CULT CINEMA
Roger Corman Double Bill
The Little Shop of Horrors PG
USA | 1960 | 73 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Roger Corman
STARRING
Jonathan Haze | Jackie Joseph | Mel Welles | Jack Nicholson
Roger Corman Double Bill
The Masque of the Red Death 15
USA/UK | 1964 | 84 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Roger Corman
STARRING
Vincent Price | Hazel Court | Jane Asher
Roger Corman died in May this year, aged 98. When there were such things as B-movies, Riger Corman was likely involved – he was the producer of hundreds of films, the director of more than fifty and an actor in a similar number. He helped launch the careers of many luminaries of the film world, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro, Sandra Bullock and Jack Nicholson.
It is Jack Nicholson who appears in The Little Shop of Horrors in one of his earliest film roles. We begin to see his unhinged side as Wilbur Force, a dentist’s patient, who is mainly interested in the experience of pain. Of course, this film is a comedy, so no need to hide under the seat, even in the presence of the blood-thirsty plant, which has been nurtured by the hapless assistant of the titular little shop.
In the 1960s, Corman directed a series of adaptations based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe. The Masque of the Red Death is one of these. Vincent Price is the star, as he was for all but one the eight films in Corman’s Poe Cycle. Although these films were made very quickly and were low budget, they were in colour and the budget was double what Corman had been used to for his earlier films. The Masque of the Red Death is not a comedy, rather a more traditional X-rated horror movie of the time. Price plays a wicked prince who terrorises the local peasantry, leaving them to suffer the pestilence then stalking the land. But he takes in one of the villagers, Francesca, on whom he has extra-marital designs. She is played by a young Jane Asher. Also of interest is that the cinematographer of this film is none other than Nicolas Roeg, who went on to direct Don’t Look Now (1973), screened by The Eclectic Cinema last year.
30 September 2024 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
Tickets £12.00|£10.00 (up to age 25)