwin Fuller, J.C. Wells and Clay Foster.

“Adamson lives up to his reputation as a purveyor of pedestrian schlock, though actually, this is still better than I expected, which was something along the lines of an Andy Milligan flick. The performances was not as bad; it’s mostly the production values, which left a lot to be desired, such as the startlingly bad visual effects which accompany the actual possession, which looked more as if the print had been badly damaged in transit. The script also shows us far more of a lot of things than serves any actual purpose: for instance, the cult leader’s ambulance ride. There are some cool elements, such as the way it’s actually the black nurse who is easly the most proficient.” Trash City

“Basically, Nurse Sherri is an awkward variation of the film Carrie and the nurse sexploitation sub genre. (A match made in exploitation hell.) In fact, producer Sam Sherman … offers a candid audio commentary where he credits Carrie and the Roger Corman film Student Nurses as inspiration. The final result is probably the most coherent of all of Sherman’s collaborations with the late director. It’s also one of the more compelling pieces of low budget schlock released at the time.” Bradley Harding, Monsters at Play

Buy Al Adamson’s Nurse Sherri + Five Bloody Graves Grindhouse DVD from Amazon.com

Buy The Possession of Nurse Sherri Special Edition DVD (sexy and horror versions) from Amazon.com

Buy Nurse Sherri poster from Amazon.com

Dinoshark is a 2010 low budget American Syfy horror film. It was directed by Kevin O’Neill, and stars Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger and Aaron Diaz. It was produced by Roger Corman and Julie Corman.

The film opens with a baby dinoshark swimming away from a chunk of Arctic glacier that has broken away due to global warming. Three years later, the dinoshark is a ferocious predatory adult and kills tourists and locals offshore from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The protagonist, Trace, is first to notice the Dinoshark and witnesses his friend get eaten, but has trouble convincing people that a creature of such antiquity is still alive and eating people…

Wikipedia | IMDb

Related: 2-Headed Shark Attack |Ghost Shark| Great White | Jaws | Jaws 2 | Jersey Shore Shark Attack | Jurassic Shark | Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus | Psycho Shark | Sand Sharks |Shark Attack 3: Megalodon |The Shark is Still Working |Shark Week | Sharktopus | Snow Shark | Super Shark | Swamp Shark |Zombie Shark

Buy Dinoshark on DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon.com

‘Let’s run down the laundry list of what you’ll find here:  poor acting with some ridiculous, over-the-top accents, cheap special effects, a threadbare plot that barely makes sense, gratuitous tourist-munching, an imitation of the Jaws theme music, and low budget, made-for-TV production values.  And that’s just barely plunging below the surface. Rest assured, a schlocky good time awaits you if this is your sort of thing.’ Oh, the Horror!

‘Sadly, Dinoshark isn’t really headline-grabbingly ludicrous enough, lacking the same kind of dynamic random oddness, and being weighed down somewhat by a creature which at the end of the day is simply a vaguely armoured shark with a penchant for jumping out of the water in unconvincing fashion.’ James Mudge, Beyond Hollywood

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Posted by Will Holland

Evil Toons is a 1992 live-action/animated comedy-horror film written, directed and co-produced by Fred Olen Ray (The Alien Dead) with cinematography by Gary Graver. The cast includes David Carradine, Monique Gabrielle, Madison Stone, Stacey Nix (Barbara Dare), Arte Johnson, Dick Miller (Gremlins II) and Michelle Bauer (The Tomb, Demonwarp).

The film was apparently intended as a knowing spoof of traditional haunted-house films – with the female characters mocking their next movies – combined with elements of The Evil Dead and the usual topless female nudity associated with Ray’s ouevre. It includes in-jokes such as cult actor Dick Miller watching himself on TV in A Bucket of Blood (1959) and Michelle Bauer going off half-naked into her bedroom followed by the sound of a chainsaw revving (a reference to Ray’s Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers).

Fred Olen Ray initially pitched the idea for this picture to legendary exploitation movie producer Roger Corman, saying he could make the film for only $250,000 dollars. But Corman turned him down on the grounds that said budget was too low. So Ray made the picture for his own American Independent Productions for a mere $140,000 dollars.

A group of  attractive young women spend the night in an old house. On the night of their arrival, a strange man arrives, delivering an old book. Once he is gone, the girls examine the book, where they find a sketch of a Tasmanian-devil like monster.

As time passes, the drawing emerges from the book and becomes a cartoon. At one point, after attacking one of the girls, it possesses her, and everyone in the house falls victim to the possessed girl, this includes her boyfriend Biff, the owner of the house, and two of the girls. Meg (the only surviving girl) and Gideon Fisk (owner of the book) destroy the book and the cartoon reverts back into its normal self and promptly disappears…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes

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“Still, it’s enjoyable while the animated horny demonic toon runs around ogling girls, tearing their clothes off and making comments such as, “Nice tits!”. Unfortunately, the evil toon only gets a few minutes of screen time at best before it takes on Roxanne’s appearance. No doubt a result of being low budget. It’s a shame too, since it’s really the only part of the movie worth watching.” Movie Muck

“Directed by Fred Olen Ray — that’s pretty much all you really need to know as far as what to expect from this. It’s cheesy, sleazy, and just plain bad (and not necessarily in a good way). I just kept waiting for more “toons” to show up and was left disappointed. Unless all you need is excessive nudity and bad acting to enjoy a flick I’d advise skipping this.” Upcoming Horror

A Bucket of Blood is a 1959 American comedy horror film directed by Roger Corman. It stars Dick Miller and was set in beatnik culture. The film, produced on a $50,000 budget for American International Pictures, was shot in five days, and shares many of the low-budget filmmaking aesthetics commonly associated with Corman’s work.

Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a dark comic satire about a young waiter at a Bohemian café who is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor when he accidentally kills his landlady’s cat and covers its body in clay to hide the evidence. When he is pressured to create similar work, he becomes murderous.

