Roger Corman

If you've stopped peeing your pants with excitement over Roger Corman's upcoming Sharktopus -- set to premiere on Syfy later this year, then take a gander at some of the other nighttime creature features Syfy has in store. Their Original Movies lineup stars the likes of Hill Harper (CSI NY), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight), Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings), Lauren Holly (NCIS), Colin Ferguson (Eureka), Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet), Jewel Staite (Stargate Atlantis), Alan Cumming (Tin Man), Felicia Day (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ryan Carnes (Desperate Housewives), Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Barry Williams (The Brady Bunch).

In other Syfy news, two gigundo features (4 hours long) on tap are Riverworld, which aired on the original Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 as a pilot episode based on the saga by Philip José Farmer -- but nothing further came to light. In Riverworld, an American war zone reporter and his fiancé are killed by a suicide bomber but awaken separated in a mysterious world where they seem to have been reborn along the banks of a seemingly endless river. A samurai warrior and an American novelist (Sam "Mark Twain" Clemens) join forces with Matt to locate his lost love. The show premieres Sunday, April 18, from 7-11PM (ET/PT).

The Phantom and his alter ego, Chris Walker, have been re-imagined for Syfy, based on the original comic and set in the present day. This hero relies on his wits, physical strength and skill with weapons instead of superhuman powers. Isabella Rossellini guest stars as the villainous Lithia, the head of an experimental mind control program. The four hour show premieres in June.

Hit the jump for all the creature feature details and visit Syfy's website for more info.

Dinoshark isn't SyFy's only "killer mutant shark running amok" movie planned for this year. No, when you've got a concept as full of win as that one, you milk it for all it's worth. If the idea of a killer prehistoric dinosaur shark doesn't get you excited, then perhaps the idea of a shark merged with an octopus will...

Roger Corman (and his brand new honorary Oscar) will produce Sharktopus--which is a very descriptive title and should let anyone who reads it know what they're in for. Declan O'Brien is directing (he also helmed the awful Wrong Turn 3) and news has now emerged (thanks to Uncle Creepy and the Dread Central gang) that Eric Roberts has been cast in the lead role. Yes, Eric Roberts, Oscar winner for Runaway Train will be going mano y Sharktopus with the titular creature. Between Roberts and Corman, this is probably the most Oscar winners to ever work on a SyFy channel movie.

The actor will play a research scientist who creates a top secret weapon--the Sharktopus--to combat pirates. The beast is controlled by some sort of electrical implants. If you guessed they somehow stop working and Sharktopus winds up rampaging near a beach, you too could be a screenwriter.

Early word is that we'll see Sharktopus on SyFy sometime later this year. In the meantime, you can catch Dinoshark on Saturday night at 9 EST/8 CST.

What a shame! This movie has a special place in my heart. You see, it was shot not far from Austin, my base of operations. There's an 'amusement park', if you want to call it that. I visited the place in high school. It was called Aquarena Springs. As I recall, its primary attractions were gondolas and a swimming pig. Yes, you read that right - a swimming pig. This pig swam alongside a variety of co-ed mermaids. It was indeed surreal, but not nearly as cool as it sounds. And it was here that Corman unleashed his aquatic carnivores.

The film, as you may recall, involves the opening of a water park, a la Jaws 3-D, which is rudely interrupted by giant, flesh-eating piranhas. And it has a crazy mountain man, played by Bradford Dillman. Watch this film and try not to fall in love with the lunatic hillbilly. He's the main character and he's completely unhinged! When he's not fighting off meat-eating fish indigenous to the Amazon, he's probably mailing explosive packages to government buildings. There's also a nifty bit of stop motion animation when he discovers the secret lab. Yes, Piranha is filled with all manner of glorious, b-movie tropes.

Recently, our own Brad McHargue reported that the Blu Ray release of this fine piece of cinema was due out in April. Sadly, Shout! Factory is now saying that they won't be blessing us with this high-def carnage until August 3rd. I imagine this has more than a little to do with the hopscotch that the Alexandre Aja-driven sequel/remake has been subjected to.

Hi-Def Digest has the skinny here.

Come April 16th of 2010, the world will be introduced to Alexandre Aja's remake of the 1978 icthyan classic Piranha. Not content with making a normal remake infused with all the requisite blood one would come to expect from a film that deal with man-eating fish, the remake will be made in 3D. Unless the film features plenty of piranha jumping out of the water, I don't really see how effective the 3D can be, but fingers are crossed.

While many (and as much as I hate to admit it given my distaste for everything Aja has done, myself) are incredibly excited for this film, fans of the original will get the opportunity to see the original in all its bloody glory on Blu-Ray. According to Shock Till You Drop, the Shout Factory is set to release the Roger Corman-produced classic - complete with "Roger Corman's Cult Classics emblazoned across the top - on April 6th., a mere ten days before the release of the remake.

