Posts Tagged ‘Roger Corman’


The Women in Cages Collection

August 5th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 1080p / 1.78:1    Audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: BD25 / BD50   Release Date: 08/23/2011   Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC (Thanks Mitzye!)  Available for preorder through Amazon.com 

This is to be a technical review only.  If you wish to hear what I have to say about the three films in this collection then please read my earlier coverage of the DVD edition.

Shout! Factory released the Women in Cages Collection to DVD just over a month ago. For my money it was a very strong release, with plenty of cult appeal and considerable supplemental heft.  Now that the Blu-ray edition has arrived there are two questions demanding to be answered: How does it compare to the earlier DVD, and is the difference between the two substantial enough to warrant the considerably higher price tag?

To answer the first question, the Women in Cages Blu-ray collection does offer a substantial upgrade in audio-visual quality in comparison to the earlier DVD, and perhaps even more of an upgrade than this reviewer was expecting of it.  That’s not to say that the release is without its problems, unfortunately, but at least they’re not of the same damnable stuff that have compromised some of the other discs recently reviewed here.

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Women in Cages Collection (The Big Doll House / The Big Bird Cage / Women in Cages)

July 25th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 480p / 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: 2x DVD9   Release Date: 06/28/2011   Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC (Thanks Mitzye!)  DVD available now at Amazon.com, Blu-ray available for pre-order.

Shout! Factory are at it again, with the latest in their continuing line of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics turning up the heat just in time for summer to hit its stride.  The Women in Cages Collection brings together a course trio of Philippines-produced ‘women in prison’ exploitationers from the early years of Corman’s New World Pictures, all of which center around blaxploitation megastar Pam Grier (Foxy Brown) and her considerable assets, professional and otherwise.  The Women in Cages collection offers just about everything fans of Corman productions could ever ask for – plenty of exposed flesh and wanton depravity balanced by a hefty dose of blistering woman-scorned revenge.

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Trailers From Hell Volume 2

July 18th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 480p / 4:3    Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: DVD9   Release Date: 07/05/2011   Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC (Thanks Mitzye!)  Available for purchase at Amazon.com

One of the more exciting developments in the cult film community over the past few years has been the advent of Trailers From Hell, a site that brings together obscure (and occasionally not so obscure) films and the Hollywood personalities who love them for rock-em sock-em two to four minute trailer commentaries that are accessible, free of charge, to the public.  Since its founding in October of 2007 Trailers From Hell has dabbled only infrequently in commercial territory, once with a Best from… compilation DVD last year and now (through distributor Shout! Factory) with Trailers From Hell Volume 2.  While Best from… offered just what it sounds like, Volume 2 boasts 20 newly-produced commentaries and a hell of a bonus – a new widescreen transfer of Roger Corman’s grim comedy opus The Little Shop of Horrors.

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Ron Howard Action Pack (Eat My Dust / Grand Theft Auto)

May 11th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Eat My Dust – Year: 1976   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 88′
Director: Charles B. Griffith   Writer: Charles B. Griffith   Music: David Grisman   Cinematography: Eric Saarinen  Cast: Ron Howard, Christopher Norris, Warren J. Kemmerling, Dave Madden, Brad David, Kathy O’Dare, Clint Howard, Peter Isacksen, Jessica Potter, Charles Howerton, Kedric Wolfe, Rance Howard
Grand Theft Auto – Year: 1977   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 84′
Director: Ron Howard   Writers: Ron Howard, Rance Howard   Music: Peter Ivers   Cinematography: Gary Graver   Cast: Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan, Elizabeth Rogers, Barry Cahill, Rance Howard, Paul Linke, Marion Ross, Don Steele, Peter Isacksen, Clint Howard, James Ritz, Hoke Howell, Lew Brown, Ken Lemer
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 480p (1.78:1)   Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English   Subtitles: None
Disc: 2 x DVD 9   Release Date: 05/24/2011   Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC.  Available for pre-order through Amazon.com

It’s finally warming up here in Minneapolis, and Shout! Factory is gearing up for another busy Summer of cult cinema releases.  Leading the charge is The Ron Howard Action Pack – a one-two punch of youthful car chase mayhem due out on the 24th that represents actor, writer and director Ron Howard’s brief but formative career under independent producer extraordinaire Roger Corman.  Shout!’s package is sound, from the new anamorphic film transfers (each occupying its own dual layer DVD) to an extensive collection of supplements, both new and appropriated from earlier editions, but before we get into the details let’s discuss the films themselves.