A Bucket of Blood was the first of three collaborations between Corman and Griffith in the comedy genre, followed by The Little Shop of Horrors, which was shot on the same sets, and Creature from the Haunted Sea. The film is a satire not only of Corman’s own films, but also of the art world and teen films of the 1950s and is noted as an honest, undiscriminating portrayal of the many facets of Beatnik culture, including art, dance and style of living.

It was remade for cable TV in 1995. In Evil Toons (1992), Dick Miller watches himself on TV in a scene from A Bucket of Blood.

One night after hearing the words of Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton), a poet who performs at The Yellow Door cafe, socially awkward busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) returns home to attempt to create a sculpture of the face of the hostess Carla (Barboura Morris). He stops when he hears the meowing of Frankie, the cat owned by his inquisitive landlady, Mrs. Surchart (Myrtle Vail), who has somehow gotten himself stuck in Walter’s wall. Walter attempts to get Frankie out using a knife, but accidentally kills the cat. Instead of giving Frankie a proper burial, Walter covers the cat in clay, leaving the knife stuck in it.

The next morning, Walter shows the cat to Carla and his boss Leonard (Antony Carbone). Leonard dismisses the oddly morbid piece, but Carla is enthusiastic about the work and convinces Leonard to display it in the café. Walter receives praise from the beatnik (John Brinkley) and poets in the café and is approached by an adoring fan, Naolia (Jhean Burton), who gives him a vial of heroin to remember her by. Naively ignorant of its function, he takes it home and is followed by Lou Raby (Bert Convy), an undercover cop, who attempts to take him into custody for narcotics possession. In a blind panic, thinking Lou is about to shoot him, Walter hits him with the frying pan he is holding, killing Lou instantly…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes

Download from the Internet Archive

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“That this rather unflattering portrait of an insular and self-impressed art scene should ring so true today across a gulf of four decades and at least as many cycles of youth-culture reinvention shows just how much attention Corman and Griffith paid on their scouting missions. However accurate or inaccurate their rendering of the details, they captured something essential about the way scenes like this function, and did a fair job of skewering it.” 1000 Misspent Hours

“A Bucket of Blood is only an hour-ish long and just flies by; it has a jazzy soundtrack that fits perfectly, crazy beatnik poetry, outrageous characters, tons of laughs and a touch of grim that makes it the perfect re-watchable horror-comedy classic! Highest of Recommendations!” Goregirl’s Dungeon

Body Bags (aka John Carpenter Presents Body Bags) is a 1993 American horror sci-fi comedy telefilm, directed by John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and Larry Sulkis. It originally aired on 8 August 1993. It is an anthology film, featuring three unconnected stories, with bookend segments featuring Carpenter and Hooper as deranged morgue attendees. It is notable for its numerous celebrity cameo appearances.

The first story, “The Gas Station”, features Robert Carradine as a serial killer, with cameos by Sam Raimi and Wes Craven. “Hair” follows Stacy Keach as he receives a botched hair transplant that infests him with an alien parasite, and “Eye” is another transplant story, this time featuring Mark Hamill as a baseball player who loses an eye in a car accident and receives a transplant, only to be overtaken with the personality of the eye’s previous owner: a murderous misogynist.

Originally, Showtime Networks planned to create Body Bags as a television series, similar to HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. However, shortly after filming began on the project, the network did not feel it was in their best interest to pursue the series. The three completed stories were assembled around John Carpenter’s narration segment, and Body Bags became a horror anthology.

“There’s nothing overly remarkable about any of these stories, but they’re fun and in at least one case funny, and they have their fare share of little scares scattered throughout them.” Jeffrey Kauffman, Blu-ray.com

Buy Body Bags Blu-ray + DVD Combo from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

“The real reason you should watch this is for Carpenter’s segments inbetween each episode where he plays the morgue attendant. These are a really fun and playful … The attendant is a really twisted guy and there’s good ‘reveal’ about him at the very end of the film that I didn’t see coming. Also, it’s quite fun to catch all the famous cameos and in-jokes dotted around the episodes – Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, Twiggy, Debbie Harry, Tom Arnold all pop up in tiny roles. Another strong point is the gore used in the films. It’s not frequent but when people do die it goes way over-the-top.” Jack Thursby, Collected Cinema

“Anthology horror is always fun to watch. If one sucks you don’t have to wait long for it to be over. All three stories are well done with only ‘The Gas Station’ dragging a bit. That segment is worth it just to watch Wes Craven as the leering old man looking to buy some smokes from the gas station. This was supposed to be the start of an ongoing series and it’s too bad that it never saw the light of day. It was fun, creepy and bloody and would have brought something to the small screen that we wouldn’t have been getting that much in 93.” The Film Reel

Posted by Adrian J. Smith using information via Wikipedia which is freely and legally available to share and remix under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. All review quotes are attributed and links are provided to relevant sites or sources. Horrorpedia supports the sharing of information and opinions with the wider horror community.

Wikipedia | IMDb 

“The Morgue”

• John Carpenter as The Coroner
• Tom Arnold as Morgue Worker #1
• Tobe Hooper as Morgue Worker #2

“The Gas Station”

• Robert Carradine as Bill
• Alex Datcher as Anne
• Wes Craven as Pasty Faced Man
• Sam Raimi as Dead Bill
• David Naughton as Pete
• Lucy Boryer as Peggy
• George Buck Flower as Stranger
• Molly Cheek as Divorcee

“Hair”

• Stacy Keach as Richard Coberts
• David Warner as Dr. Lock
• Sheena Easton as Megan
• Dan Blom as Dennis
• Attila as Man with Beautiful Hair
• Kim Alexis as Woman with Beautiful Hair
• Deborah Harry as The Nurse

“Eye”

• Mark Hamill as Brent Matthews
• Twiggy as Cathy Matthews
• John Agar as Dr. Lang
• Roger Corman as Dr. Bregman
• Charles Napier as Baseball Team Manager
• Eddie Velez as Baseball Player

Sharktopus Versus Mermantula is a 2013 horror film directed by Kevin O’Neill (Dinocroc; Dinoshark), who is currently also working post-production on Sharktopus Versus Pteracuda. Scripted by Matt Yamashita, the leads are Casper Van Dien (Sleepy Hollow; The Pact) and his real-life partner Catherine Oxenberg (The Lair of the White Worm). The movie is a sequel to Sharktopus (2010) and — like Sharktopus Versus Pteracuda – and has seemingly been rushed into production by It is being produced by veteran genre filmmaker Roger Corman for his New Horizons company in response to the massive social media interest in Syfy’s Sharknado film.

