Eye On Horror
Eye On Horror
Roger Corman: King of Cinema
This week, the boys review In a Violent Nature, Jacob is a lucky bastard and gets to see an early screening of Oz Perkins' Longlegs, as well as First Time Viewing Reviews of Manchurian Candidate 1962, Dirty Harry, and Masters of the Universe!
The boys then spend most of the episode talking about the massive impact Roger Corman has had on film and the impact his films had on them. From firsts to favorites, we salute the man who has always been King of so much more than B-Movies. It's all new on EYE ON HORROR!
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Welcome to eye on horror, the official podcast of ihorror.com. This is episode 127 otherwise known as season seven. Episode Eight. I am your host, James J Edwards, and with me, as always, is your other host. Jacob Davison, how you doing? Jacob,
Jacob Davidson:sleepy. It's, it's June Gloom, so it's like not even really daylight out, even though it's the morning,
James Jay Edwards:yeah, but it's still pretty early in the morning. We're
Jacob Davidson:doing that too,
James Jay Edwards:yep. Scheduling with three people is, is, is a little hard. Um, speaking of three people also with us, as always, is your other other hosts, Jon Correia, how you doing? Correia,
Jonathan Correia:your favorite third wheel? I'm doing pretty good.
Jacob Davidson:We're a tricycle.
Jonathan Correia:Yeah, more like one of those. Like, you know, two wheels of the front, one wheel the back. Type of motorcycles, like, what Kenny Powers rides. You know, Eastbound & Down.
James Jay Edwards:But let's, let's jump into it. Um, the big release this week, and I know all three of us have seen it, is In A Violent Nature. Yes, yep. What do you guys think of in a violent nature?
Jacob Davidson:Oh, I loved it. I did do it was one of the most entertaining slasher movies I've seen theatrically in some time, and it was just very inventive. Because, you know, the whole shtick is, is that it's kind of a Friday 13th, Burnings backwood slasher movie, but you're mostly following the killer, so it's a lot of silence and lot of buildup. But when goes down, people get killed. It is insane and over the top of like there was one particular kill where a guy in the audience actually yelled, Jesus Christ, stop.
James Jay Edwards:I was and I know the one with the girl who was doing yoga, right? Yeah, the yoga, yeah, the one I that's the thing the kills in this are so brutal. And I was thinking to myself, it's kind of like the bear attack in the Revenant or the assault scene, and I Spit on Your Grave where, like, you're just going, okay, she's she's dead. Stop. Yeah. I've
Jacob Davidson:also seen some comparisons to Terrifier. Oh yeah,
James Jay Edwards:yeah. It's like that. It's like, Dude, you made your point. She's dead. Oh my god.
Jonathan Correia:But the difference with this film and those is because it is from the killer's perspective. So so much of it you're just sitting in the moment because it won't cut away too much. And that's, that's one of the things I really appreciate, because it really does come off like a Friday 13th sequel from the killer's perspective. And then, so it's like, All right, so what's that like? Well, there's a lot of cardio, there's a lot of walking, you know, but with that, there's no fancy editing, cutting around, like, the special effects, or, uh, around the kill. So it's not like, boom, boom, boom. It's all right, he's dragging the body. And now you're like, you're in the moment, you're in the violence. And it's so much more unsettling that way, because even the kills that aren't that like, over the top or crazy. You're just, you're you're in it, and so you have to, you have to sit with it. And I think that's, that's that's so powerful when you do that with violence and key and do it in a way where it's not flashy, where it's not showing off or anything, where it's like the reality of it kind of sits with you even more. And I think especially the the wood splitter scene,
Jacob Davidson:oh yeah, that's
James Jay Edwards:the other one where you're just going, Dude, he's dead already.
Jonathan Correia:It's just one angle. There's not there's not much cuts or anything, and you're just sitting there, and you're like, aren't you supposed to be doing something else right now? But like, why are you still with this spot? That's
James Jay Edwards:the thing. If, if you've ever wondered what Jason is doing when he's not stalking and slicing up, you know, campers, this movie shows you, it's he's just kind of cruising around in the woods until he finds someone to stalk and slice it, I mean. And the thing is, it is, like you said, it's a bunch of long takes. And it's not really from the killer's point of view so much, you know, it's not like maniac that the Maniac remake, where you're seeing it through his eyes the camera is like, it's almost like a third person shooter, where the camera's behind him and you're just kind of following him around, but he's in every scene the killer is, and so, you know, and there's these long takes, you know, it there's, there's very little editing in that regard, and there's no music. There's no score at all. So, like you said, there's a lot of silence. And I think I saw it in the perfect possible way, because it was a theater. It was a theatrical showing. There were only maybe 10 other People, if that it might have been like six or eight in the theater. So I got to see it on a big screen in the dark, and everyone was was dead quiet, except there was one kill where people laughed, which is inevitable in a slasher movie, but the silence and the the atmosphere is it's vital to this movie, you know, I mean, it's better without a score, which I will never, ever say that, but in but I will in this case. And
Jonathan Correia:there's a few kills where, there they do go over the top, and it is a bit, there's a couple of really silly moments, but it's, it's perfect that way, because I was really terrified when that first trailer came out. I was really scared of like, because everyone's like, Oh, we finally get an elevated horror slasher, elevated horror slasher film. And you guys, we all agree how much we hate the term elevated horror. And so I my initial thought was, I don't want that. I don't want this. Um, I saw a few reactions from friends that really enjoyed it, and I saw one friend of mine who just said, it's a classic slasher from a different perspective. Yeah. And I went, all right, I'll give it a shot. And that's clearly what an Everything about it was, was not by the books, but it was in that world, just in just that simple thought of, we're going to do it from the killer's perspective. How do you do that without doing like a monolog, like there was no, oh no, they took my mom's necklace. I gotta go get no, it was just by the camera, how it was shot, and it was done so well, the exposition,
James Jay Edwards:the way that they lay out, you still learn about the killer's mythology because of what he overhears from the and it is. It feels like a lost Friday the 13th movie. It's a complete Friday the 13th, The Burning, you know, Final Terror ripoff. It is a bunch of, you know, not teenagers, they're older than that, but a bunch of young people in the woods and a killer stalking them and killing them. It is a formula slasher. It's the perspective that's what's different. And the thing is, I the approach is elevated, like you say, you know, like, like you said, we hate that word, but, but it is a slasher. And the kills are Chris Nash, the director is a special effects guy. So the kills are, you know, I mean, buckets of blood and guts in this movie.
