Horror in the Early Films of Roger Corman, 1955–1964
Description
This edited volume examines the films of Roger Corman, an indie filmmaker known for producing and directing hundreds of B-movies, discovering industry stars, anticipating Hollywood's New Wave, and founding a profitable empire that included New World Pictures and Concorde/New Horizons.
An interdisciplinary roster of contributors adopt a variety of approaches – including those grounded in philosophy, literary studies, film studies, gender studies, and history, among others – to explore Corman's ouevre of entertaining, literate, and campy genre films. Both well-known and understudied films will be analyzed and arranged thematically between focuses on form, content, and cultural considerations.
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Table of Contents
Sue Matheson (University College of the North, Canada)
Part I: Corman's Early “Grabbers”
1. Antagonistic Characters: Gothic Landscapes in the Films of Roger Corman
Stella Hockenhull (University of Wolverhampton, UK)
2. American Fears, Communist Crustaceans: Cold War Anxieties in Roger Corman's Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
Amanda Riccitelli (Binghamton University, USA)
3. Time Travel, Terror and Reel Regression in The Undead (1957) and The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)
Gary Forster (De Montfort University, USA)
4. “We Would Observe the Future with Gay Confusion”: Mind-Games and Queer Temporality in Roger Corman's The Undead (1957)
Adam Hartman-Whitfield (Binghamton University, USA)
5. Rethinking Beauty and Insolence in Roger Corman's Wasp Woman (1959)
Natasha Farrell (Memorial University, USA)
Part II: Other Vein to Mine
6. Roger Corman's Little Shop of Hybridities: Genre Mash-Up and Resonant 'Horror'
Kerry Soper (Brigham Young University, USA)
7. Dark Humor, Carnival and Camp in Roger Corman's Horror Comedies
Sue Matheson (University College of the North, Canada)
8. Progressive Democracy in The Intruder (1962), Day the World Ended (1955), It Conquered the World (1956) and Last Woman on Earth (1960)
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Emiliano Aguilar (Independent Scholar, Argentina) and Jorge Traversa (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Part III: The Moderlode-Corman's Poe Cycle
9. Roger Corman's Adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe: The Poe Cycle and Vincent Price
Fran Pheasant-Kelly (Wolverhampton University, UK)
10. Medicine, Madness and Murder: Corman's Sinister Collaborations with Actor Ray Milland
Gillian Kelly (Independent Scholar, USA)
11. The Pleasure of Terror: The (Pathecolor) Sublime in The Premature Burial (1962) and X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1964)
Ethan Lyon (University of Southampton, UK)
12. Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
Brian Brems (College of DuPage, USA)
13. Fragmented Authorship and the Creative Process of The Terror (1963)
Felipe M. Guerra (University of Porto, Portugal)
Part IV: Aftermath
14. “Absurd Horror”: Dark Humor, Ambiguity, and the Aesthetics of Dread in Roger Corman's Mashups
Peter Scott Lederer (Rotherham College, UK)
About the Contributors
Index
Product details
| Published | 10 Dec 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 9798216260936 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 14 bw illus |
| Series | Research in Horror Studies |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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