Made on the heals of more adult car-chase classics like Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, 1976′s Eat My Dust is a decidedly juvenile affair, and as concerned with broad and goofy humor as it is high-speed action.  The young trouble-making son (Ron Howard) of a small-town sheriff (Warren J. Kemmerling) bites off more than he can chew when, in a desperate bid to woo local hottie Darlene (Christopher Norris), he steals a championship-winning stock car and takes it for a ride.  Darlene and an ever-increasing bundle of friends and passers by join in on the illegal shenanigans, while dear old dad sends out a fleet of incompetent patrolmen to round up his law-defying son.

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Georgia Peaches / The Great Texas Dynamite Chase / Smokey Bites the Dust

March 30th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Georgia Peaches – Year: 1980   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 96′
Director: Daniel Haller   Writers: Mick Benderoth, Mote Stettin, William Hjortsberg, Lois Luger
Cast: Dirk Benedict, Tanya Tucker, Terri Nunn, Lane Smith, Sally Kirkland, Dennis Patrick, David Hayward
The Great Texas Dynamite Chase – Year: 1977   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 90′
Director: Michael Pressman   Writers: David Kirkpatrick, Mark Rosin
Cast: Claudia Jennings, Jocelyn Jones, Johnny Crawford, Tara Strohmeler, Miles Watkins, Nancy Bieler
Smokey Bites the Dust – Year: 1981   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 87′
Director: Charles B. Griffith   Writers: Max Apple, Brian Williams
Cast: Jimmy McNichol, Janet Julian, Walter Barnes, John Blyth Barrymore, Robert Beecher, Mel Welles
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 480p (1.78:1), 480i (4:3)   Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: 1 x DVD5 / 1 x DVD9   Release Date: 04/05/2011   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC.

Shout! Factory is at it again, pushing my exploitation buttons with another bargain-priced cult film package.  This time it’s a whopping triple-bill collection of New World actioners revolving around that staple of the genre – explosive car chases.

Lt. Starbuck turns back country whiskey runner for 1980′s Georgia Peaches, a semi-serious made for TV car chase and criminal comedy originally produced with the possibility of a television series in mind. Georgia Peaches follows ‘shine runner Dusty and his friends, mechanic Sue Lynn (Berlin’s Terri Nunn) and singer Lorette (real-life country singer Tanya Tucker), as they are blackmailed into investigating a bootleg cigarette operation and forced into action against a southern crime syndicate headed by ice cold Sally Kirkland.

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Up From the Depths / Demon of Paradise

January 24th, 2011 | article by | 2 Comments »
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Up From the Depths Year: 1979   Company: The Pacific Trust   Runtime: 75′
Director: Charles B. Griffith   Writers: Anne Dyer, Alfred Sweeney   Cinematography: Ricardo Remias
Music: James Horner, Russel O’Malley   Cast: Sam Bottoms, Susanne Reed, Virgil Frye, Kedric Wolfe,
Charles Howerton, Denise Hayes, Chuck Doherty, Helen McNeely, Ken Metcalfe, Randy Taylor
Demon of Paradise Year: 1987   Company: Santa Fe Productions   Runtime: 84′
Director: Cirio H. Santiago    Writers: Frederick Bailey, C.J. Santiago    Cinematography: Ricardo Remias
Music: Ding Achacoso    Cast: Kathryn Witt, William Steis, Leslie Huntley, Laura Banks, Frederick Bailey,
Henry Strzalkowski, Nick Nicholson, Liza Baumann, Paul Holmes, Joe Mari Avellana, David Light
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: NTSC 16:9 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby Digitlal 2.0 English
Subtitles: None    Disc: DVD9 (Region 1)   Release Date: 01/18/2011   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory, LLC

An undersea earthquake releases a giant prehistoric fish off the coast of the tropical island of Mahu in Up From the Depths.  The fish begins chewing through the local population of photographers and hotel personnel in Jaws-like fashion – a hotel manager tries to minimize the crisis, while fisherman and swindler Sam Bottoms (Apocalypse Now, The Last Picture Show) joins forces with a marine biologist to destroy it.

Another in a long, long line of Jaws ripoffs, and neither the first nor the last to have a Corman connection, Up From the Depths is most surprising in that it manages to be more awful than even its dreadful ad art (by the amazing William Stout, who looks to have churned out this derivative muck in a hurry) might suggest.  I can’t rightly blame director Charles B. Griffith (best known for writing such Corman delights as The Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters) for all the film’s troubles, even if his direction is often lamentable, as it’s obvious that Up From the Depths was a bad apple long before the cameras starting rolling.

