Shout! Factory in April (hmm, April…) will be putting out new editions of some classic–well, our sort of classic–New World movies under the umbrella title “The Roger Corman Cult Classics.” Being New World films, these will be films Corman produced rather than directed, but they definitely do bear his stamp.
The discs will feature Piranha (hmm, Pirahna…), Humanoids from the Deep, and, nice because the movies suck, a double bill of the gobsmackingly boring Jaws knock-off Up From the Depths and the quite nearly as lame ersatz Gill-Man movie Demon of Paradise. At least they don’t expect anyone to pony up money for just one of either of those.
The discs will feature anamorphic widescreen presentations, and Piranha (which will also be available on Blu-Ray) will get the two-disc special edition sort of deal. Hopefully this means that Joe Dante’s commentary track from the original DVD release, which is one of the best I’ve ever heard–and one that really gives you a flavor of what it was like to be young and working for Corman–will be ported over.
I still remember one anecdote. Dante was hired to make Piranha on the strength of having cobbled together the flick Hollywood Blvd. for Corman for basically no money, mostly by constructing the film Frankenstein fashion from lots of stock footage from previous Corman films. (There’s another terrific Dante commentary on that old disc, if you can still dig it up.)
Dante was given a budget of $800,000 to make Piranha, which even back in 1978 wasn’t much money. The idea was that New World (aka Corman) would kick in half of that, and pre-sell the rights to the film in foreign markets to raise the other half.
So like three days before shooting, Dante learns that Corman has raised the other $400,000, and decided to not provide his half of the budget! (Corman is, after all, a guy who made his own first film for like $20,000.) Dante went crying to his producer–probably literally–and she went to Corman and got him to kick in $200,000, making the budget a still incredibly skimpy $600,000.
For that, Dante made what is still one hell of a little gem.
Anyway, again, let’s hope that commentary makes the new DVD.