Jacob Davidson:Yeah, no, although I wouldn't even call it ripoff, because it is clearly, you know, paying homage to those films, while I also think it did a good job of kind of establishing its own mythology. Because, yeah, we do hear the whole backstory about the killer whose name is Johnny so, you know, just setting itself apart from that. But yeah, no, it just kind of takes a lot of those traditional elements from those summer camp slasher campfire stories type things. And I really also want to emphasize how much I like the esthetic of the killer, because the whole thing with the old school fire mask and the the signature weapon, with the tree lumber chain hooks and the ax. You know, I feel like that was a good combo. So it's, it did a great job of showing what it was drawing from while still standing on its own.
James Jay Edwards:Oh, yeah. I mean, there I was comparing it to that, that rash of Friday the 13th ripoffs that came out in the 80s. Oh, of course, I don't know that this. I mean, it kind of is a ripoff, but it's, it's, it's kind of like you said, it's more of an homage, because it is. It feels like it could have been from that era
Jacob Davidson:of, yeah, and Lord knows, we're not getting an actual Friday 13th anytime soon. So I enjoyed the hell out of this. What? What?
Jonathan Correia:What do you mean? We're not getting a Friday 13th soon, aren't the you know, there's definitely no problems with the rights there.
Jacob Davidson:Yeah, no, which, it's funny too, because of the timing, because Shawn S. Cunningham even said, like, you know, it's going to probably be a few years before they we ever see a Friday 13th thing, because they want a big budget for it or something. And then you see something like this, which was made, you know, clearly, on a wing and a prayer, and Canadian, uh, grant money. And it just goes to show that, you know, there's no beating the traditional formula where, you know, just you get bunch of people out in the wilderness and a killer and a bunch of gore, and, boom, you got it. Well,
James Jay Edwards:even the first, the Good Friday the 13th, you know, the the original Paramount ones. Those were dirt cheap, you know, yeah, you don't need a big budget for in fact, a big budget probably would make it start looking like Freddy Vs. Jason too slick, yeah. You know, for a Friday the 13th movie, you
Jonathan Correia:know what I was really happy about it wasn't meta. I was, I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit over meta. Uh, I'm at least in in lazy meta. I should actually clarify. I'm over the laziness that can happen with that. And I swear, if there was one bit where someone went. Well, this is, like one of those slasher films. I would have walked out like, that's, that's, it's, I'm over
James Jay Edwards:it. It would have been so easy for them to do that in this movie, too. So, yeah, this is like a horror movie, you know. But, yeah, you're right. They didn't, you know about as many as it gets, is it? You know, there's it basically, is a, it's a scene out of, was it Friday the 13th part three, where they, where they basically catch you up with, with them sitting around the fire. That scene is straight out of that, where they tell his mythology, but even then, they don't say, and it's like he's a horror movie villain, you know? They just say, you know, the here's what this guy does. And
Jonathan Correia:I dug, and I dug stuff like that. Like, they, they, yeah, they had the whole backstory said by campfire. Like, it's a campfire telling everyone's like, now why they're like, and then like, later on, you've, uh, encountered someone who encountered him one of the previous times he came back and was a survivor. And it's like, oh, so this is straight up a sequel. I love it. So it's yeah, In A Violent Nature was just so much fun and was really great.
James Jay Edwards:You're all, this is the sequel. So are we going to get an In A Violent Nature prequel?
Jacob Davidson:Who knows? Maybe we'll get a sequel to this
James Jay Edwards:sequel. It does, you know, not to spoil anything, but it does leave it open in traditional slasher movie style. Jacob also saw something that I really, really, really want to hear about.
Jacob Davidson:Oh yeah, I was at a Secret Screening at the arrow theater that turned out to be for the upcoming Oz Perkins movie, Long Legs, starring Nicholas Cage and Michael Monroe. Also, interestingly enough, I saw in the credits that Nicholas Cage also produced the movie, so it just really puts things in a perspective.
Jonathan Correia:Hell yeah, that's awesome. If you spoil any plot details,
James Jay Edwards:oh no, great. It's like, I want to hear about this, but I don't want to hear about,
Jacob Davidson:oh, yeah, no, don't. Don't worry. I won't. I won't spread a single detail about it. Yeah, in fact, I don't even really want to talk about the plot so much like I because the marketing for long legs has been brilliant in how minimalist it's been, you know, just they've done those weird little teasers with like the Bible verses and the cryptic imagery. And it does kind of paint a picture of what kind of movie this is, because it is very much nightmare logic. It's a bad dream on celluloid. And I really like that type of thing, because ostensibly, it's about FBI agents after a serial killer. But it's more than that. Does it
James Jay Edwards:use the T Rex song that they've been quoting in the email pushes for the Bang a Gong to black. Don't look back. Okay. Yes,
Jacob Davidson:it does use the band T Rex in the soundtrack. So cool. Yeah, now that that is a that is a point, also just again, without going into it too much, I think this might be Nicolas Cage's most disturbing role, or horrifying, again, I don't want to get into it too much, but it has been weighing on me. It has been something I've been thinking about a lot, especially in his his appearance, which, again, hasn't really been shown in the trailers or teasers, and just his mannerisms, it's hard to describe, but yeah, I scared the hell out of me like there were, there were parts that made me jump in my seat. I screamed. It does have some amazing setups and scares.
