As he notes, “Roger Corman [. . .] is making new versions of eight low-budget horror films based on stories by 19th century American writer Edgar Allan Poe that he adapted and directed in the 1960s. House of Usher will be followed by The Pit and the Pendulum, Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Haunted Palace [actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward], The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia.

This time, Corman will produce but not direct the films, with the first to shoot in 2013, followed by two a year after that on budgets of $2 million to $2.5 million (the originals were shot for $250,000 to $350,000, not adjusting for inflation, on 15-day schedules). Like [the original versions, made for American International Pictures], his New Horizons Productions will not pay for rights because the source material is in the public domain.

The new productions will be self-financed by Corman’s New Horizons Productions, which will give the films at least a short domestic theatrical release and offer international rights at the American Film Market. “Now being able to do them in 3D and with a lot of computer graphics, we can do things we never dreamed of doing before,” he says. But that won’t include more violence. “Poe always worked with the unconscious mind, and there’s a lot of fantasy,” he explains. It may include more erotic material, in keeping with Poe’s approach, but Corman says there will probably still be no nudity.

Corman, honored at the first Governors Awards in 2009, says his biggest concern is replacing his legendary leading man Vincent Price, who died in 1993. Corman hopes to find a fiftysomething actor known from TV who, he says, can bring the same level of ’sensitivity and neuroticism that Vincent was able to bring.’ Corman has Mike McClain, who wrote his last movie – The Haunted, a Chinese co-production shot in in that country — working on the Usher script. Already a living legend [. . .] why does Corman continue to work at his age? He replies with one of his typically to-the-point comments: ‘I simply love making motion pictures.’”

Actually, Corman has already produced a low-budget remake of The Masque of the Red Death in 1989, directed by Larry Brand, toplined by Patrick Macnee and Adrian Paul. While nowhere nearly as effective as Corman’s 1964 version, starring Vincent Price and Hazel Court, and immaculately photographed by the great Nicolas Roeg, it was still an interesting piece of work. But as Corman says, he simply can’t stop making movies. At the very least, the films will prove an excellent training ground for perhaps the very last group of Corman’s protégés, who will then go on to bigger and better projects. It’s a return to the past, but I wish he was doing something new.

Then again, as a pre-sold franchise, the new Poe films should do well in the marketplace.