Roger Corman’s Horror Movies: collected essays

edited by Sue Matheson

Part of theLexington Books Horror Studiesseries edited by Carl Sederholm

Indie filmmaker Roger Corman is known for producing and directing hundreds of B-movies, discovering industry stars (like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, and Robert de Niro), anticipating Hollywood’s New Wave, and founding a profitable empire that included New World Pictures and Concorde/New Horizons. Entertaining, literate, and campy, his fast-paced, low-budget genre films, aimed at the youth market and generally shot in less than two weeks, included horror movies, horror comedies, and sci-fi/horror. The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), The Undead (1957), Not of This Earth (1957), A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Wasp Woman (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), The Intruder (1962), The Terror (1963), The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), and Dementia 13 (1963) helped make Corman “The King of the Drive-in” and the “King of Cult.” Cult classics, the gothic horror films of his Edgar Allan Poe cycle (House of Usher [1960], The Pit and the Pendulum [1961], Premature Burial [1962], Tales of Terror [1962], The Raven [1963], The Haunted Palace [1963], The Masque of the Red Death [1964] and The Tomb of Ligeia [1964]) also revived the careers of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, and Peter Lorre. As the “Orson Welles of the Z movies,” Corman was not only an auteur filmmaker and influencer; he was also a producer and distributor of horror movies. The last movie he directed was the under-appreciated Frankenstein Unbound (1990). Corman’s better-known works have been taught in courses on the history of the horror genre and cult films, while many others deserve critical reexamination.

This anthology seeks previously unpublished essays that explore Roger Corman’s body of horror films and mashups. It is open to submissions on films belonging to his Edgar Allan Poe seriesfranchise and his well-known cult horrors, but will particularly welcome interdisciplinary approaches that can illuminate overlooked films like The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), The Undead (1957), Not of This Earth (1957), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Night of the Blood Beast (1958), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), The Intruder (1962), Tower of London (1962), The Man With X-Ray Eyes (1963), and Frankenstein Unbound (1990).

This volume will be interdisciplinary in scope, including approaches from philosophy, literary studies, film studies, gender studies, history, psychology, popular culture studies, hauntology, ecology, etc. The chapters will be peer-reviewed, scholarly, and written at a high academic level.

Contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Thematic and structural analysis of one or more films

• Visual style                                      

• Notions of evil

• Photography and cinematography 

• The supernatural

• Corman as an auteur and/or influencer, producer, distributor

• Mash ups and updated horror

• Soundscapes and music

• Film as philosophy/philosophy in film

• Failed parenthood

• Comedy, black humor, and irony

• Social and cultural contexts

• American youth and youth culture

• Drive-in film culture

• Landscapes as sites of horror

• Literary and gothic adaptations

• Exploration of the sub- and unconscious  

 • Class, sexuality, abject, gender and queer readings 

This anthology will be organized into thematic sections around these topics and others that emerge from submissions. It is open to works that focus on other topics as well. Prospective authors are welcome to contact the editor with any questions, including potential topics not listed above. Please share this announcement with anyone you believe would be interested in contributing to this volume. Please submit a 250-word abstract of your proposed chapter contribution, a brief CV / bio, current position, affiliation, and complete contact information to Sue Matheson (smatheson@ucn.ca) by the 30th of December 2024. Full chapters of 6,000-7,000 words are due in June 2025.

Note: Acceptance of a proposed abstract does not guarantee the acceptance of the full chapter