James Jay Edwards:A few years ago, when Wild at Heart got came out on Blu ray through shout, a friend of mine was like saying, oh, that's when Nicholas Cage was making interesting movies. And I almost feel like the last few years Nicholas Cage has been like challenge accepted because he's doing, you know, things like Dream Scenario and and like, you know, immeasurable the unbearable, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Yeah, he's been making really cool stuff the last few years. And I can't wait to see Longlegs.
Jacob Davidson:And last year he got to be Dracula, and in Renfield.
James Jay Edwards:Yeah, Dracula. We've seen him as a vampire.
Jacob Davidson:Though, make a good vampire.
Jonathan Correia:I'm a vampire. I'm a vampire.
Jacob Davidson:But yeah, no, like, Longlegs is legit. One of the scariest movies I've seen this year. And Oz Perkins does amazing stuff, especially with just creating a sense of dread, you know, just like just very, very unease while watching his works. Because I still haven't seen Gretel and Hansel, but I did see The Blackcoat's Daughter, and I feel like it's kind of not. Exactly a similar style, but, you know, it's like a friend of mine reviewed The Exorcist and talked about how scary it was, because it just feels like a movie that is evil. And I feel like that's the similar situation with Longlegs like watching it. It did feel like I was watching something that was exuding like the essence of evil was very haunting.
Jonathan Correia:What's Nick Cage's quote in Mandy about evil, crazy evil, crazy evil. Or,
Jacob Davidson:yeah, yeah, crazy evil.
Jonathan Correia:But anyhow, it's not a new movie, but it was a first time watch for me. I finally watched The Manchurian Candidate from 1962. Holy shit that movie rules like I, I it's, it's still sitting with me days later. I mean, John John Frankenheimer was on some next level shit with that. I couldn't, I couldn't believe, I don't know what Janet Leigh was doing in that movie that was insane, that when she when Janet Leigh first meets Frank Sinatra on the train, that whole scene is insane. That's insane. No one talks like that. And it just, yeah, Manchurian Candidate. I mean, it's, you know, it's the story of brainwashed soldiers and government conspiracy. It's got Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, who just ate it like every scene, and, of course, Janet Leigh, but my goodness, I just need, the camera work in that and how everything played out. It's been a really long time since I've sat in a movie and had, like, my jaw open, drooling, just going, What? What? Like, genuinely, like, get me so, yeah. I mean, if you, if you haven't seen Manchurian Candidate, I mean 1962 What took you so long? What took me so long? If you, if you have seen it, I give it a rewatch, man, because there's some like, really good stuff cooking in there. Like, damn, and that in that new Kino 4k is absolutely gorgeous. So highly recommend.
James Jay Edwards:Speaking of old movies, since you did Manchurian Candidate, I have been working my way through Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, and I'm kind of savoring it. I'm going through it little by little, kind of like you were saying that, um, that you don't want to watch the last season of Ash Vs. The Evil Dead, because then, you know, it's over. I'm savoring this just a chapter or two at a time. And what he does is he goes through and he talks about movies that were that that formed him, and one of them is Dirty Harry. And I realized, as I was reading about it, I had never seen the original Dirty Harry and, you know, like, just, like, Sudden Impact. And, you know, some of the other Harry Callahan movies, so I put it on, it is a, it's a serial killer movie, yeah. I mean, he's basically going after what would be the Zodiac Killer, I
Jacob Davidson:guess. Yeah, they become the Scorpio killer. Yeah, they
James Jay Edwards:call him Scorpio. And it is, I mean, and this is the movie where not make my day, but the, do you feel lucky, punk, you know? The and all the excitement, I actually forgot myself. Did I shoot six times or five, you know? But it is. The thing, is it at the time Tarantino goes into this, where it was seen as fascist, and you're looking and watching it in today's climate of like corrupt cops and, you know, basically above the law cops. You can see how it can be seen as fascist, even back then, because Dirty Harry does nothing by the book in trying to catch this killer, nothing by the book. But it also even going not by the book. He, he ends up failing at some like, at one point, there's this 14 year old girl who's kidnapped, and, you know, I don't want to spoil for people who haven't seen it, but he, he fails at that mission, even though he's, you know, literally torturing people to try to find out what he needs to know. But, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty prescient movie. It's
Jonathan Correia:one of those ones, kind of like Electra Glide in Blue. I don't know if you guys have seen that. It's a motorcycle cop movie from the 70s as well. It's almost kind of like the motorcycle cop easy, right? Version of Easy Rider, where it is much more like right leaning. But there's some like, really interesting stuff in there where, like, easily that and Dirty Harry, you could just go that movie's fascist. But then, like, in watching how like things play out and like, really, like the the almost tragedy of these, it's, it's interesting because, like, yes, on its surface, it could be viewed as, like, Dirty Harry could be viewed as that. But then there's also, like, you said, he keeps failing at it because he is doing all that stuff. And so it's kind of like, it's like, when film bros are like, Fight Club, yeah, macho, macho and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, dude, that movie's like, anti masculinity. That's the whole point.
James Jay Edwards:And also, in Dirty Harry. It's like, not only does he fail while using these fascist tactics, he also he gets reprimanded. Like, at one point he does something that's completely against the book, and then he takes his badge and he throws it, because he's like, Okay, well, you know, I'm, I'm no longer a by the book cop, you know, he so, I mean, he's and his superiors are always like, even if this guy confessed he'd walk because of your, you know, you're, you completely threw the procedure out the window, you know. So, yeah, I mean it. So, I mean Dirty Harry is a fascist character, but the movie itself, I don't think, is because he faces, he faces repercussions, which is something that regular cops don't really ever do. It's the
Jonathan Correia:Rambo effect. It's the you have this character that's that has a very clear message in the first film that totally gets obliterated with the sequels as they embrace like the other side of it. Yeah. Speaking
Jacob Davidson:of older films, I rewatched the original 80s canon films, Masters of the Universe movie, and it held up surprisingly well.