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Attack of the Crab Monsters

December 14th, 2010 | article by | 2 Comments »
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Year: 1957   Company: Allied Artists   Runtime: 63′
Director: Roger Corman   Writer: Charles B. Griffith   Cinematography: Floyd Crosby
Music: Ronald Stein   Cast: Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson, Leslie Bradley,
Mel Welles, Richard H. Cutting, Beach Dickerson, Tony Miller, Ed Nelson, Maitland Stuart
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 16:9 interlaced 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: Dual Layer DVD9 x2   Release Date: 01/18/2011   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC.

There’s something to be said for keeping the menace of your science fiction thriller under wraps, but producer / director Roger Corman obviously wanted audiences to know what to expect from the moment they saw the title of this Allied Artists cheapie on the theatre marquee.  Monsters were big, big business in the latter ’50s, and 1957 saw the world menaced by giant grasshoppers, giant vultures and even a disgruntled walking tree stump.  In retrospect Corman’s crab monsters were no sillier than the rest and his film, which could easily have been just a footnote in the history of creature features, has appeal as a minor camp classic thanks to some inspired casting and a penchant for narrative ridiculousness.

The story concerns a rag-tag group of scientists and Navy personnel who descend upon an isolated Pacific atoll after the inexplicable disappearance of an earlier research team.  Almost immediately after their arrival their transport plane explodes, stranding the group while inclement weather prevents them from communicating with the outside world.  Meanwhile strange things are happening on the atoll, which was heavily irradiated as a result of a nearby H-bomb test.  Booming explosions and odd clacking sounds are heard in the night, while each new dawn reveals that some part of the land has vanished…

More disturbing still, the members of the research group are disappearing one after the other, their disembodied voices spookily rising from somewhere unknown.  The culprits are soon revealed – huge mutated telepathic (!) land crabs are attacking the researchers with obscure intent, and its up to our heroes to stop them before there’s not a scrap of atoll left to stand on!

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A Quartet of Corman Classics from Shout! Factory

December 8th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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Big Bad Mama / Big Bad Mama II
Year: 1974 / 1987   Company: New World / Concorde   Runtime: 84′ / 83′
Director: Steve Carver / Jim Wynorski   Cinematography: Bruce Logan / Robert C. New
Writers: William Norton, Frances Doel / R.J. Robertson, Jim Winorski
Cast: Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee, Noble Willingham
Angie Dickinson, Robert Culp, Danielle Brisebois, Julie McCulloch, Bruce Glover, Ebbe Roe Smith
Crazy Mama / The Lady in Red
Year: 1975 / 1979   Company: New World Pictures   Runtime: 80′ / 93′
Director: Jonathan Demme / Lewis Teague   Cinematography: Bruce Logan / Daniel LaCambre
Writers: Frances Doel, Robert Thom / John Sayles
Cast: Cloris Leachman, Stuart Whitman, Ann Sothern, Linda Purl, Jim Backus, Tisha Sterling
Pamela Sue Martin, Robert Conrad, Louise Fletcher, Christopher Lloyd, Robert Forster
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: Progressive, 1.78:1 (16:9)    Audio: DD 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Discs: Dual Layer DVD9   Release Date: 12/07/2010
Amazon Product links: Big Bad Mama / Big Bad Mama II | Crazy Mama / The Lady in Red

As you may be able to tell from the above, there’s a lot to talk about with Shout! Factory’s latest issue of Roger Corman’s Cult Classics releases, a pair of women-on-the-run double features that boast some serious talent behind the scenes.  With names like Jonathan Demme, Lewis Teague, John Sayles and James Horner attached, these packages have legitimate interest beyond their considerable cult appeal.

Steve Carver’s Big Bad Mama follows a devoted mother trying to do the best she can by two troublesome daughters in the Depression-era Southwest.  Sick of the oppressive poverty of rural Texas, Wilma McClatchie (Angie Dickinson in the title role) packs her daughters in an old clunker and heads out for the promised land – California.  On the way the family becomes sidetracked by a life of crime, hooks up with a pair of crooks (William Shatner, Tom Skerritt) and eventually bites off more than it can chew with a high profile kidnapping scheme.

