Film Masters Doubles Down on Roger Corman with Blood Beasts and Giant Leeches

The gang over at Film Masters, the restoration and distribution company founded in 2023, just can’t get enough of Roger Corman. In their little-more-than-a-year-plus of existence, they’ve already exhumed his Beast from Haunted Cave (paired with Ski Troop Attack), The Terror (paired with Little Shop of Horrors), and The Devil’s Partner (paired with Creature from the Haunted Sea), each of them getting the double-bill two-disc Blu-ray upgrade with a new 4K scan and a bouquet of supplements. If those weren’t enough to satisfy the cult auteur’s legion of ardent fans, this month’s release celebrates two more of Corman’s salacious low-budget horrors—1958’s Night of the Blood Beast and 1959’s Attack of the Giant Leeches—with new scans and supplements.

Corman knew better than anyone in film history how to knock out B (and sometimes B- or C+) -movie fare on a shoestring budget and tight schedule. The history of cinema has more than a few such filmmakers who are better known for their austere working methods than their creative excellence. After all, what would Mystery Science Theater 3000 have to offer its fans if all films were actually good? But Corman had a way of making eminently watchable genre films that tracked his times cultural anxieties through his troupe of stock characters, practical effects, and low-rent monsters.

Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches provide plenty of both, but like so many other of Corman’s films, the two have a few surprises up their sleeves as well. The billed main feature in particular, Night of the Blood Beast, serves up a delicious plot twist late in the game. Attack of the Giant Leeches might be more generic fare, but it’s nonetheless a watchable companion. And as usual, Film Masters delivers with a full menu of supplements from some of Corman’s most ardent fans and prolific historians.

Night of the Blood Beast

Film Masters has done a commendable job with their restoration efforts on Night of the Blood Beast, using a rare 35mm print as the source for the new 4K scan (note: the film is presented on Blu-ray and not a 4K UHD disc). Though there are some missing and damaged frames, some 98% of the film, by my wholly nonscientific estimate, looks utterly fantastic: crisp, clear, detailed, as good or better than one might have seen at a drive-in or theater back in the 1950s.

Like so much of the decade’s genre fare, Night of the Blood Beast takes its inspiration from the cultural references of the day, in this case the early years of space travel. It begins with a dead astronaut who’s not quite dead: John Corcoran (Michael Emmet) is found lifeless in his tiny vessel, crashed to Earth upon his return from a space mission. But the team of scientists responding to his crash—including Corman regulars Angela Greene, John Baer and Ed Nelson—encounter a series of anomalies. For one, there seems to be some odd growth around the site. And for another, Corcoran’s body displays no signs of rigor mortis. When they begin their autopsy at their remote research station, they find something even stranger: the dead astronaut somehow isn’t exactly lifeless.

The explanation is roundabout but inspired: a parasitic, alien lifeform is utilizing Corcoran’s body as a host to incubate its offspring. Predictably, this discovery prompts a couple of the characters to blaze away with firearms, but the creature withstands the barrage well enough to deliver some fairly persuasive arguments, and Corcoran himself regains enough consciousness to defend his alien captor. Maybe he has a case of Stockholm syndrome—or perhaps the alien is, indeed, a benign, even beneficent presence. The script, from a 22-year-old first-timer named Martin Varno, is surprisingly adept at finessing a surprising and satisfying conclusion.

One can’t say the same for the effects team, who is assigned both Corcoran’s space travels and the alien’s getup, neither of which is in the slightest convincing, but as as always Corman makes do, and part of the delight in watching any of the low-budget auteur’s work is reveling in the glee of his cheesy special effects: in this case the alien is a leather-and-hair-clad dork with mole claws and bug eyes. Night of the Blood Beast won’t disappoint anyone in the mood for some 1950s-style B-movie magic.

For that matter, the film surely doesn’t disappoint the reliable MST3K crew, headed here by Mike Nelson, who tag along for their version with their trademark snark. That’s one version of the film provided as a supplement. There’s also an 8mm silent “digest” version (in 4×3 aspect ratio), accompanied only by constant whir of a projector, and not by any precis, comment, or reference. The film is also presented in both its original widescreen aspect ratio and a television-format version, so aficionados, or the criminally insane, could watch, counting the commentary track, some six or so hours’ worth of Night of the Blood Beast.

Then again, probably no one will do that, but the main feature is presented in an excellent remaster, and that alone makes this version of Night of the Blood Beast definitive, preserving one of Corman’s classics in a pristine and only ever-so-slightly compromised restoration.