James Jay Edwards:Is that the Dolph Lundgren
Jacob Davidson:the very same Fran Yeah, with Frank Langella in the role of a lifetime as Skeletor. Frank Langella is a Skeletor. Yeah, yeah. No, they played it at semag void the last, uh or second, last week of May, and I had, I don't think I'd ever watched it in full. I'd like catch bits and pieces on TV that they'd rerun, but it's legit a lot of fun, and I'm not that attached to Heman as a series of franchise, whatever. So, you know, I don't know all the lore or whatever, but on its own, it was really entertaining because it's just kind of a, you know, like fish out of water, you know, like he man and some of his allies have to go to Earth to get a key, like a magic key. And there's some cool fight sequences. And the real star of the show is, like the set pieces with Castle gray skull, because they got, like, Frank Langella Skeletor on this big throne with all these stormtroopers and stuff. And they actually had the production designer there, William stout, and he was talking about, like, it was so impressive that, like, all these big Hollywood producers and directors would go to the set just to get their picture taken on Skeletor's throne. And it just goes to show that, like he like, this is the movie that kind of bankrupted Canon Films. But what a way to go out on because it did a decent job of the adaptation by just, you know, like getting to the court of it, you know, just having he man and a bunch of characters from the show fight and I just kind of thread that line, although it had a lot of the typical canon staples with like cops and explosions and car chases. So it, it was a fun blend. It played well with the crowd. It
Jonathan Correia:does slow down a bit when it gets to Earth, you know. But those those pieces when they're in it, there is a etherea or Eternia. Eternia, there we go. Are amazing. And shout out to Meg Foster as Evil Lyn she is incredible in it, and her eyes are haunting, always, always, I do have a action figure of Frank Langella's Skeletor sitting behind me. It's so camp and fun. But if and I did not grow up on HeMan, but that HeMan show on Netflix that Kevin Smith produces is really good Masters of the Universe Revelations the second part yet, but that is really Mark Hamill as Skeletor. Get the out of here. That's incredible. Mark Hamill is.
James Jay Edwards:He's such a great voice actor.
Jonathan Correia:Oh, especially a Skeletor dude. He is just chewing every single word, every line, just, just really, really going to town on it. It is, yeah, his Skeletor is great. And Sarah Michelle Gellar plays what plays the lead in it, not he meant, because it's, it's less about HeMan, the first series of it, but yeah, I highly recommend it. The animation is incredible. Yeah,
Jacob Davidson:no. And again, that's why I love the live action one, because Frank Langella is just having a ball playing HeMan, like just yelling, let this be our final battle. And you know, just, you know, when you're playing a guy named Skeletor. You don't hold back. You go 110%
James Jay Edwards:Well, let's go from Canon films to our topic, because it seems to segue pretty well. We should have done this last episode, but the interview with Ceiri, which was an awesome interview, by the way, it's Charlie Clauser level, if. You haven't listened to our last episode, you should. But, um, since we recorded two episodes ago, Roger Corman passed away, and Roger Corman the the cinematic landscape will be so different if Roger Corman had never been around, because so many of the master filmmakers from today you know, Coppola Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, all these guys started out with Roger Corman. And there's a hilarious bit in the Roger Corman documentary that I know Correia is going to talk about later, where Ron Howard is talking about making Grand Theft Auto, and they're disagreeing over the number of extras in a scene. And Roger Corman says, Well, look at this way, Ron, if you make this movie and it's a hit, you never have to work for me again. And he didn't, yeah, exactly. You went on to make it, you know, Apollo 13, and what was it? Solo? That was the Star Wars movie he made. Yeah, you know, he, he moved on. But yeah, Roger Corman. They call it the Roger Corman film school. And like, you know, so many of the big players today went through him. So we're gonna spend the last half of today's episode talking about Roger Corman. I
Jacob Davidson:was lucky, because last year, the Aero Theatre, in part with beyond fest, did a tribute to Roger Corman, and actually had him at the theater with a lot of his quote, unquote, students. Let's see. Alan Arkush was there. Joe Dante was there. Ron Howard was there. Amy Holden Jones, John Davison, and it was moderated by Mick Garris. And they played Rock N' Roll High School, Grand Theft Auto, Piranha and The Raven. You know, a lot of the movies that these guys started with. And it was one of the most incredible panel Q and A's I had ever seen. Like just everybody was blowing on Roger and talking about his methods, because, you know, whatever criticism you can have for his movies or style, like he always came in on top, like he always delivered on those films, and was very effective in doing so during
James Jay Edwards:that panel that he was there with all those people, did all the other people talk more than him? Oh,
Jacob Davidson:no. I mean, like, Roger did talk quite a bit, like he did respond, uh, to questions or, like, to anecdotes that they were bringing up
James Jay Edwards:because I saw him at Comic Con, uh, probably, oh God, 15 years ago at this point. And his wife actually did most, who is his producing partner, Julie Corman. She's not just Roger Corman's wife. She's like, you know, she's a vital part of of his studio as well. She did most of the talking for him. And I had a feeling that, not that his mental capacities weren't there, but almost like, like when I saw Stop Making Sense. There was a Q and A moderated by Spike Lee afterwards, and for four performers, they sure didn't want to talk. The only one who felt comfortable talking was the drummer, Chris Franz. The other three seemed to want to push the questions off to other people. And I got the feeling that maybe Roger Corman was kind of like that, where he didn't really like, he didn't really like doing interviews, so he let everybody else in the panel talk.
