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JOURNAL OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY AND POP CULTURE INTRODUCTION PAGE 74
Left: Early AIP logo; screenshot taken from the Region 1 MGM DVD release of A Bucket of Blood (1959). Right: No Dracula in this 1957 film, instead, a teenaged girl is hypnotized with a Carpathian artifact and becomes a vampire.
Formed by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff in 1956, American International Pictures produced low budget independent movies targeted at teenagers of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. With Nicholson and Arkoff as executive producers, Roger Corman and Alex Gordon handled much of the production and directing. Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and Ray Russell contributed screenplays; Floyd Crosby (David's father), was chief cinematographer. Crosby's unorthodox use of lenses, surreal color, and unusual angles gave AIP films a distinct look, as did Paul Blaisdell's rubber monster suits and miniatures. The great Vincent Price appeared in many very popular 1960s movies based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, fueling the monster craze that swept the nation. AIP was also a distributor for Toho Studio's Godzilla series of the 1960s and 1970s, and other Japanese science fiction films.
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