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Not of this Earth

November 8th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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Year: 1988   Company: Miracle Pictures, Pacific Trust, Concorde Pictures   Runtime: 81′
Director: Jim Wynorski   Writers: R. J. Robertson,  Jim Wynorski, Charles B. Griffith, Mark Hanna
Cinematography: Zoran Hochstatter   Music: Chuck Cirino   Cast: Traci Lords, Arthur Roberts.
Lenny Juliano, Ace Mask, Roger Lodge, Rebecca Perle, Michael Delano, Becky LeBeau
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 16:9 progressive 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: Dual Layer DVD9   Release Date: 11/02/2010   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC.

A nurse hired to give a mysterious older man daily blood transfusions suspects that her employer may not be so human as he seems in this remake of Roger Corman’s 1957 cult classic.  Writer and director Jim Wynorski (The Hills Have Thighs, Curse of the Komodo) took on the production to prove to Corman, with whom he had bet a car, that he could remake one of the B-movie mogul’s original spend-thrift efforts with the same constraints of time and budget.  Wynorski succeeded, and got his car.  As for the film?  Well, it’s about what you’d expect.

The 1988 Not of this Earth follows closely in the original’s footsteps, straying little from the events as penned by Charles B. Griffith (Little Shop of Horrors) and Mark Hanna (Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman) three decades earlier.  Here an agent of the dying planet Davana arrives in California, where he begins collecting human blood to send back to his extraterrestrial brethren.  The Davanan plot is eventually uncovered thanks to the due diligence of nurse Traci Lords (fresh from her under-age porn controversy) and foiled before the Earth can be transformed into an interstellar blood bank.

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The Slumber Party Massacre

September 17th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: New World Pictures
year: 1982
runtime: 77′
director: Amy Holden Jones
cast: Michele Michaels, Robin Stille,
Michael Villella, Debra Deliso,
Andree Honore, Jennifer Meyers,
Joseph Alan Johnson, Brinke Stevens
writer: Rita Mae Brown
cinematography: Stephen Posey
music: Ralph Jones
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com

The Slumber Party Massacre Collection double disc DVD set is due out from Shout! Factory on October 5th, in plenty of time for Halloween get togethers, and can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

The first installment in Roger Corman’s original slasher franchise is a wonderful mostly serious and self-aware addition to a sub-genre saturated with mindless knockoffs of past successes and cheap, irredeemable crap. That’s not to say that The Slumber Party Massacre doesn’t show its roots – quite the contrary, in fact. The basics of the narrative are par for the course, with a group of young women mercilessly stalked by an escaped serial killer while free of parental supervision.

The difference here, as well as with the two sequels, is the director, another in a long line of arguments for producer Corman’s affinity for strong women in film (both before and behind the camera). Indeed, I’m hard pressed to think of any other series of horror films that was helmed exclusively by women. Though far from masterworks on feminism (each takes time out for that all important Corman necessity – gratuitous nudity), the Slumber Party Massacre films do approach the sub-genre from a perspective atypical for the slasher sub-genre.

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Slumber Party Massacre II

September 17th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: Concorde Pictures
year: 1987
runtime: 75′
director: Deborah Brock
cast: Crystal Bernard, Atanas Ilitch,
Jennifer Rhodes, Kimberly McArthur,
Juliette Cummins, Patrick Lowe
writer: Deborah Brock
cinematography: Thomas L. Callaway
music: Richard Cox
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com

The Slumber Party Massacre Collection double disc DVD set is due out from Shout! Factory on October 5th, in plenty of time for Halloween get togethers, and can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

Coming five years after the original The Slumber Party Massacre, Deborah Brock’s Slumber Party Massacre II (originally to be called Don’t Let Go: Slumber Party Massacre II) has direct narrative connections to the first film but bares slim resemblance to it otherwise. Brock’s (Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever) film loses much of the suspense but more than makes up for its absence, ratcheting up the humor and gore and tossing in a bucketful of absurdity for good measure.

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Slumber Party Massacre III

September 17th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: New Concorde
year: 1990
runtime: 87′
director: Sally Mattison
cast: Yan Birch, Brandi Burckett,
Hope Marie Carlton, Keely Christian,
Maria Claire, Alexander Falk
writer: Catherine Cyran
cinematography: Jurgen Baum
music: Jamie Sheriff
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com

The Slumber Party Massacre Collection double disc DVD set is due out from Shout! Factory on October 5th, in plenty of time for Halloween get togethers, and can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

After being pleasantly surprised, thrilled even, with The Slumber Party Massacre and Slumber Party Massacre II, it’s perhaps best to say as little about Slumber Party Massacre III as possible. The period of Corman productions that began with the formation of New Concorde isn’t one I look upon with much fondness, being the time when his method of producing low-budget knock-offs of others’ (not to mention his own) successes was falling flat more and more. I may be a biased supporter of Corman and his place as a visionary independent producer, but even my admiration has its limits.

