News

In my review of the first “Diamond Guys” collection Arrow put out, I noted how, for all the ways those films tried to shake up the Nikkatsu formula, it was still a fairly representative look at what the studio was all about – widescreen, black-and-white, stoic men drawn into violent situations, corruptible women, and jazzy scores. Only the final film in that set – Rambling Guitarist – really managed to strike out and maintain a distinctive tone, but the narrative remained the same. With this second collection, the trajectory is quite the opposite. Rather than gradually move away from the formula, Volume 2 begins with a loose riff in the manner of Rambling Guitarist and gets more cartoonish, absurd, and unpredictable from there. Not that this precisely means the films are any more successful overall. The ratio remains the same – one solid bit of fun, one slog, and one that’s pretty near great.

Frankenstein Conquers the World, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, Yonggary: Monster from the Deep, House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death. All classics, baby, and just like Hammer, another great motion picture studio from yesteryear, Aip: American-International Pictures, is now back and ready to churn out the horror for a new generation!

From the Press Release

Legendary low-budget film production company American-International Pictures, founded in 1953, and Visionary Cinema have joined forces to produce three original feature films.

As with the original Aip, the films will have modest budgets and be geared to the independent theatrical and worldwide DVD market.

Best know for the Roger Corman exploitation pictures, Aip is now the proprietorship of Craig Scott Lamb. Writer-director Scott Essman founded Visionary Cinema in New York City in 1988. The goal of both firms – leading to the natural collaboration - is to produce...