The author of the text was watching a Spanish TV channel late at night and stumbled upon a weird old movie called "El Terror", a ghost story starring Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff. Despite being a bad movie, the credits listed several famous directors, including Roger Corman and Francis Ford Coppola. The author became intrigued and researched the production history of the film, discovering that it was a hastily thrown together project using leftover sets and actors from another movie. The film had five different directors, including Corman, Coppola, and Jack Hill, and was shot over the course of a year with many delays and changes. The author eventually tracked down the production company and bought the rights to the movie, planning to stream it on their YouTube channel.
Here are the extracted facts:
1. The writer watched a Spanish-dubbed movie called "El Terror" on a local Spanish TV channel at 11 pm.
2. "El Terror" is a ghost story set in the early 1800s and stars Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff.
3. The movie was directed by Roger Corman.
4. The movie is part of Corman's collection of eight films adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's writing.
5. Corman had a $300,000 budget for "The Raven," a comedy-horror film that included Boris Karloff and a relatively unknown Jack Nicholson in the supporting cast.
6. Corman finished filming "The Raven" a couple of days earlier than anticipated, leaving two days of unused time.
7. Corman decided to shoot another movie using the leftover time, locations, and actors.
8. Corman quickly wrote a 60-page script with a writer friend and began filming with Boris Karloff.
9. Corman shot all of Karloff's scenes in two days, knowing he couldn't afford to book him again.
10. Corman planned to shoot the rest of the movie later, but it took several months to get back to it.
11. Francis Ford Coppola, a 24-year-old film student at the time, was hired to shoot extra footage and fill in the movie's blank spots.
12. Coppola brought in fellow film students from UCLA to help with the filming.
13. Coppola spent 11 days filming, but eventually left the project to take another job.
14. Dennis Jacob, one of Coppola's UCLA buddies, took over directing duties and spent three days filming.
15. Monty Hellman, another young director, was hired to shoot new scenes and rewrite the script.
16. Jack Hill was also hired to do rewrites and film additional scenes.
17. The various actors' appearances changed drastically over the course of shooting, due to the long production time.
18. Sandra Knight, the female lead, was pregnant by the time Jack Hill took over, so her final scenes were shot from the waist up.
19. Jack Nicholson allegedly took over directing duties at some point and filmed a few scenes of his own.
20. The movie had five different directors and thus five different story interpretations.
21. Corman hopped back into the director's chair and filmed one last scene to fill in the movie's plot holes.
22. The movie was finally finished over a year after production began.
23. The movie is now in the public domain because nobody bothered to renew the copyright on it.
24. The writer tracked down the production company and bought the rights to the movie.
25. The writer will be streaming the movie on their channel.