Jacob Davidson:Well, no, I've been he did speak quite a bit. And that one like, I remember, particular Amy Holden Jones, who did Slumber Party massacre, talked about her experience working with him. And, you know, they were, they were talking about how, like, the advice that he told her, it was something like, you know, damn, I forget the exact quote, but it was something like, you can make it scary, but it also has to be entertaining. And yeah, no, like the panel is also available on YouTube, like you could find it online, and I would definitely recommend watching it, just because it's such an incredible who's who of God, that era of Hollywood. But no, he was fair. He was pretty Cognizant at that panel, that was September of last year. And, and, yeah, he was 98 like he managed to really make it far. So, you know, good, good on him for that. And, yeah, no, I mean, and the scheduling was so good too, because, again, you know, it's rock and roll, high school, Grand Theft Auto, piranha, the Raven, the former three were the first movies that a lot of those directors started out on. And the raven is a fun movie from the legendary Corman Poe cycle, where Corman adapted several Edgar Allan Poe stories. And, yeah, yeah. I mean, just really a testament to how Corman was able to work with stars old and new. Because the biggest one I go back to often, and that is probably one of my favorite movies that he produced, and was, you know, a movie that got this director's career off the ground. Peter Bogdanovich's Targets like it is in. Incredible just how that project came together and how it ended up. Because basically, Bogdanovich was assisting Roger Corman, and they had Boris Karloff for a few extra days of filming after the other movie, the terror, and Bogdanovich put the script together, and Karloff loved it so much he actually did, I think, like an extra day or two just to help get it made. And I've seen Targets a few times in theaters, and it always is still so relevant, so powerful, to the point that Criterion, you know, put out a bluray of it just last year, and it's a project we would not have had if not for Roger Corman. And even though is under, you know, like a minimal budget and with minimal time, it just goes to show that that kind of pressure cooker film school really, uh, created results.
James Jay Edwards:I love Boris Karloff. Like, if you see, oh yeah, if you see him in the roles where he actually gets to quote act, you know, like, away from Frankenstein's monster and the mummy, yeah. Um, he is an amazing actor, but he was such an imposing presence that they cast him as monsters a lot of the time. But, I mean, when he can actually, you know, spread his wings and act, he's, he's incredible, yeah,
Jacob Davidson:no. I mean, like in Targets, I think it might be one of his best roles ever, and it was one of his last because, you know, it's, it was really ahead of time, and that it was meta textual, with having Karloff playing a sort of bitter horror actor who's on his last legs, and comparing the real life violence of that time in the 60s with, you know, assassinations and The that there were some mass shootings or the sniper attacks back then and Vietnam. So it, it was just kind of an amazing reflection of the real life violence at the time, and that still permeates today, against the fictional horror by comparison. And it, you know, just really goes to show that the corpsman school work, because, you know, it was just giving up and comers a chance to, you know, creatively flex their legs and find their grounding. And, you know, without targets or Roger Corman, we may not have had the illustrious career of Peter Bogdanovich.
James Jay Edwards:I'm curious to see Roger Corman's been doing this since the 50s, and I'm curious to see because you guys are a lot younger than I am. What was the first movie that you saw that you can remember as being a Roger Corman movie? Oh,
Jacob Davidson:I got this. I feel like this is more loving tribute, but I've watched a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and a bunch of his movies ended up on there. Particularly the one that comes to mind would be, It Conquered the World. You know, the one about the, you know, kind of space carrot with the toothy face face who, like, has mind control powers and trying to take over the world. And, like, I've heard mixed things about, like, what read, whether Corman approved or not of the movies being on Mystery Science Theater 3000, although more of his movies did end up in the last few years on the revival Netflix and other seasons. So I think he softened up about it. But yeah, no, like, a bunch of his movies were varying quality, especially, you know, the kind of b-movie, sci fi stuff. So I distinctly remember a lot of that from Mystery Science Theater. Oh, and also, just that It Conquered the World. In particular was a favorite movie of one of the greatest musicians of our time, Frank Zappa. Even did a whole song about it with that one, The Cheapness.
James Jay Edwards:How can you look at a movie like Creature From the Haunted Sea, you know, and not picture that on Mystery Science? I mean, he, I imagine Corman, had to have softened up and embraced, you know, embraced the role of this B movie God, basically, yeah, exactly.
