Roger Corman was “The B-Movie King,” directing and producing hundreds of cult classics including “The Wild Angels” and “Rock n’ Roll High School.”
- Died: May 9, 2024 (Who else died on May 9?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Santa Monica, California at the age of 98.
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Roger Corman’s legacy
Corman was a trailblazer of independent filmmaking, influencing maverick directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, as both directed Corman-produced films early in their career. Starting in the 1950s, Corman directed many B-movie classics including “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and “Teenage Caveman.” He was behind the first “Little Shop of Horrors” in 1960, and he directed other horror classics like “The Masque of the Red Death” and “House of Usher.” His work touched on many other genres as well, like the biker film “The Wild Angels,” the war film “Von Richthofen and Brown,”and the sci-fi film “The Last Woman on Earth.”
In 1970, Corman founded New World Pictures and had success as a producer/distributor of many films including “Caged Heat,” directed by Jonathan Demme. He continued to produce films later in life, many for the Syfy network including “Sharktopus.” Corman also acted in films, especially working with directors he had mentored in their early days. He appeared in Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II,” Jonathan Demme’s (1944–2017) “The Silence of the Lambs,” and Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13,” among others.
Notable quote
“[H]orror films today hinge on brutality, where you cut somebody’s arm off or something like that, which is a cheap way to get a thrill. And I stayed away from that. And the horror was by indirection and what’s really important is that you can’t just have a horror scene, you must build up to them—and it’s the buildup, the sense of impending horror that causes the horror scene itself to work.” —from a 2022 interview for the AV Club
Tributes to Roger Corman
Full obituary: The New York Times