In order to defeat Sharktopus, former basketball player Ray Brady, is injected with a serum that transforms his genetic make-up to become part man, part piranha and part tarantula. Ray’s first attempt to vanquish Sharktopus proves unsuccessful, so Ray injects himself with a super growth hormone, increasing his strength ten fold. Then he’s  ready for a final showdown with Sharktopus in a baseball stadium.

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House of Usher (also known as The Fall of the House of Usher) is a 1960 American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, and Mark Damon. The film was directed by Roger Corman and its screenplay written by Richard Matheson from the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. The film was the first of eight Corman/Poe feature films. The film was important in the history of American International Pictures which up until then had specialised in making low budget black and white films to go out on double bills. In 2005, the film was listed with the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) travels to the House of Usher, a desolate mansion surrounded by a murky swamp, to meet his fiancée Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). Madeline’s brother Roderick (Vincent Price) opposes Philip’s intentions, telling the young man that the Usher family is afflicted by a cursed bloodline which has driven all their ancestors to madness. Roderick foresees the family evils being propagated into future generations with a marriage to Madeline and vehemently discourages the union. Philip becomes increasingly desperate to take Madeline away; she agrees to leave with him, desperate to get away from her brother.

During a heated argument with her brother, Madeline suddenly dies and is laid to rest in the family crypt beneath the house. As Philip is preparing to leave following the entombment, the butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), lets slip that Madeline suffered from catalepsy, a condition which can make its sufferers appear dead. Philip rips open Madeline’s coffin and finds it empty…

Wikipedia | IMDb 

Arrow Video Blu-ray Disc Special Features:

• Limited Edition SteelBookTM packaging
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary with director and producer Roger Corman
• Interview with director and former Corman apprentice Joe Dante
• Through the Pale Door: A Specially-commissioned video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns examining Corman s film in relation to Poe s story
• Archival interview with Vincent Price
• Original Trailer
• Collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by author and critic Tim Lucas and an extract from Vincent Price s long out of print autobiography, illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Buy House of Usher on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

‘Roger Corman never made any other of his Edgar Allan Poe films with the same successful balance of mood and design that he achieved here. What Corman did was to undercut the floridness of Hammer Gothic with the moody intellectual angst of Ingmar Bergman – Corman was a great admirer of Bergman and you can see Bergman’s influence on his work, particularly in The Masque of the Red Death. It resulted in a form that achieved a level of moodily gloom-laden and thunderously overwrought melodrama. Corman accomplishes some nicely subtle effects at times but mostly House of Usher succeeds on its own level of torturous angst – the climax with Vincent Price and the crazed Myrna Fahey fighting as the house burns around them and the house’s final descent to be swallowed up in the tarn is superlative.’ Moria

‘Visually the film is a flurry of rich colour and lighting, with velvet reds and purples being juxtaposed to the grey, crumbling walls and windows. Corman often puts dream sequences into his films and House of Usher is no different with possibly his scariest sequence involving paintings of the family that come to life and have a horribly eerie sound to them. Like most objects in the house, they house an evil in them from the past, often portrayed with Ligeti like vocals in the soundtrack reminiscent (or foreshadowing) the sounds of the stargate sequence from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.’ Adam Scovell, Celluloid Wicker Man

‘ … a masterwork of gothic horror, one of the best such films ever made in America. As mentioned, most of this is due to Price’s masterful performance and Corman’s ability to squeeze the most from a small budget. While not flashy or innovative, his direction is sure-handed in establishing mood and creating atmosphere, letting Price and Matheson’s fine, intelligent script do the rest. There are some nice visuals here to be sure; one scene — the crazed Madeline is caught in a flash of lightning, bloody fingers raised like claws before her face, then lowering them to reveal her maddened gaze — is positively Bava-esque.’ Brian Lindsey, Eccentric Cinema

Buy The Vincent Price Collection on Blu-ray from Amazon.com

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Paul Blaisdell was an American artist, sculptor and actor, best known for his creations for some of the early Science Fiction creature features made by Roger Corman. Despite the meagre budgets he was confined to, he is responsible for some of the most recognisable monsters of the late 50′s.

Blaisdell, born in 1927, began his career in Newport, Rhode Island as an enthusiastic artist with little recognition, making his way financially by repairing typewriters. His fascination for drawing monsters in particular did not lead to offers that prevented a stint in the army, though on his return to civilian life, he began to get his work published in the many lurid pulp magazines of the time, including the likes of Spaceways and Other Worlds. These paintings found at least one admirer of note, the redoubtable horror enthusiast and publisher, Forrest J. Ackerman, who offered to become his agent. This meeting of great minds was to lead to his true calling.

Elsewhere in America, prolific film-maker, Roger Corman had stretched himself to the limit whilst making the film, The Beast With A Million Eyes, running out of funds at the somewhat critical point of constructing the ocular-heavy monster. Approaching Ackerman for inspiration, he was first offered Ray Harryhausen as a port of call but his remaining $200 was nowhere near the going rate. Last chance saloon came in the form of Blaisdell whose acceptably low fees and imaginative creations appealed to Corman’s outlandish ideals.