Attack of the Giant Leeches

The lower half of the double bill is the 1959 creature feature Attack of the Giant Leeches. And while it has its charms, it’s not quite the viewing experience that Night of the Blood Beast provides. For one, its restoration is nowhere near the quality of that its companion’s: nearly the whole film is slightly fuzzy. For another, its pedestrian plot offers up no real surprises along the way, and its ending is, if explosive, a considerable letdown.

The Blood Beast‘s characters are all scientists and astronauts, reasonable people seeking rational solutions to a mysterious dilemma. Those in the Giant Leeches are, except for an upstanding game warden, a cornpone gaggle of local yokels, driven by greed and lust and who, largely, deserve their consecutive fates at the hands—errr, that is, suction cups—of the tentacled giant leeches inhabiting the swamplands where they live.

Yvette Vickers (Attack of the 50-Foot Woman) is one of the stars, sexing it up as a horny storeclerk’s wife. I love that she takes one lover to the swamp, where he is promptly eaten alive by the giant leeches, much to her horror; then, apparently the very next damn day, there she is again with another man, making love once again in the muck! Well, neither she, either of her lovers, or her cuckolded husband with a jealous streak and a firearm, are smart enough to survive this plot. In the end, despite a lot of hemming and hawing about the giant leeches, which are basically two dudes in rubber suits with suction cups, it’s 40 sticks of dynamite that finally put the monsters—and the narrative—out of its misery.

Both films are presented with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (with Night of the Blood Beast also available with a TV aspect ratio of 1.37:1). The discs are region free and include English SDH for the films and all supplemental comment.  Audio is DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s.

Special Features

Film Masters never disappoints in the supplements department, and this double disc is no exception, providing lots of alternative versions, stills galleries, restoration demos, two full commentary tracks, and a newly commissioned mini-documentary alongside two essays in a double-disc jewel case. The quality of Film Masters’ supplements can sometimes be uneven, but here for Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches there’s plenty to dig into.

Born From T.V: Bernard Kowalski as a Director: This newly-commissioned 27-minute min-documentary from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures follows the same suit as most of the others Film Masters has provided, relying exclusively on historian and author C. Courtney Joyner for narration, accompanied by stills and, occasionally, clips. Kowalski directed both films in this set as well as several 1960s Westerns and numerous television episodes—Rawhide, Baretta, Airwolf, and more. The featurette’s latter-half focus on his television work may seem of little interest to those here for the Corman connection, which is explored in greater detail on Film Masters’ prior releases.

Alternate Version: Aside from the feature presentations, the following alternate versions of the films are included: a 4×3 presentation of Night of the Blood Beast (1.37:1); MST3K episodes of both films; and the 8mm silent digest version​ of Night of the Blood Beast.

Full-length commentaries: Both films are presented by horror film historian Tom Weaver and The Weaver Players. Weaver is one of horror and genre films’ most prolific historians, and while his commentary tracks are not without humor, they are mostly serious and scholarly in their approach. Both tracks make for excellent companions to the films. The Weaver Players provide voicings of the various contributors (Corman, his director brother Gene, scriptwriter Varno, actors Nelson and Vickers, etc.).

Stills gallery: Tom Weaver presents, from his private collection, a two-minute gallery of rare and signed Yvette Vickers photos. There’s also a publicity slideshow created for both films, courtesy of Mike Barnum.

Trailers: Re-cut trailers of both films are presented using restored elements (see below).

Restoration comparison: A two-minute before/after film restoration comparison of Night of the Blood Beast is provided.

The packaging includes a 24-page full-color booklet insert with two essays: “The Boy Who Birthed the Blood Beast,” an “as-told-to” tale from the film’s 22-year-old writer Martin Varno to Weaver, and a more conventional essay from Weaver with a more conventional title: “Attack of the Giant Leeches.” Both make for excellent reading, and the booklet is illustrated with a number of publicity stills, posters, and newspaper coverage of both films.

As has been the case with every Film Masters release to date, subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing are available to toggle not only for the feature films but also for all of the provided supplemental content, including the two commentary tracks. That’s just one indication of their commitment to their audience. Roger Corman may not be every cinephile’s cup of tea, but he remains an inspiration to underfunded and independent filmmakers everywhere, and there are more than a few reasons why, six and a half decades after their debut, his films still make for pleasurable viewing experiences: he and his colleagues knew how to tell a story, even when they had little talent or resources with which to do so. With this release as with their prior Corman features, Film Masters gets it.