Jonathan Correia:Man, I don't know about as, like, the first, like, I'm watching a Roger Corman movie, you know, I'd say one of the, like, try to remember, like, earliest memories I have of a movie that was a Corman film. Was watching, I got like, a 99 cent DVD from Ocean State Job Lots. They used to have DVDs in these, like, paper sleeves. They were horribly printed public domain films, but it was of The Terror. And I just remember being so confused by that movie, like, here's this horror film. It's got Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson in it. Oh man, it's gonna be the scariest thing ever. And then, just like being bewildered by it as a kid, but the one where I was like, this is Corman, and this is what this guy does, was Death Race 2000 I was about like 13 or 14, and I got the DVD, which I think I still have, but it's. Yes, it just blew me away, because I went into it thinking, like, Man, this is like, this is like, adult Wacky Racers. And I wasn't wrong. It is adult Wacky Racers. That's what that movie is. It is a cheesy, fun movie, but at its core there was like, this really delicious and fantastic subtext, and sometimes not even subtext of social commentary that was happening in that movie that was just like, holy That's what you can do with this. You can be entertaining and say something. And that was one of the cool things about Corman, and especially if you do watch the documentary Corman's World, which I always highly recommend as like, a nice introduction or a nice refresher to what he's done. His work is, he super came up in the in the B movies, and that's understandable, but he quickly learned how to how to make something that makes money, and one of the ways of doing that is by doing it as cheap as possible. But when you do things as cheap as possible, you learn how to do things very efficiently. Nothing is wasted. And it was really interesting revisiting Corman's World, when they were talking about The Intruder, which was the movie that him and his brother produced on their own, because no one would touch it, where William Shatner plays a white supremacist that goes from New York to the south, and they were talking about, like, how important it was, how how terrible the shoot was, because, again, you're making a movie about segregation down in the south. In the 60s, like people were, they had to run from location. They were driven out of locations, of motels. They were getting threats all this, and it bombed, but it's a phenomenal film. I had to, I went on eBay and found an out of print DVD of it as quick as as as I was watching it, because I need to revisit it. But that film taught him, All right, cool. Make sure to have the have the entertainment. Because in order to say anything, you have to have the entertainment at the front. And, you know, we talk about like, how he gave a lot of young filmmakers a chance, who then went on to become, you know, powerhouses on their own. But he didn't just like, go, Hey, here's a little bit of money. Go make this thing. He really was there for them. He made sure, as a producer, that they had what they needed, that they were getting it done in time. Showed them the ropes on how to do it. Martin Scorsese talked about how his experience in Boxcar Bertha enabled him to make Mean Streets, and that he employed a lot of Corman's Go to crew for that movie so that he could make it on time and under budget or on budget, I should say. And I think that's, that's incredible, because it's, it's more than just going, Hey, here's 25 grand. Go bring me back a movie showing people how to do it is massively important too. And without that, we wouldn't have so many amazing voices. He
James Jay Edwards:also had an eye for talent, I think, because not only, not only behind the camera, but, you know, he gave Jack Nicholson his start, he gave De Niro his start. Yeah, you know he and the whole relationship between De Niro and Scorsese probably can be traced back to Corman Bosco,
Jonathan Correia:Roberto, yeah. So,
James Jay Edwards:I mean, he, definitely, he, he's, I don't think it's just luck that he surrounded that he was able to come up with all this young talent for me, the first movie that I remember seeing that was a Roger Corman movie, and I'm not sure if I knew that was a Roger Corman movie at the time, was Battle Beyond the Stars, and this one, this was in theaters, because at this time I was everything Star Wars with, you know, as a as a kid. So when this movie came out, I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, I mean, I didn't realize it was a rip off of the Magnificent Seven, you know, in space. All I saw was cool aliens in spaceships, you know, fighting and and, and it was, it was awesome. And then the first one I think I saw that I realized was Roger Corman. I recognized the name was Galaxy of Terror, which came out the same year I saw it a few years later on, like one of those USA up all night, kind of a things. And I remember thinking I dreamt it because I didn't catch the name and and I went years not knowing what this movie was. And I'm like, did I dream that movie? And I'm like, and if I did, I should write this down, because I should make a movie out of this. But then years after that, I saw it again. I'm like, Oh no, this is that movie. I thought I dreamt,
Jonathan Correia:versus the best ideas were already made because you fell asleep with the TV on.
Jacob Davidson:Yeah, and I will say Corman did have a particular knack for following the trends, especially I would probably look fondly on the run from the late 70s to the early 80s. Where he did a lot of Alien riffs, with The irony being that you know James Cameron, who would go on to do Aliens, got his start doing production design for corpsman on movies like Galaxy of
Jonathan Correia:Terror. And he also directed Piranha 2
Jacob Davidson:that too, The Spawning, which is such a troubled production that it gave Jim Cameron such bad nightmares. He had the nightmare about the Terminator, and that's how we got the Terminator.
James Jay Edwards:I didn't know that. That's awesome,
Jacob Davidson:yeah. Well, I'm not sure if it was necessarily a trouble production, but he was just so stressed out, you know, trying to make Piranha 2: The Spawning, that he had terrible nightmares about a robot from the future trying to kill him. So he was inspired to make Terminator, and the rest is history. Even
James Jay Edwards:in the subconscious, Corman is influencing.
Jacob Davidson:That's the thing too. He's everywhere.
Jonathan Correia:You gotta remember that corpsman was directing and producing since the 50s, up until just even, I think he only slowed down like, five years ago, really,
James Jay Edwards:as a producer, yeah, yeah. I think he stopped directing maybe in the 90s or 80s, but he as a producer his studio, yeah, he was and like, like you said, he wasn't just a here's your money producer. He was hands on. So, yeah, he worked probably five different decades, yeah,
Jonathan Correia:and each one like that. The thing, the reason why he's so influential, and the reason why he has made, like produced, nearly 500 films, is because he went through different eras. He never stopped changing. So like in the 50s, he was young, running gun make movies cheap on his own, and then through the 60s, is when he started to like, because he got the process down, he wanted to make something more. And that's where you got the Poe adaptations, which were, like, masterfully made. But even then they kept saying, like, we want you to keep doing this. And he was like, I don't really want to keep doing this, which is why the later ones, like The Raven get real cheesy and fun with it, because they wanted to have fun with the material and do something different. Like he was always looking to like during those eras. He was very ahead of the time, and it was in making The Trip, which, again, making films about the counterculture of the time was not really a thing during that time. So when they made the trip, the distributors were worried that they were making a pro drug movie, and so they changed the ending without him telling him. And that's when he was like, You know what? I he made the decision, like, I could keep doing this. I could keep making stuff for other people at this like, higher budget. Fuck that. I'm going to start my own studio, my own production company and distribution company, and he and he basically had to take a step back and go back to making lower budget things, even though he was getting up to the mid tiers. And thank God he did, because, like, he was able to do things on his own, able to get so many careers going and made some, like, really amazing stuff. I mean, I'll be forever thankful that this guy gave Penelope Spheeris a chance and produced Suburbia, that that film hit so close to heart. I mean, making punk movies come on, like he was ahead of the curb with that between Suburbia and Rock n' Roll High School. Get the out of here. Yeah,
James Jay Edwards:it will. And also, you know, he, he allowed Slumber Party Massacre to be made, and that, you know, like you're saying, following the trends. I mean, that's a slasher movie that essentially made fun of slasher movie.