Unfortunately, there are no special features listed for the release, and Arrow in the Head also reports that Amazon has listed a later date, that of May 4th, for its release date. To reiterate Arrow's point, the April 6th release date sounds more plausible, as it coincides with the release of the remake, but weirder things have happened.

Now I just need a Blu-Ray player. And a TV.

My friends on the other side of the pond often feel unlucky when theatrical releases for highly anticipated films take their sweet time. But now they can feel lucky about one thing. Dario Argento's classic film, Suspiria, will get a UK Blu-ray release January 18, 2010. This exciting news comes courtesy of Nouveaux Pictures and Cine-Excess, who also recently acquired rights to part of Roger Corman's film catalog. The new high def transfer will also be available on DVD.

Special features on the disc include:

--Audio commentary by leading Dario Argento experts Alan Jones and Kim Newman.

--Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Suspiria--a documentary featuring director Dario Argento and composer Claudio Simonetti

--Suspiria Perspectives--featuring Claudio Simonetti, Norman J. Warren and Patricia McCormack

No audio/video specifications and region coding is known at this time.

In Suspiria, a young American ballet dancer, Suzy Banyon, arrives at a prestigious European dance academy run by the mysterious Madame Blanc and Miss Tanner. After a series of bizarre occurrences, Suzy eventually discovers that the school is merely a front for something far more sinister. The film is the first in the Three Mothers trilogy and is generally regarded as his best work. Don't cut me for saying that Deep Red fans--for me they're both amazing.

With the Suspiria remake set to start shooting in 2010, I'm hoping someone will release a US Blu-ray version around the same time to remind director David Gordon Green why he should stick to films like George Washington and Pineapple Express.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deciding to give an honorary Oscar to prolific schlock producer Roger Corman has stocked the fires of debate over at HorrorSquad papa site Cinematical. Eric Snider felt that producing over 550 films was not worthy of an Oscar, regardless of how many future actors, directors, writers and producers got their start in one of Corman's productions. Scott Weinberg, on the other hand, defended the decision, taking up the position that Corman's legacy has irreversibly altered the landscape of filmmaking in the decades since he began making films, which is absolutely worthy of a receiving an Oscar.

Personally, I side with Weinberg on this one, which is why it is a delight to watch the below videos. The event was, unfortunately, not televised (maybe they'll play a clip or two of it at next year's actual Oscars ceremony), but it was still an elegant affair worth checking out. The official Oscars website has put up a few video highlights from the event, which include kind words from Quentin Tarantino and Ron Howard, that are now embedded below thanks to Dread Central. So if you're a fan of Corman's, prepare to smile at a room full of some of Hollywood's most influential players giving him several rounds of applause.

If your business is known exclusively for renting out content other entities have created how do you go about telling customers that you're now going to start creating original content of your own for distribution? Well if you're NetFlix, you hire Roger Corman to produce and Joe Dante to direct a streaming web series called "Splatter" starring Corey Feldman. Bet ya' didn't see that coming.

There are no concrete details about the series yet, only that which Feldman has posted on his personal blog (via Hacking NetFlix) "This will be their first ever live streaming web series. Splatter will be a multi episode web series that will go live on the web on Halloween weekend. My characters name is Jonny Splatter. That is pretty much all I am allowed to say for now."

The very Not-Safe-For-Work teaser he then points to does reveal a bit more, however, as well as maybe satisfying a wish Corey Feldman haters have had for a long time. Judging from its mere 30 seconds, Feldman is going to be playing some kind of eye-liner wearing shaman who either is only in the series to kill himself or, and this is my guess, he can't actually die.

NetFlix hasn't enabled embedding for the clip, which I think is a shame considering the viral approach they're going for, so you're going to have to click over to the official "Splatter" promo page to catch a brief glimpse of Corey Feldman's fearless last moments.

In summer, everyone can see you sweat. Ah, but in space, no one can hear you scream! The latter is, of course, the classic tagline for Ridley Scott's Alien, the coolest, darkest, most horrifying science fiction thriller of all time. (No, I'm not given to hyperbole. Why do you ask?) What better way to cool off during the summer than to contemplate deep space, where the temperatures always hover around absolute zero. In that spirit, Alan Spero at Fearnet has compiled a guide to deep space horror.

As he points out, relatively few films that merge science fiction and horror are actually set in space. He starts off with one of my favorite sci-fi flicks from the 50s, It! The Terror From Beyond Space, which features a monster on a spaceship. This is a good one for kids to watch. Then when they see Alien for the first time, they can say, "Hey, that movie's ripping off It! The Terror From Beyond Space," and you can defend the importance of artistic inspiration and homages to classics.

The guide is a good read, covering the predictable (Alien, Aliens) and the not so predictable, but it leaves out one of my favorites: Forbidden World (AKA Mutant)!

Click the 'Read More' button to watch the exciting, NSFW German-language trailer (complete with gore and breasts)!