Whilst only possessing two eyes (Corman superimposed eyes over the top) the resulting beast, nicknamed “Little Hercules”, is an 18 inch marionette, designed to be a slave of the actual many-eyed threat. Complete with tiny raygun and shackles, despite him being largely obscured by Corman’s whirling effects, it was enough to convince Corman that Blaisdell had the talent and necessarily low cost of being his comrade-in-arms.

The film that followed, The Day The World Ended, required rather more input, necessitating Blaisdell to not only design the creature but to bring it to life onscreen. Requiring a hideous, radioactive mutant from the dizzy far-off year of 1970 (this time christened Marty), Blaisdell constructed a monster from foam rubber and cast his own body so that the suit could be built around himself., a pair of long-johns donned accordingly. Two obvious issues arose from this; the first, that Blaisdell was only 5’7″, not the towering mutant imagined – fortunately, the head added a significant lift. Secondly, the nature of the foam rubber meant that during the rain-filled climax of the film, the suit’s interior swelled up enormously, coming close to drowning the actor inside; pre-velcro, he was literally glued in. Regardless, the film is one of the better efforts of the era and the innovation of the artist encasing himself in his own creation was deemed a huge success.

It Conquered The World is undoubtedly one of Corman’s most enjoyable sci-fi romps and features an iconic if ludicrous invader from beyond. Suffering the usual significant issues on-set due to money and time (as well as forgetting to bring the required lights!), Corman had ditched the intended glimpses of the cave-dwelling monster and dragged it kicking and screaming — perhaps not kicking, thinking about it — into the bring Los Angeles sunshine. Hidden within the rubber teepee-like alien, “Beulah”, the good Mrs Blaisdell insisted her husband don an army helmet to protect during a scene where is is charged by a bayonet-wielding army character. Just as well as the foam rubber provided little defense and would most likely have killed him in the most ignominious of circumstances had he not taken her advice. Ingeniously, Blaisdell had created a bicycle-chain/air pump system to operate Beulah’s limbs from inside but an onset ‘incident’ snapped the cables, leaving a slightly foppish-looking triangular imp thrashing around onscreen, Corman disallowing time for the appropriate repairs.

“Cuddles”, the She-Creature of Corman’s 1956 effort, broke new ground, seeing Blaisdell make a whole plaster cast of his own body and sculpting his design on top, only assisted by his wife in their garage. Not stinting on the scaly breasts, the creature is comfortably the most interesting and memorable aspect of the film and has become iconic even among monster/sci-fi fans who haven’t seen the film. The suit reappears in the last film Blaisdell worked on, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.

Further designs appeared in Attack of the Crab Monsters (just the one crab, this was Corman, after all) and Not of This Earth, but it his effects for the films It! The Terror From Beyond Space and Invasion of the Saucer Men, for which Blaisdell is best known. The stomping lizard-man of It! was designed to fit the diminutive artist but was actually intended for the large-chinned actor, Ray Corrigan, who was not at all happy with his lot. The mask’s mouth had to be opened so that he could breathe and his more importantly get his chin to fit.  Disguising the chin by painting it red and adapting it as the monster’s tongue, teeth were added to obscure the bodge job; lit-up eyes abandoned so he could see where he was stomping. Some scenes even see the actor adjusting the head so he could cope.

The huge latex and styrofoam heads of the invaders of Saucer Men fame, appeared comedic even by this standard of Corman’s career. The horror and drama rather ended up as a teen movie, though the creatures are now instantly evocative of everything that is science fiction from the 50′s.

Though his designs were also used in films such as War of the Colossal Beast, Attack of the Puppet People, Earth vs. the Spider (a.k.a., The Spider) and How to Make a Monster, Blaisdell fell out of fashion as quickly as he’d arrived, the rise of Hammer and sleazier American films putting an end to the quaint, otherworldly monsters of the 50′s. His influence however can be seen in the likes of Stan Winston and Rick Baker, who paid tribute to him with the work on the film Invaders From Mars.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Excellent in-depth analysis and pics here: www.tor.com

‘They bred the ultimate killing machine… now you’re not safe OUT of the water!’

Piranha II: The Spawning, also known as simply The Spawning and Piranha II: Flying Killers, is a 1981 horror film, the sequel to the 1978 low-budget cult film Piranha, and the feature film directorial debut of James Cameron (The  Terminator, Aliens, Titantic, Avatar).

The original director of Piranha II was Miller Drake. Drake was yet another Roger Corman graduate who had laboured alongside Joe Dante in the New World trailer department — and had essayed the role of “First Mutant” in Dante’s directorial debut, Hollywood Boulevard — before becoming Corman’s de facto head of post-production. Executive producer, Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond the Door, Tentacles) removed Drake from the movie and decided to replace him with James Cameron.

Canadian James Cameron was originally hired as the special effects director (he also apparently re-wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym H. A. Milton). After the first week of shooting, the set harmony was disturbed by some discussions about the work between the director and the producers (the executive producer, Ovidio G. Assonitis, asked to verify the day-to-day activities, arguing with most of Cameron’s choices), so while Cameron was only responsible for the shooting, most of the decisions were under Assonitis’ authority.

Off the coast of a Caribbean island, a young couple flee the hotel to have sex in the sea. But they swim into a sunken wreck which is also a piranha lair and they are both killed and eaten by the unseen predators.

The next day, a group of tourists, including Tyler Sherman, are taking the diving courses provided by Anne Kimbrough, an employee of the Hotel Elysium. One of her divers swims into the wreck, which she has strictly forbidden to her divers. Leaving Tyler to take over and lead the others to the surface, she discovers almost immediately that her ‘missing’ student has swum into the wreck and been killed there when his badly chewed up body is found…

‘Of course, Assonitis wasn’t going to let an untried 27-year-old actually make a movie; he kept a pretty firm grip on the film’s reigns from behind the scenes, and didn’t let Cameron anywhere near the editing room. Which is good, because it means that we can maintain that this isn’t really a James Cameron film, but just sort of a James Cameron exercise. Certainly, no dedicated auteurist nor a Cameron fanboy would be able to take a great deal of joy from Piranha II, a film that bears little resemblance to anything he’d make in the future.’ Antagony & Ecstasy

Posted by Adrian J Smith using information via Wikipedia which is freely and legally available to share and remix under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. All review quotes are attributed and links are provided to relevant sites or sources. Horrorpedia supports the sharing of information and opinions with the wider horror community.