Jonathan Correia:Essentially it eviscerated, though, yeah, it was going
Jacob Davidson:to be more of an outright parody, originally play. I mean, was written by a feminist
Jonathan Correia:author, but he gave that chance. He was like, All right, cool, as long as you can include these, these notes. I need these, these things. I need this amount of explosions. I need this amount of ass I need that. You know, these things that will help me sell the thing. If you could do that and you can do that on budget, that's it's yours. I think it was Joe Dante even said that he was, like, we needed those points, but everything in between that we could do what we wanted, as long as it was done on time. And, yeah, it's also really interesting in the documentary they do highlight the vast difference of like these filmmakers that were coming out in the 70s, because you had the Roger Corbin school kids, and then you had the film school kids of like Lucas and Lucas and Spielberg, who were essentially getting big budgets to do Corman films, JAWS, Star Wars, that was all stuff that corpsman And then we're doing and he even said he was like, That was almost a he's like, that was almost the death of us. That's how we were viewing it, because now studios are making big budget versions of what was our bed and, bread and butter, and we can't compete with those budgets. And that's where you get creative. You know? That's where you go more insane, or it's where you do more stuff, or you make a few that are just straight up rip offs just to get the money, you know, for the next one. And that's business like, so incredible. What an amazing, insane life that man did, like it's you cannot really grasp the massive impact that man has had on cinema, I don't. And over the course of 50 that's half the life of this medium that this man has influenced. Oh
James Jay Edwards:yeah, he probably more, because he started in the mid 50s and and he was working, I mean, I don't know how much work he did in the last few years. But, I mean, he at least executive producing, like the the Sharktopus movies, you know? So, yeah, he was, I mean, out of the 100 and so years of cinema, yeah, he's been doing it for more than half of them, yeah.
Jacob Davidson:And I still love that when he was doing the Sharktopus movies, that he specifically got Conan O'Brien to do a cameo in the sequel Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda. And they it was the first time Conan O'Brien was ever killed in a movie because the like Pteracuda chops off his head.
James Jay Edwards:Yep. So what are your favorite Roger Corman movies
Jonathan Correia:that we haven't listed yet?
James Jay Edwards:Sure. I mean, I go first, because mine is kind of not typical. Corman, A Bucket of Blood is my favorite, the original bucket of blood with with Miller, just because it's not about aliens or, you know, it's not in space. It's just, it's about an artist who kind of, it's almost seems like a Tales from the Crypt episode. He, you know, discovers that he can make art while killing people, basically using like real people as his medium. And, yeah,
Jacob Davidson:I love it also is funny satire of the beatnik movement. Oh, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. For me, my personal favorite is probably The Masque of the Red Death from the Poe cycle. That one holds a special place in my heart, because I actually saw that around the around the time I moved to LA at the New Beverly, they did it as a double feature with one of my other favorite movies, Joe Dante's Matinee. And they actually had Corman and Joe Dante there to talk about the movies and kind of how they reflected each other, plus The Masque of the Red Death. You know, it's hard to compare all of them, but I think it might be the best of the Corman Poe Price cycle, because, you know, Vincent Price's Prince Prospero might be one of his best villain roles. He is just pure evil in that movie, and
James Jay Edwards:Witchfinder General has has a problem with your thesis? Okay, okay. Anyway, agreed. Okay,
Jacob Davidson:okay, okay, regret to disagree. Or, you know, whatever debate. But anyway, and also just it is legit creepy, like all the stuff with the Red Death and, like, the imagery is very Euro horror, while also being surreal. And, yeah, it's just very entertaining and moody. So yeah, The Masque of the Red Death. If you need to see any movie from the from that Poe Corman cycle. That's definitely the one to go with. First,
James Jay Edwards:it has the best imagery. It has the most imagery from the Poe cycle. Yeah, it's, I mean, and part of it, I mean, just the color red jumps off, yeah, did
Jacob Davidson:that Euro blood color red. You know, the bright red. Very very stylish. Also, it made for a very entertaining watch during lockdown.
Jonathan Correia:Yeah, and we wouldn't have The Terror without it, because he went, Hey, I have these stages over the weekend. Let's shoot something
Jacob Davidson:exactly. I do love that method of filmmaking where, if you just had a person for some extra days, or some sets from extra days, like, hey, let's make another movie while we're at it. That's
James Jay Edwards:how we got The Most Dangerous Game, exactly. They were like, Oh, hey, we're not using the King Kong sets at night. Let's
Jacob Davidson:Yeah. Now that's innovation. That's how we got Spanish
Jonathan Correia:Dracula, too. And in some ways the superior Dracula.
James Jay Edwards:A lot of people think so, and they wouldn't be wrong. It's,
Jacob Davidson:I
Jonathan Correia:mean, it's really Potato Potato for me, because they're both so brilliant in their own ways, the Spanish Dracula versus Todd Browning's. But that's why I don't say verses, but I love them dearly,
Jacob Davidson:but that way your favorite Corman, yes.
Jonathan Correia:Can we do that more often? Can we? Can we? Can we have, like, other directors do make the same movie, but like if for different audiences, using the same sets, that's that was incredible experiment that I think should should be replicated more often.
Jacob Davidson:It should be
James Jay Edwards:they did that with that Exorcist sequel, Dominion and The Beginning.
Jonathan Correia:I mean, didn't they just fire Paul Schrader? They're just like bring in Renny, Harlan, boy, that's, that's, that's quite, that's quite a thing. Um, I
James Jay Edwards:mean, you should make a documentary about that.
