When the topic of favorite horror films come up, most folks think fondly of at least one of those Sixties Poe flicks directed by Roger Corman. Joe Romano also has happy memories of...
By Joe Romano
Memories of Saturday afternoons as a boy conjure up images of long summer days buried deep inside the Garden Theater on Pittsburgh's North Side. While other kids were hitting a baseball across the street in West Park, I was watching Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre romp their way through haunted castles, misty cemeteries and ghoulish nightmares. All courtesy of the campiest horror film director in cinematic history--Roger Corman.
 |
 |
| Roger Corman | Vincent Price |
It might not have been the great American pastime--or for that matter, Oscar winning material--but the phantasmic images flickering on the silver screen sure beat running around the dusty bases of the nearby ball field. Frightened out of my wits, or laughing to death, it was all the same while watching the "scary flicks" of the early sixties directed by Corman--many of them very loosely based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Pit And The Pendulum, The Masque Of The Red Death, and everybody's favorite, The Raven, to name just a few.
 |
| Corman's Poe films were often mesmerizing... |
Of course, Poe's original plotlines flew out the window with scores of creepy things going bump in the night and rotting corpses dripping of caramel syrup, but that was half the fun of going to Corman's movies.
Throughout his career Corman cranked out one movie after
another, relying heavily on over-the-top interpretations from the greatest horror stars
ever assembled this side of the 
afterlife. Sometimes I wondered why
famous actors worked for Corman but later realized they were having a whole lot of fun
doing it--and making a little money at the same time. And they did give me macabre
memories for the rest of my life. What else could a kid ask for?
But you know, there was something else, something that flowed through Corman's movies like crimson red blood or burning hot wax. Somehow I think even Poe would have enjoyed Corman's filmed versions of his tales. In a way, Corman's movies filled us with the same sense of wonder and terror found in Poe's written words.
Corman built his chilling visions on the horrifying literary tradition begun by Poe, but he adapted them for a new visual age. I know Corman was no Poe, but he tapped the same primal fears on film that Poe conquered with the pen. Fears we've all experienced as adults, whether waking suddenly in the middle of the night or driving alone at the end of a stormy day along a dark country lane. There's something out there, hidden in the shadows just beyond the reach of the light. If we're not careful it might snatch our arms and gobble us up.
Poe saw beyond the dim, grey recess of our simple lives and tried to warn us that all is not what it seems. So did Corman. I know the two men would have admired each other's works if they had lived at the same time. They spoke the same language--a strange tongue long forgotten by rational adults but clearly understood by adolescent boys, kids that never grew up, and babbling madmen.
And without a doubt Roger Corman gave us terrific movies for a Saturday afternoon!
He certainly did! Thanks, Joe, for reminding us of the films that Roger "Never Lost A Dime" Corman made that are truly "Priceless" (er, "Price-full")! Cheers!
Article copyright Joe Romano. Article originally appeared in the Creepy Classics Video catalog.
