The Terror/The Little Shop of Horrors (Blu-Ray)
**The Blu-Ray/DVD from Film Masters of “The Terror” will be available on December 12, 2023. This is a review of not just the feature, but the Blu-Ray edition. The grade for this will be for the main movie itself; the set grades will be featured in the body.
“The Terror” (1963)
There are some times when casting just feels completely antithetical to the period. When I first watched one of my wife’s favorite films, “The Black Shield of Falworth,” seeing Tony Curtis as a knight was…jarring. When we first see Jack Nicholson as a Napoleonic soldier in Roger Corman’s “The Terror,” it’s hard not to feel the same way. And yet, Corman makes it work. Yes, he is known for schlock and B-movies, but whenever he directed in period, another level seemed to come out of his work that is just fascinating to see.
Nicholson’s Lt. Andre Duvalier shows up on the shores of a land, where he sees a mysterious, beautiful young woman (Sandra Knight). Almost as soon as he sees her, however, she’s gone, as she leads him to a nearby castle. There, he is met by the owner of the castle, Baron Victor Frederick Von Leppe (Boris Karloff). The Baron is uneasy about having Duvalier in his castle, however, especially when he is asking about the young woman, who bears a resemblance to Ilsa The Baroness Von Leppe, who died some years ago. The longer he stays, the more the mystery grows.
While not a specific adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s work, there are elements of the screenplay- by Jack Hill and Leo Gordon- that make you feel like Poe was warming up to make those films with this one. There is a sense of atmosphere and dread in “The Terror” that is intoxicating to get lost in, which is very much in keeping with Corman’s MO in terms of period horror films. The performances are all strong, including Dorothy Neumann as an old woman near the castle whose knowledge of events is important to the story. “The Terror” delivers as a compelling supernatural drama.
Blu-Ray Presentation
Film Masters’s restoration of “The Terror” is quite impressive in how good the picture and sound looks while maintaining the low-budget nature of Corman’s filmmaking. This is not as lovely a production as, say, “The Masque of the Red Death,” but the colors and sets of “The Terror” are shown off to wonderful degree in this restoration, with the sound crisp and natural-sounding. I have not had a chance to look at the extras, but Film Masters has an interesting set for this one, including a 45-minute video essay called “Ghosts in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman’s Celluloid Castle”; an audio commentary by C. Courtney Joyner and Dr. Steve Haberman; a recut trailer for the film; and a companion essay, Boris Karloff and the Long Shadow of Poe by Joyner. That sounds like a winning collection of extras.
Film Grade: A-
Audio & Video: A-
Bonus Features: N/A
“The Little Shop of Horrors” (1960)
I’ve been an ardent fan of Frank Oz’s 1986 adaptation of the Howard Ashman/Alan Menkin musical since I was a kid, but this is my first time watching the dark comedy that they were building off of. Now that I’ve seen it, Corman’s film’s greatest legacy will be the musical that was born from it two decades later, but the screenplay by Charles B. Griffith’s has a rock-solid foundation that allows both versions of the story to expand how they see fit. In a way, this is probably the most diabolical take on the story, if only because of how bleak this film gets- that original Broadway ending has got nothing on this.
I love the way this film uses drawings to take us into the Skid Row of the film- it’s almost an impressionist’s way of getting us into the setting of the story. We’re still following Seymour Krelborn (here played by Jonathan Haze), a down on his luck florist working for Mr. Mushnik (Mel Welles) in his flower shop, and how his pet project- a fascinating little plant called Audrey Two (after his unrequited crush, and co-worker, Audrey (Jackie Joseph))- opens up new veins of success for everyone involved…so long as Seymour opens veins to feed the plant. The design of Audrey Two is the same as the later film, just on a much lower budget, so its mouth is filled with what looks like cotton as opposed to being expertly designed, but there are some visual twists to this one that- arguably- makes it more malicious.
The musical has a stronger emotional hook, for obvious reasons, but the 72-minute Corman film is a delicious dark comedy that also finds inspiration in film noir, with Seymour as a hapless protagonist drawn in by a femme fatale, which- in this case- just happens to be a killer plant. That’s not as prevalent in Oz’s film, but it adds a dimension to Corman’s film that allows it to stand on its own. There are very funny performances, including by Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient and Dick Miller as a flower-eating patron, but the film understands that its strength is the terror of Audrey Two against the comedy. Corman got more ambitious as he went along, but “The Little Shop of Horrors” is a fascinating step in that direction.
Blu-Ray Presentation
Film Masters is treating B-movies exceptionally well in their restorations. This film’s black-and-white photography looks crisp, and the film looks better than the low-budget offering it is. The soundtrack is restored extremely well. As with “The Terror,” I haven’t had a chance to check out any of the extras, but Corman fans seem to be well served here. There is the essay, Faster! Faster! by Mark McGee in the color booklet. The audio commentary is by Justin Humphreys and star Jonathan Haze. We get a recut trailer for the film, as well as “Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story, Part Two,” a continuation of one of the extra’s from their October Corman offerings.
Film Grade: A-
Audio & Video: A
Bonus Features: N/A
From a purely cinematic perspective, this is a far more interesting double feature from Corman and Film Masters than “Beast From Haunted Cave” and “Ski Troop Patrol” was, but if you’re interested in Corman’s cinematic legacy, they make a quadruple feature well worth taking in.
