Roger Corman

Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Boxcar Bertha (1972)

(On Cable TV, October 2019) In many ways, Boxcar Bertha isn’t particularly remarkable: As a better-than-average production from the Roger Corman filmmaking school, it heavily draws upon Bonnie and Clyde for inspiration at it shows a depression-era couple turning to crime in between love scenes. But here’s the thing: It’s Martin Scorsese’s second feature film, his first professional feature one after his quasi-student film Who’s That Knocking at My Door. As such, it’s practically mandatory viewing for fans. But it also shows what a good director can do with familiar material: While most movies produced by Corman had trouble even settling for capable B-movie status (“crank them out fast and cheap” seem to have been his American International Pictures’ unofficial motto), Boxcar Bertha does manage to become a decent genre picture. Despite a blunt script and low production values, it’s handled with some skill and meditative intent, reflecting Scorsese’s approach to the material and destiny to execute superior genre pictures. Barbara Hershey and David Carradine also do quite well in the lead roles. I’m not sure contemporary audiences will appreciate the film as much at the 1970s one did—after all, there’s practically a 1970s “violent couple picaresque journey” subgenre by now-famous directors in between Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, arguably Beatty), Sugarland Express (Spielberg), Badlands (Malick), and Boxcar Bertha fits right into what was then New Hollywood’s most salacious appeal. Decades and a few more Natural Born Killers later, it’s not as new or invigorating as it once was. Instead, we’re left with something far different: the movies as juvenilia, interesting not as much for what they were, but what they foretold.

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Galaxy of Terror (1981)

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) It will probably cause physical pain to at least one cinephile if I keep comparing Galaxy of Terror to Solyaris, but how else to talk about a science-fiction film in which the alien presence literalizes thoughts out of the characters’ minds? Of course, Galaxy of Terror is an avowed SF/horror hybrid coming from Roger Corman’s low-end exploitation production company: the seemingly clever premise is really a way to string along unconnected scary scenes without much thought regarding consistency or plausibility. It’s not playing fancy or playing nice—the film’s most infamous sequence has an alien worm raping a female character, and the film’s Wikipedia entry spends almost as many words talking about that scene than detailing the plot. One of Galaxy of Terror’s few claims to a place in cinematic history is that James Cameron served as production designer and second-unit director on the film. (He didn’t direct the worm scene — Corman did.)  How you feel about the result will depend, again, on what you compare it to.   It’s more interesting than most of the slasher-horror movies of the moment, but it also feels like a terrible imitation of Alien. It does showcase Corman’s low-budget high-imagination ethos, but that’s not much of a recommendation. Ultimately, Galaxy of Terror is not likely to appeal to Science Fiction fans as much as to horror fans, given that so much of the plot is focused on the terrors rather than the galaxy.

Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

(On Cable TV, November 2018) I wasn’t expecting much from Pit and the Pendulum: horror movies of the early 1960s can be undistinguishable from one another, especially given how many of them were made with small budgets and indifferent actors. But from the first few minutes, there’s something remarkable about the film’s use of colour (in an early-sixties horror film!), its confidence in using a flashback structure and, of course, in Vincent Price’s performance. Director/Producer Roger Corman became a legend for a reason, and Pit and the Pendulum remains surprisingly effective. Great sets help, as does the unusually stylish flashback cinematography. The titular pendulum and pit set is also quite good. This being said, my favourite moment in the film is the stinger at the very end, which takes barely a second to remind us that something horrible is still happening to one of the antagonists—and will keep happening for a while. It’s an amazingly good jump-conclusion to a decent horror film.

Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

(On Cable TV, December 2017) I’m usually a forgiving audience for older movies—I’m getting into the mindset of forgiving the limitations of the time, and it certainly helps that what has survived until now is usually what deserves to be seen again. But even this patience has its limits, and I could feel it being tested during Little Shop of Horrors, an ultra-low-budget Roger Corman effort that seems memorable more for outrageousness than quality. Reportedly shot over two days for a paltry five-figure budget, Little Shop of Horrors makes up for its limited means through high invention: What if it was a comedy about a carnivorous plant? Of course, comedy is subjective and black comedy even more so—to me, Little Shop of Horror is more grating and mean-spirited than anything else. It is, I’ll concede, memorable: In addition to the ludicrous premise, Jack Nicholson shows up in a manic Jim Carreyesque performance as a masochistic dental client. Still, even at a running time of merely 72 minutes, the film is more of an ordeal than I had expected. Much of its contemporary popularity can be explained by how it’s in the public domain, and was later adapted as a musical and then another bigger-budget movie. As itself, though, Little Shop of Horrors is not as much fun as it could be.

Sharktopus (2010)

Sharktopus (2010)

(On DVD, July 2011) There seems to be an almost unexplainable appetite among young viewers for cheap trashy monster features, and Sharktopus seems determined to exploit this fascination without shame.  Playing up the camp elements of such stories, Sharktopus mashes a shark and an octopus (well, maybe a squid) and sets in in the middle of an intensely familiar monster-movie plot.  Someone gets eaten every few minutes while the plucky adventurers go hunting for the rogue creature.  Revelling in cheap special effects, Sharktopus doesn’t rise far above its “SyFy Pictures” straight-to-cable-TV pedigree: it only looks good when compared to some of the worst abominations coming out of SciFi/Syfy.  The acting is over-the-top, the script barely shows signs of sentience, the cinematography struggles to capture the lush tropical location… and yet, Sharktopus isn’t a complete waste of time, largely because it doesn’t really take itself seriously.  It’s not a comedy, but the nature of its set-pieces is ridiculous enough to suspect that someone is clearly having some fun behind the camera.  The actors have their own charm (Eric Roberts understands that he’s there to bark, whereas Sara Malakul Lane does have, to quote another character, that “sexy librarian thing going on”) and the forward narrative rhythm of the film isn’t too bad.  Sharktopus may be trash, but it’s engaging in its own way.  For producer Roger Corman, already a legend of B-movies, this is practically second nature: deliver an exploitation movie, make it fun, make it fast and don’t worry too much about respectability.