Empire of the 'B's

Book excerpt: Film producer Charles Robert Band is one of the last great B-movie survivors - a genuine pioneer who, over four decades, forged such a unique path through the no man's land of independent genre cinema that many thought him more than capable of seizing legendary indie producer Roger Corman's long-held crown as 'King of the B Movies.' The 1970s through to the late 1980s was the last great 'golden age' for the B-movie community, and with a non-stop series of grind house classics like 'Laserblast', 'Parasite', 'Re-Animator' and 'Dolls' for his company Empire Pictures, it was also the era that saw Charles Band take his rightful place in the indie hall of fame as the true Emperor of the 'B's. This is Band's officially-authorised helter-skelter story, and that of the mad company he kept