Film Masters Has Newly Restored Editions Of Director Roger Corman's The Terror And Little Shop Of Horrors Ready For Release As Both DVD And Blu-ray Editions On Dec. 12

The Film Masters has a little something lined up for the Christmas season.   The Dec. 12 date should be circled on your calendar, especially if you are looking for stocking-stuffers for those film buffs that are hard to buy for.

On Dec. 12 look for the Roger Corman double-feature — newly restored from 35mm archival elements — of The Terror and Little Shop of Horrors.  These are classics — both in a film sense and as cinema history — and will be available as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings.

First, The Terror, if you don’t have a copy of Roger Corman’s book, “How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime,” think about tracking one down.   It’s a great read.In any case, in Chapter Seven Roger goes into some detail on how The Terror, starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson, got made.   What an adventure!!

It goes like this, Corman is directing The Raven (1963 with both Karloff and Nicholson, plus Vincent Price and Peter Lorre) and absolutely loves the sets that were constructed for the film.  Being both a frugal and creative guy, he hits upon the idea of shooting another film (quickly) before the sets are torn down. 

To accomplish that, he has actor/writer Leo Gordon knockout 60 pages of the script that will shot in two days using the sets of The Raven and holding over Boris Karloff for two days … Nicholson will be his co-star.   Corman literally shot one scene after another … bang, bang, bang. 

The rest of the script will be finished later, which is a story onto itself.

In any case, Corman needed additional footage and has his new assistant — perhaps you might have heard of him — Francis Ford Coppola (fresh from film school) take Jack Nicholson and Sandra Knight (as Helene) and go to Big Sur to shoot the sequences leading up to Nicholson’s arrival at the castle.  It took longer than expected.

He still needed more footage, so he sort order he had Monte Hellman shoot some material and this was followed by Jack Hill, who did what he could with the time allotted him.   Still not finished, no problem, Jack Nicholson steps in and gets the last of The Terror on film (five directors).

Included with The Terror is a newly-prepared commentary option with C. Courtney Joyner and Dr. Steve Haberman and the featurette titled “Ghosts in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman’s Celluloid Castle.”

Teamed with The Terror as a bonus feature is Little Shop of Horrors, which was filmed as something of an after-thought in just two days in 1959.   It was the fastest film Corman ever shot and it turned out to be a gem … a black comedy horror film.   

Included with the Little Shop of Horrors is commentary teaming author Justin Humphreys with the film’s star, Jonathan Haze.