Verdict
Summary
Film Masters recently released a two-disc set of these two Corman titles to Blu-ray, and I’ve got to say that both films have never looked or sounded better. With crisp and clear high definition transfers, the movies look amazing, and they’ve produced a number of bonus features, including an insert booklet, featurettes, and more. Fans of these titles or anyone curious, this is the best way to see these movies, no doubt about it.
Little Shop of Horrors (1960) Plot:
A nebbish employee at a florist accidentally creates a monster plant.
Review:
Seymour Krelborn (Jonathan Haze) is a nebbish mamma’s boy who works at a florist under the watchful eye of a penny-pinching boss Mr. Mushnik (Mel Welles), whose only other employee is the cute Audrey (Jackie Joseph) who has a soft spot for Seymour. One night, Seymour cross-pollinates some seeds and accidentally creates a Venus flytrap hybrid that gets a taste of his blood by accident, and the slip up inadvertently creates a monster that must be fed with blood and then flesh to be satiated. The plant, which he names Audrey Jr., grows and grows to a monstrous size, which quickly becomes a bit of boon for the flower shop that picks up in business because people are so curious about the huge Audrey Jr. plant. Detectives come asking questions after several people disappear around the flower shop, but with no bodies to prove that Seymour had anything to do with their disappearances, cops are at a loss. Meanwhile, Seymour and Audrey try to carry on a romance, despite the guilt and shame Seymour has for the body count he’s been accruing while feeding his plant the bodies of people who accidentally got in his way!
A clever and very inventive creature feature / comedy from Roger Corman, Little Shop of Horrors truly is one of the most original horror movies ever made, and it obviously turned a very tidy profit for him and even spawned a remake and a musical stage production. Performances all around are great, including a hilarious one by Jack Nicholson as a masochist who visits a dentist, and the film is simply a real delight to watch. Film Masters presents the film on high definition in a supreme transfer that sparkles, and special features for this disc include a new audio commentary, and a new feature entitled “Hollywood Intruders” by Ballyhoo Productions.
The Terror (1963) Plot:
A French soldier wanders onto the estate of a baron whose dead wife haunts the castle.
Review:
A French soldier (played by a young Jack Nicholson) who has lost his way from his regimen staggers on his parched horse onto the seaside estate of a baron (Boris Karloff) and his castle. The soldier comes to consciousness and sees a beautiful woman who beckons to him and he follows her specter to the castle where she seems to be toying with him from an upstairs window. The owner of the castle, the baron, is an old, sodded man with a secret: He killed his young wife many years ago out of jealousy, and when the young soldier tells him that he keeps seeing her, the baron feels as if the ghost of his wife is back to haunt him. The plot thickens (just a little) when an old woman who lives nearby has long plotted her vengeance against the baron for being involved in a plot to kill her son, whom she is certain died long ago, but in fact the man may still be alive and working with the ghost of the baron’s wife to get revenge on the baron. With the young soldier now in the mix of this macabre plot, he might be the only one who will live to tell the tale long after the terror has come and gone from this accursed place.
Quite colorful and well lit for such a dinky gothic horror movie, Roger Corman’s The Terror might’ve benefitted from being shot in black and white or at least with more shadows and grays, but as it is, the film might be one of the most sparkling looking horror movies ever made with its blue skies, blue, crashing waves, and startlingly lit castle sets, which Corman also used for The Raven. The movie is a little sloggy and slow moving, with a bright-eyed and bushy tailed Nicholson a bit out of his depth in a movie like this in a role that requires him to be a French solider, and Karloff is very long in the tooth here in a role he’s adequate in, but doesn’t add much in the way of nuance to. Dick Miller has a supporting role, and apparently a number of other filmmakers (including Francis Ford Coppola) shot some second unit footage for this.
Film Masters recently released a two-disc set of these two Corman titles to Blu-ray, and I’ve got to say that both films have never looked or sounded better. With crisp and clear high definition transfers, the movies look amazing, and they’ve produced a number of bonus features, including an insert booklet, featurettes, and more. Fans of these titles or anyone curious, this is the best way to see these movies, no doubt about it.