Cast:

• Tricia O’Neil - Anne Kimbrough
• Steve Marachuk – Tyler Sherman
• Lance Henriksen - Steve Kimbrough
• Ricky Paull Goldin - Chris Kimbrough
• Ted Richert – Raoul, Hotel Manager
• Leslie Graves - Allison Dumont
• Ancil Gloudon – Gabby
• Carole Davis - Jai
• Connie Lynn Hadden – Loretta
• Captain Kidd Brewer Jr. – Lou
• Jan Eisner Mannon – Lisa
• Arnie Ross – Mal the Cook
• Tracy Berg – Beverly
• Albert Sanders – Leo Bell, D.D.S.
• Anne Pollack – Mrs. Wilson
• Lee Krug – Ron ‘Ronny’, the Lifeguard
• Sally Ricca – Cindy
• Dorothy Cunningham – Nurse April
• Phil Mullins – Trip Director

The Slumber Party Massacre is a 1982 slasher film produced and directed by Amy Holden Jones and written by feminist Rita Mae Brown as a parody (her original titles were Don’t Open the Door and Sleepless Nights). It stars Michele Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, Debra Deliso and Andree Honore. Future Scream Queen Brinke Stevens has a minor role. Amy Holden Jones wanted to direct and asked Frances Doel – then head of the script department at New World Pictures – for advice. She gave Jones a number of scripts one of which was Don’t Open the Door. She saw the first eight pages had a dialogue scene, a suspense scene and a violent action scene, and decided to film them. Her cinematographer husband Michael Chapman got some short ends of film for her and they borrowed some equipment, hired some actors and shot the scenes at their house over a weekend for $1,000. She showed the result to Corman who agreed to finance the film.

There have been three sequels to the movie: Slumber Party Massacre II, Slumber Party Massacre III and Cheerleader Massacre. The film is included on The Massacre Collection DVD, which also includes Sorority House Massacre, Sorority House Massacre II and Hard to Die. Jason Paul Collum directed the documentary Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres (2010).

Trish Devereaux (Michelle Michaels), an 18 year-old senior decides to throw a slumber party while her parents are away for the weekend and their neighbor Mr. Contant (Rigg Kennedy) is given the job of checking in on the girls during the night. That morning, she gets up, dresses and heads to school. Meanwhile, a mass murderer with a fondness for power drills, Russ Thorn (Michael Villella), has escaped from prison, kills a telephone repair woman (Jean Vargas) with a power drill and steals her van. Trish meets up with her friends Kim (Debra Deliso), Jackie (Andree Honore) and Diane (Gina Hunter) and the girls on her basketball team. The new girl, Valerie Bates (Robin Stille) is invited by Trish, but refuses after hearing Diane talking cruelly about her.

Russ Thorn watches the girls leave school from the van and a girl named Linda (Brinke Stevens) goes back inside the school to retrieve a book for a test but is attacked by Thorn and murdered with a power drill. That evening, the party and the bloody decimation begins of the girls, as they smoke pot and talk about boys. Valerie lives next door conveniently and is babysitting her younger sister Courtney (Jennifer Meyers). Diane’s boyfriend John (Jim Boyce) and two other guys from school Jeff (David Millbern) and Neil (Joe Johnson) arrive who spy on the girls undressing. Thorn kills Mr. Contant, drilling through his neck, and meanwhile, Courtney is begging Valerie to go crash the party, but Valerie protests. Diane begins making out with John in the car and after she gets out to ask Trish permission to go off with John, she comes back to find him decapitated. Diane tries to flee, but is murdered with the drill…

Buy The Slumber Party Massacre on Blu-ray from Amazon.com

“With a cast of ‘teens’ who all look to be in their twenties (but weren’t they all in the 80s?), the film features the standard tropes and cliches of the genre – scantily clad girls, no way to contact the authorities for help, a killer who has an almost supernatural ability to move about the environment and an almost super-human strength – but remember that Slumber Party Massacre was made in 1982 and at the time it was actually a pioneer of the genre, paving the way for the tens of thousands of slasher movies that followed!” Phil Wheat, Nerdly

“Slumber Party Massacre would have been a somewhat better movie had it either been allowed to remain the parody it was meant to be, or received a more thorough rebuild when the satirical intentions were abandoned. Nevertheless, I’m really kind of glad we wound up with this misbegotten half-measure instead. Slasher flicks are as abundant as sparrows, and slasher spoofs are only slightly less common, but I know of nothing else quite like this movie. Try to imagine the results of removing the humor from something without removing the gags. Russ Thorn’s signature weapon, for example, is an electric drill with a helical bit easily a foot and a half long. Russ waving that thing around is actually an effectively dreadful image, but it’s also one that invites the crudest possible Freudian interpretation. And Amy Holden Jones likes to frame her shots of Thorn sticking his tool into women so that the drill is juxtaposed with the killer’s crotch.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“As with most slasher films, the body count is overwhelmingly female: seven girls snuff it, compared to five men. There are long, lingering shots of women soaping themselves in showers; and for teenage girls, the female characters seem to be inordinately fond of lacy, grown-up negligees. But the film’s gender commentary becomes more obvious with the portrayal of Russ Thorn (Michael Villella), the killer driller of the film. He’s no Leatherface; in fact, he resembles a mouth-breathing Spanish teacher in 80s double denim, with a weirdly feminine voice to boot.” Zing Tsjeng,  Dazed Digital

Wikipedia | IMDb

Utero is a 2014 American horror film written and directed by Bryan Coyne (Incarnate). Independently financed by Coinopflix, the film stars Jessica Cameron who is also producing along with her Truth or Dare partner, Jonathan Higgins. Cameron is also known for such films as the Roger Corman produced Camel Spiders and Steven C. Miller’s remake of Silent Night. Former Platinum Studios Exec (Cowboys and Aliens, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night) Richard Marincic also serves as a producer on the film. Also in the cast is Diane Goldner (Feast, The Collector, Halloween II, Pulse 2: Afterlife) and Peter Stickles (Cemetery Gates, Skinned Alive, LizardMan: The Terror of the Swamp).