Jonathan Correia:Some did someday get both
James Jay Edwards:those guys in the same room too. Schrader and
Jonathan Correia:Harlan. I feel like that would be insufferable. Um, I mean, favorite, Corman, I have to agree with Jacob Masque of the Red Death is just such an absolutely gorgeous, masterful film, like, I feel like Corman as like a filmmaker that was, that was not him at his peak, but that was him at his most powerful. That was him with, you know, the budget, the script, the actors, just everything came together to make such a beautiful film. But at the end of the day, my favorite one has to be the one that, like got Corman on my radar as the filmmaker and the legend that he is, and that's Little Shop of Horrors, the original, because it's that classic Corman story of you know, we wanted to see if we could make a movie in two days, and so they just reused the sets from Bucket of Blood. They wrote the script, which was basically Bucket of Blood, but with a killer plant. They shot half the movie in one day, the other half and the next. And it works. It works so fucking well. It's so over the top. It's so camp. It knows what it is, but it works phenomenally. And I think it's, it's incredible what one can do under, under in a pressure cooker. I mean, that's one of the things I respect as Corman, as a businessman and a filmmaker, is just that dude loved a challenge and that. And you see that spirit to this day with like, people doing 48 hour challenge. Think about that. People do 48 hour challenges all the time and can't, still can't do something like Little Shop of Horror.
James Jay Edwards:The funniest thing about Little Shop of Horrors is you have the original Roger Corman one, and then the big budget musical, which actually came after the Broadway musical, but it's, it's so what's funny about it is that they, they took the Corman one, and they, they still kept the B movie esthetic of it, but they added these amazing songs and this big budget cast and so, so you basically Have like you were saying, like, with, with the USC film school guys coming out, you basically have them doing Corman with a big budget. So, I mean, yeah, Little Shop of horror is a story all its own. Yeah,
Jonathan Correia:I love it. That's both movies. I love Little Shop of Horrors. It's, incredible. Well,
James Jay Edwards:for those of you who want to catch up on your Roger Corman, there's a ton to choose from, but I do recommend the Corman documentary that that Correia is talking about it. It is such a sweet tribute to the man and like these guys that he's talking about, like, like, if you want to see Jack Nicholson cry, you know the love that all of these people that He, whose careers he launched, have for the man, yeah, is it's called Corman's World. I don't know that we have. We mentioned the name of this documentary. We keep talking
Jonathan Correia:possibly. I highly recommend it. It goes on sale on Vudu all the time, if you don't find it on a streaming service. But I do think that it's it's necessary, because we live in a time where Hollywood and film is is overtaken by Wall Street and business folks and rewatching Corman's World. The thing that stuck up to me the most here is one of the most successful businessmen in film history, and yet that man still never lost his heart and with people, Nicholson talks about how Corman not you think, Oh, he put him in one movie and took off, no, like he supported Jack Nicholson for 10 years, like he casted Nicholson in his first lead in the 50s, and still kept, like, bringing him back. And Nicholson didn't take off until the till about the 70s. So like, you know, the, uh, wait, 60s and then 70s, sorry, um, but he and other filmmakers say, like, when no one else called, Corman called me and offered me to direct, no one else was calling. And that's what I think is one of the most beautiful things about this man, is that he not only took chances, but he supported people. He had loyalty.
James Jay Edwards:He had he had loyalty to his people, and in turn, they all had loyalty to him. I mean, I honestly think that if, if Roger Corman in 2010 had called up Scorsese and said, Hey, let's make a movie. Scorsese probably would have
Jonathan Correia:done it. Not, not for the Not, not at the not
James Jay Edwards:at the Corman rate, not, not at the core, not, not,
Jonathan Correia:not on a Corman schedule. I don't think, yeah, that's a bit much for that's, that's a, that's a young man's game. And
James Jay Edwards:also, dude, asking Scorsese to turn in a movie that's less than 90 minutes, is like that ain't gonna happen. But, um, but no, but maybe a better, a better example would have been if Corman called Jack Nicholson and said, Hey, I want you to star in this movie. I think Nicholson would have been there. But um, anyway, if you're not familiar with Roger Corman, check it out. We've given lots of good recommendations here. Or just, you really can't go wrong with anything you can pick. By Corman, I mean, that's the other thing. He's, like you said, 500 producer credits, and there's more good than bad. I won't say that they're all gems, mainly because I don't think I probably, I probably haven't seen that's a lot of, that's a lot of movies, but, yeah, go check out some Corman. And I'm just want to, you know, echo what I said at the beginning of this. The cinematic landscape would be vastly different if it wasn't for Roger Corman, because so many of the big players today, he, he jumpstarted them, you know, he he trampolines them into what they're doing now. Yeah,
Jacob Davidson:yep, no, the film industry would have been a very different and possibly worse place if it weren't for Roger Corman. So, you know, just have to acknowledge and respect what he did. And I'm happy that so many people honored his memory when he passed,
Jonathan Correia:and don't forget that he was the only one distributing Fellini, Kurosawa, at a time when no one was investing in distribution of foreign films like this. Man. He didn't just make schlock. He made sure that, like, you know, the high art was also viewed like this. He was a multifaceted individual. Absolutely,
James Jay Edwards:yeah, he contributed, not only to, I mean, like you said, just the the American rights to a lot of these filmmakers that are legends in Europe and Asia. Yeah, loved Corman. Loved Corman. He'll be missed. And, yeah, his legacy will live on, because half of Hollywood got their start with him. All right, let's call this one an episode. Our theme song is by restless spirits to go check them out, and our artwork is by Chris Fisher, so go check him out. You can find us on all the socials, under eye on horror, or at ihorror com, which is the website that we all call home. And watch some Corman, because, uh, never wrong time for it. You probably already have, but go back and revisit it or find something new, um, and we will see you in a couple of weeks. So for me, James J Edwards,
Jacob Davidson:I'm Jacob Davison
Jonathan Correia:And I'm Jonathan Correia.
James Jay Edwards:Keep your eye on horror.
