Though film as a medium is plenty old, cinema is no stranger to the rise and fall of trends. Various movements have gripped film like a vice, only to fall out of favor with audiences, only a short time later. Where would we be without the French New Wave or Surrealism?

Trends are more than just a blink in our existence; they contribute to the constant push of progress that all art must undergo in order to truly become better.

As a director with a career that spanned decades, Roger Corman didn’t necessarily view the cinema industry film by film; he saw it as a series of movements, one after the next.

“I’ve always thought of this sort of thing in terms of cycles,” Corman said of cinema during an interview with The Province.

Corman directed popular horror features like House of Usher (1960) and The Trip (1967). At the time of the interview, Corman saw horror in a far different light. The horror genre took no issue with the ever-changing nature of the film industry.

As a society, what scares us most is constantly changing.

Corman, the producer of pictures like Sharktopus (2010), believed that animal horror reigned supreme, for the moment.

“I think we’re just past the peak of the shark picture cycles,” said Corman. “Through experience, I’ve learned the cyclical nature of genre films. When the martial arts films became popular, I made a picture with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, the world champion kick-boxer, called Blood Fist. The first one was big; then it started to fade a bit.”