Plot:

An agoraphobic unwed mother who finds her psyche unraveling as she becomes convinced that her unborn child is more monster than human.

IMDb | Facebook

WH

Bronson Canyon, or Bronson Caves, is a section of Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California that has become famous as a filming location for a large number of movies and TV shows, especially westerns, horror and science fiction, from the early days of motion pictures to the present. Its craggy and remote-looking setting, but easily accessible location, has made it a prime choice for filmmakers, particularly of low-budget films, who want to place scenes in a lonely wilderness. Many of Roger Corman’s productions utilised the canyon location.

In 1903, the Union Rock Company founded a quarry, originally named Brush Canyon. The quarry ceased operation in the late 1920s, leaving the caves behind. The caves became known as the Bronson Caves after a nearby street, giving the area its more popular name of Bronson Canyon.

Scenes of the main cave entrance are normally filmed in a manner that shows the entrance at an angle. This is because the cave is actually a very short tunnel through the hill, with the rear opening easily visible in a direct shot. The most well known appearance of the tunnel entrance is likely as the entrance to the Batcave in the Batman television series of the 1960s.

Selected list of films that used Bronson Canyon as a location:

White Zombie (1932)

The Vampire Bat (1933)

The Monster and the Ape (1945 serial)

Superman (1948 serial)

Unknown World (1951)

Robot Monster (1953)

The Snow Creature (1954)

Killers from Space (1954)

King Dinosaur (1955)

The Day the World Ended (1955)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Man Beast (1956)

It Conquered the World (1956)

Night of the Blood Beast (1957)

The Brain from Planet Arous (1957)

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)

The Cyclops (1957)

I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)

Earth vs. the Spider (1958)

Monster from Green Hell (1958)

The Bride and the Beast (1958)

The Return of Dracula (1958)

Teenage Caveman (1958)

Monster from Green Hell (1958)

Invisible Invaders (1959)

The Cosmic Man (1959)

Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)

The Cape Canaveral Monsters (1960)

Eegah (1962)

Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)

They Saved Hitler’s Brain (Madmen of Mandoras) (1963)

The Human Duplicators (1965)

The Mighty Gorga (1969)

One Million AC/DC (1969)

Dracula, The Dirty Old Man (1969)

Equinox (1970)

Octaman (1971)

Flesh Gordon (1974)

Help Me… I’m Possessed (1976)

Deathsport (1978)

Don’t Go Near the Park (1979)

The Return (1980)

Screamers (1981 – additional New World footage added to 1979 Italian movie Isle of the Fishmen)

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)

Gayracula (1983)

Dreamscape (1984)

The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984)

Demonwarp (1988)

The Nest (1988)

The Phantom Empire (1988)

Lobster Man from Mars (1989)

Shadowzone (1990)

Army of Darkness (1992)

Screamers (1995)

The Wasp Woman (1995, remake)

Sometimes They Come Back… Again (1996)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

Cabin Fever (2002)

Fangs (2002)

The Scorpion King (2002)

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

Vampire Blvd. (2004)

The Naked Monster (2005)

Abominable (2006)

Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2010)

Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus (2010)

The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012)

Return of the Killer Shrews (2012)

Wikipedia | IMDb | Ellis Gooson’s Bronson Canyon Tripod page (via Bill Warren)

Tower of London is a 1962 historical drama and horror film, starring Vincent Price, Michael Pate (The Black Castle, Curse of the Undead, The Marsupials: The Howling III), Robert Brown, Charles Macaulay, Joan Freeman, Morris Ankrum (The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mora Tau, How to Make a Monster), Sandra Knight (Frankenstein’s Daughter, Blood Bath). Directed by Roger Corman, the film was written by Leo Gordon, F. Amos Powell, and Robert E. Kent, and produced by Gene Corman and Edward Small Productions. Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Twixt) worked on it as dialogue director.

The film is a highly fictionalised account of the rise to power and eventual downfall of King Richard III of England, freely combining elements derived from the plots of William Shakespeare’s plays Richard III and Macbeth. It is also an adaptation of the 1939 film of the same name, starring Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff and Price. The 1962 version contains The Battle of Bosworth scenes from the 1939 film.

Plot teaser:

Richard, the duke of Gloucester (Vincent Price), is dismayed when his dying brother King Edward IV names their brother George, Duke of Clarence as Protector to his young son and heir, Prince Edward. Richard wants the position himself, to become de facto ruler after his brother’s death. He secretly stabs George to death with a dagger bearing the crest of the Woodville family, framing the dying king’s in-laws. Richard is now named Protector. His wife Anne approves of his crime and encourages him to take the throne for himself.

