Film Masters has done it again and genre fans are loving it!
On Nov. 12, the next newly-restored classic from the creative mind of the late Roger Corman will arrive as both DVD and Blu-ray editions … and yes, it will be a double-feature!!
So what is the genre delight this time around? How about a new 4K film restoration (from a rare surviving complete 35mm print) of director Bernard Kowalski’s 1958 Christmas-season sci-fi/horror entry, Night of the Blood Beast. Let that sink in … a new 4K film restoration from a complete 35mm print. Is this a winner? In a word, YES!!!
It was 1958 and Roger Corman could spot a good idea for producing a movie by just seeing what was going on in the world. Space, the Explorer satellite (among others) was making headline news and president Eisenhower worked with the Congress to get NASA up and running. 1958 was all about space, so let’s make a movie about what might happen in space on a manned exploratory flight.
Roger turned to his brother Gene, who had a working relationship with filmmaker Bernard Kowalski, newcomer Martin Varno delivered the screenplay and Night of the Blood Beast went into production with Corman regulars as the cast members, including Michael Emmet, Angela Greene and Ed Nelson … and speaking of “regulars,” the “creature” costume used in the film had just been used in another Corman production, so it did go to waste (that’s how Roger Corman never lost money making a movie in Hollywood).
Night of the Blood Beast remarkably has many of the elements of two future sci-fi classic … Alien and The Thing. Astronaut John Corcoran (Emmet) is on a low-orbit mission to gather re-entry data, but something goes wrong and his ship crashes. A local research crew rushes to the crash site and discovers him dead.
They return to their facility with his body and genre fans will immediately recognize the film’s motif — this is a haunted house thriller and the research scientists are the “victim pool!”
It seems that Corcoran — who comes back to life — has been “infected” with alien embryos and the invading creature (hiding in a nearby cave and killing off the “threats” one by one) is using him to gestate the vanguard of an invading force. Can the survivors of this remote research station unravel the mystery and defeat the creature … or is the earth doomed!!
The very next collaboration between producer Gene Corman and director Bernard Kowalski was the companion film in this Film Masters double-feature presentation … Attack of the Giant Leeches.
So how cool is it that both Night of the Blood Beast (a new 4K film restoration) and Attack of the Giant Leeches are on Blu-ray (or DVD) as a double-feature from Film Masters this coming Nov. 12. Pretty cool.
But it gets even better! Get a load of the bonus goodies that are included with these Corman gems … Tom Weaver and the Weaver Players provide commentary for both films, there is a documentary on the film career of Bernard Kowalski, before-and-after comparisons on the 4K restoration and both of the MST3K episodes featuring these films.