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Piranha

August 2nd, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: New World Pictures
year: 1978
runtime: 94′
director: Joe Dante
cast: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies,
Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn,
Dick Miller, Barbara Steele,
Belinda Balaski, Melody Scott
Paul Bartel, Bruce Gordon
writer: John Sayles
and Richard Robinson
cinematography: Jamie Anderson
music: Pino Donaggio
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com:
DVD | Blu-ray

Piranha is due out on special edition DVD and Blu-ray from Shout! Factory on August 3rd (the 32nd anniversary of its original theatrical debut). The title can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

Plot: While investigating the disappearance of a pair of teenagers a private detective and an alcoholic recluse inadvertently release a swarm of genetically engineered Vietnam-era weapons-grade piranha into a river just upstream from a recently constructed tourist trap.

A king among low budget cult films, Piranha is easily one of the most successful and best remembered of the movies produced by and released through Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins) from a sharp script by John Sayles (Alligator, Passion Fish) and cast with an impressive slate of name stars and cult icons including Bradford Dillman (Bug, The Swarm), Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Keenan Wynn (Once Upon a Time in the West) and Barbara Steele (Black Sunday, Shivers), the film blends gory horror with a wickedly sardonic sense of humor to make inimitable B-movie gold.

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Screwballs

July 24th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Screw Balls
film rating:
disc rating:
companies: Maurice Smith Productions,
Millennium, and New World Pictures
year: 1983
runtime: 80′
country: Canada
director: Rafal Zielinski
cast: Peter Keleghan, Kent Deuters,
Linda Speciale, Alan Deveau,
Linda Shayne, Jason Warren,
Jim Coburn, Terrea Smith
disc company: Severin Films
release date: October 13, 2009
retail price: $34.95
disc details: Region A / Single Layer
feature: 1080p HD
audio: Dolby Digital English [2.0]
subtitles: none
reviewed from a screener
provided by Severin Films LLC.
order this disc from Amazon.com

Plot: A motley gang of high school miscreants go on a quest to reveal the breasts of resident virgin Purity Busch.

I have to admit before delving into this review proper that I’ve never much been friends with the teen sex comedy sub-genre.  I’ve not seen Bob Clark’s Porky’s, any of the multitude of American Pie iterations, or even the seminal John Landis effort Animal House.  Aside from the long-ago experience of seeing Fast Times at Ridgemont High on television one very boring summer day, my experience with the sub-genre is practically nil.  Consider this review to be the perspective of a complete outsider.

My first impression of Screwballs, and this isn’t meant as an insult in the least, is that it’s a tremendously stupid film.  I would even go so far as to call it epic in terms of its stupidity.  The humor, from character names (Purity Busch, Melvin Jerkovski, Bootsie Goodhead, and so on) on up, is about as obvious as it gets.  None of this is necessarily a bad thing as far as the genre is concerned, and in the case of Screwballs the combination of obviousness and uncompromising idiocy are positive boons.

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Humanoids From the Deep

July 17th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: New World Pictures
year: 1980
runtime: 79′
director: Barbara Peeters
and James Sbardellati
cast: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel,
Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub,
Anthony Pena, Denise Galik
writers: William Martin,
Frank Arnold and Martin B. Cohen
cinematographer: Daniel Lacambre
music: James Horner
Order this film from Amazon.com:
DVD | Blu-ray

Plot: A race of humanoid coelacanths, mutated by a nefarious canning company’s genetic experiments on salmon, rise from the depths of the ocean to mate with human women, causing all manner of trouble in a small fishing village.

One of the seediest and sleaziest little numbers in the New World catalog, Humanoids From the Deep courted controversy upon release not only for its trashy, monster-rape content, but for the fact that it was all added in post-production, without the knowledge of its cast. Made under the working title Beneath the Darkness, the finished Humanoids…, complete with additional gore and scenes of graphic sexual violence, bore little resemblance to what the main cast had signed up for. Actress Ann Turkel was so perturbed by the circumstances that she tried to get her name removed from the credits and, refused that by producer Roger Corman, went so far as to petition the Screen Actors Guild to force Corman to pull Humanoids… from distribution. With SAG having never prepared for such eventualities, Corman prevailed and Humanoids… charged on.

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