After the death of King Edward, Richard tries to achieve his ends by intimidating the widowed queen’s lady-in-waiting Mistress Shore into claiming that the dead king’s two children are illegitimate. She refuses, and Richard tortures her…

Reviews:

“What’s most surprising is that a director better known for movies like Attack of the Crab Monsters and The Little Shop of Horrors actually does a pretty good job with this lowbrow reinterpretation. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, though, when you think about it. Seriously, if you strip away the blank verse and the Elizabethan grammar, England’s most famous playwright has more in common with a B-movie shlockmeister than your high school English teacher would care to admit. Sex, suicide, Satanism, child murder, torture, toilet humor… am I talking about William Shakespeare, or am I talking about Joe D’Amato?” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“Vincent Price’s meltdown into tortured guilt comes at the beginning rather than toward the end as it might in any other film, which tends to tip the dramatic balance of the story the wrong way. The rest of the time Roger Corman focuses on the Grand Guignol sadism and torture set-pieces – a cage filled with rats placed on a victim’s head, a woman tortured on a rack, Richard drowning his brother in a barrel of wine. As such, Tower of London proves modestly entertaining.” Moria: Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Review

“Tower of London works as a curiosity piece foremost. It’s also a fairly solid film that’s carried by a great, smarmy performance by Price, who spends most of the time being an asshole that kills people (he’s even tricked into killing people he doesn’t want to!). Obviously, it lacks the elegance of Shakespeare, but it is one of the classier pictures Corman ever helmed.” Brett Gallman, Oh, the Horror!

“The low budget is all too apparent, and despite a transfusion of graphic violence and ghostly apparitions, Corman hits the mark only occasionally.” Gene Wright, Horrorshows: The A – Z of Horror in Film, TV, Radio and Theater

Buy Tower of London on MGM Midnite Movies DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Buy Crab Monsters, Cave Men and Candy Stripe Nurses book from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia | IMDb | Related: Theatre of Blood

‘Attacked …by a creature from Hell!’

Day the World Ended aka The Day the World Ended (1955) was produced and directed by Roger Corman. Rick (Richard Denning) is a heroic scientist who, among others, must face off against a mutant monster (Paul Blaisdell) after an atomic war destroys human civilisation. It was remade in 1967 with the title In the Year 2889 by Larry Buchanan with the dialogue repeated almost entirely verbatim. The film is referred to in a 2001 horror film of almost the same title, The Day the World Ended.

Plot teaser:

Following an all-out atomic war, which has apparently destroyed most (if not all) human civilization, the Earth  is left contaminated with radioactive fallout. The apparent single exception is a box canyon, surrounding by lead-bearing cliffs, in which former Navy Commander Jim Maddison, lives with his daughter, Louise, in a home stocked with supplies against just such a holocaust. Into this natural bomb shelter come stumbling several survivors, who just by chance were inside the canyon when the war occurred. After initially refusing to admit the others, Jim relents when his daughter pleads with him and appeals to his humanity. Among the survivors are a geologist, Rick (Richard Denning), who just by coincidence happens to specialize in uranium mining, and a small-time hood, Tony (Mike Connors - billed in the film as “Touch” Connors),with his “moll” Ruby, on their way to San Francisco…

Reviews:

” … I was also impressed by Corman’s insight that post-apocalyptic life in the 1950’s would surely be informed in roughly equal measure by 20th-century science and the sort of theologically vague Protestantism that was an ever-present undercurrent in American life in those days. I just wish some of the neat ideas on display here had been explored in greater depth.explored in greater depth.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“Day the World Ended is made on a painfully low budget. The photography and lighting is crude and Corman’s camera set-ups are virtually static. The film almost takes place like a stage play in a single setting – in the opening scene, the characters even make their entrance on cue one after the other like actors in a drawing room drama. It is a cheap and shoddy film. It is however conducted with an undeniable vigour and a conviction in itself. Paul Birch gives a fine hard-edged performance as the captain, and one does not doubt for a moment that everybody involved believed the pronouncements about the future that the film makes.” Moria

“On the small scale as well as the large, we find hints in Day The World Ended that Corman was just beginning to come into his own as a director, such as some thoughtful – and what we can now recognise as typical – character bits; while in the symbolic use made of the comedy / tragedy masks that hang upon the Maddisons’ lounge-room wall, we also see the earliest stirrings of his taste for actual art, which would later manifest itself in quite unexpected ways, although always in severe philosophical conflict with his overriding desire to save a buck.” And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

Buy How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime by Roger Corman from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Cast and characters:

• Richard Denning as Rick
• Lori Nelson as Louise Maddison
• Adele Jergens as Ruby
• Mike Connors as Tony Lamont (as Touch Connors)
• Paul Birch as Jim Maddison
• Raymond Hatton as Pete
• Paul Dubov as Radek
• Jonathan Haze as the Contaminated Man
• Paul Blaisdell as the Mutant
• Roger Corman as Nelson, Louise’s Fiancee in Framed Photograph (uncredited)
• Chet Huntley as Narrator (voice) (uncredited)

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Terror strikes… from beneath the sea!’

Monster from the Ocean Floor (original title: It Stalked the Ocean Floor) is a 1954 low budget science fiction horror film about a sea monster that terrorizes a cove in Mexico. The film was directed by Wyott Ordung (screenwriter on Target Earth; First Man into Space and director of Walk the Dark Street). It starred Anne Kimbell and Stuart Wade. Wade also starred in other low-budget films during the decade including Tarantula (1955), and Teenage Monster (1958). Producer Roger Corman also appeared in a cameo in the film; it was the first film that he solo-produced.

“The monster was actually a puppet shot behind a cloudy fish tank. I certainly had no money for process shots, where the action is rear-projected onto a screen and the actors play to it onstage.” Roger Corman, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime

Plot teaser:

Julie Blair (Kimbell) is an American vacationing at a sea-side village in Mexico. She hears stories about a man-eating creature dwelling in the cove. She meets Dr. Baldwin (Dick Pinner), a marine biologist, and they fall for one another. The mysterious death of a diver interests Julie in investigating, but Baldwin is very skeptical. She sees a giant amoeba rising from the ocean…

Reviews:

“Monster from the Ocean Floor isn’t just low budget, it’s minuscule budget, yet the use of so much location footage adds a real edge of verisimilitude. At just over an hour it’s watchable and generally entertaining, despite its unforgivable depiction of Mexicans as hysterical drunkands. The monster is a cheap yet oddly amusing creation and his demise – stabbed in the eye with a mini sub – is brilliantly bad. Pseudo-scientific dialogue also adds an air of authenticity that is missing from some of the bigger budgeted 50s monster movies. Low rent and a portend of Corman’s aquatic horrors to come… ” Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

