Horror in the Early Films of Roger Corman, 1955–1964

Roger Corman – an influential indie filmmaker with a penchant for producing and directing hundreds of entertaining, literate, and campy B-movies – is now most recognized for his early low-budget, cult-classic horror movies. Adapting assembly-line methods learned during his engineer training to make more films, Corman earned a reputation as a “creative, no-frills producer” with an affinity for leveraging spectacle to appeal to audiences and turn a profit.An interdisciplinary roster of contributors adopts varied approaches grounded in philosophy, history, literature, film, and gender to analyze a selected body of films and mashups created between 1955 and 1964 as the grindhouse producer-director developed his craft at American International Pictures (AIP). From early “grabbers” – cheap exploitation films such as The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955) and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) – through his Poe Cycle – Edgar Allan Poe adaptations in collaboration with AIP and Vincent Price including The Premature Burial (1962) and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) – this volume offers a range of thematic film analyses focusing on form, content, and cultural considerations.