“Roger Corman was absolutely right. A sufficiently careful producer could make a modestly entertaining and effective movie on Monster from the Ocean Floor’s pocket-change budget, and Corman in fact did so here. It’s true that the 64-minute running time helps a lot, and that another half-hour this heavily freighted with placid scuba-diving footage would have been straight-up lethal. It’s true again that Jonathan Haze and Wyott Ordung make Speedy Gonzalez look like a paragon of ethnic sensitivity with their impersonations of Mexican watermen, and that it is impossible to square the appearance of the utterly adorable monster puppet…” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“This, then, is Monster from the Ocean Floor, a film with, I would contend, a few virtues – just a few – even aside from the purely historical: a nice lead performance; good use of its locations, and attractively moody photography (so it ought to be: this film was shot by Floyd Crosby – only two years after High Noon!); some interesting character touches; the first appearance of a future Corman stock player, Jonathan Haze (who hides behind an aggressively “Mexican” moustache)….” And You Call Yourself a Scientist!

“Wyott Ordung’s direction is dull and prosaic. Not much happens and even less that is exciting. There are some particularly bad performances from the actors playing the Mexicans, who are all caricatured like movie cliches of American Indians, speaking without any articles. The production has been mounted with the characteristic penny-pinching economy that Roger Corman became famous for. To this extent, we only ever see a single shot of the monster – a glowing, single-eyed octopus emerging out of the ocean (and even then only ever in long distance).” Moria

Buy How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime by Roger Corman from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Choice dialogue: “Happy monstering!”

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks to Héritage Montréal

‘They made bad art. And now it’s pissed off’

Art School of Horrors is a 2015 American comedy horror film directed by Thijs Bazelmans from a screenplay by Maria Haras and Matt Yamashita (Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda). It stars Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator; From Beyond; Would You Rather), Matthew Jacobs (co-writer of Paperhouse), Kenny Leu, Mark Haptonstall, Mari Saleh, Sarah Rose Butler, Zach Eulberg.

The film is a New Horizons (Sharktopus) production for Roger Corman‘s company and is scheduled for release on January 14, 2015. 

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The Undead is a 1957 horror film directed by Roger Corman from a screenplay by Charles B. Griffith – which he originally wrote it in iambic pentameter and says Corman loved at first but then grew cold feet about and asked to be changed. It stars Pamela Duncan, Richard Garland, Allison Hayes, and Val Dufour.

The film was inspired by an interest in supposed reincarnation inspired by the best-selling book The Search for Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein was made into a film in 1956. This prompted The She-Creature in 1956. However by the time The Undead was being made, the popularity of reincarnation was starting to dwindle. Therefore Corman decided that they needed to change it up a little and added the time travel elements of Quintis, and a title change.

The movie was filmed in a converted supermarket, and was completed in only six days. Its original title was The Trance of Diana Love. The bats that the imp and witch continually change into were left over from another Corman movie, It Conquered the World.

Plot teaser:

A psychic named Quintus Ratcliff (Val Dufour) sends prostitute Diana Love (Pamela Duncan) back in time to find out about her past-life experiences. She goes back as Helene, a woman from the Middle Ages who is to die at dawn under suspicion of being a witch. In an attempt to save Diana and keep all of time from being distorted, Quintis goes back in time to convince Helene to let herself be killed. If she avoids her death, it will change history…

Reviews:

“The Undead is only a horror movie in the loosest sense of the phrase, really more a playful fantasia on the traditional imagery of folk-tale mysticism with its parade of Halloween-party witches, pseudo-Arthurian setting, and pitchfork-wielding devil collecting souls with his ledger book. Incredibly cheap and lacking drive, The Undead nonetheless betrays the antic intelligence of Corman and his regular screenwriting collaborators Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hannah, in a film that feels something like a rough draft for The Twilight Zone, down to the blackly comic twist ending.” This Island Rod

“Interesting performances include Bruno Ve Sota as the innkeeper Scroop and Mel Welles as Smolkin, a gravedigger channeling a similar graveyard rat from Hamlet. Also Dick Miller turns in a fine cameo as a leper who sells his soul to the Devil. After signing Satan’s book, the crude trident is tattooed on his hand and is always interesting to watch. Monster-maker and Mon-star Paul Blaisdell also appears as a corpse in the hearse driven by Mel Welles. Fifties scream-queen Allison Hayes enjoys a meaty role in The Undead and plays evil and misunderstood in love equally well.” DVD Drive-In

“Minor league horror programmer. A retrogression theme and bosomy dames are used in this … horror subjects as ballyhooed pegs for quickie play dates … the pacing is slow and the thrills at a minimum” Variety

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: This Island Rod

Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda is a 2014 American horror film directed by Kevin O’Neill (Dinocroc; Dinoshark) from a screenplay by Matt Yamashita (Art School of Horrors) for Roger Corman’s New Horizons Pictures. It stars Robert Carradine (Humanoids from the Deep (1996); Monster Night; Slumber Party Slaughter), Katie Savoy, Rib Hillis (Piranhaconda; 616: Paranormal Incident; Cowboys vs Dinosaurs), Tony Evangelista, Hector Then, Hensy Pichardo.

The film is one of two sequels to the hit Sharktopus, the other being Sharktopus vs. Mermantula, also directed by O’Neill. It is due to be screened by Syfy in July as part of their ‘Sharknado’ festival to celebrate sharksploitation in general and the unleashing of Sharknado 2: The Second One in particular.

Plot teaser:

The offspring of Sharktopus goes into battle with the latest science experiment “Pteracuda” – half pteradactyl, half barracuda – in a challenge for monster supremacy…

IMDb | Thanks: Dread Central