Larry Buchanan (January 31, 1923 − December 2, 2004), born Marcus Larry Seale Jr., was a film director, producer and writer, who proclaimed himself a "schlockmeister". Many of his extremely low-budget films have landed on "worst movie" lists or in the public domain, but all at least broke even and many made a profit. Most of his films were made for television and were never shown theatrically. He is perhaps most famous for his AIP films In the Year 2889, The Eye Creatures, Zontar, the Thing from Venus, Curse of the Swamp Creature, Creature of Destruction, It's Alive!, and Mars Needs Women, all of which were released directly to late night television. Early life Buchanan was born in Lost Prairie, Texas, on Jan. 31, 1923. He was orphaned as a baby and was raised in Dallas in an orphanage. It was while growing up there that he became fascinated with the movies which were shown in the orphanage's theater. He considered becoming a minister early in life, but got into the movie industry instead. Career Buchanan visited Hollywood and landed a job in the props department at 20th Century Fox. It was while working here that his acting career got off the ground. He played some bit parts in movies, and the studio gave him the stage name "Larry Buchanan", which he used for his entire career. He enlisted in the United States Army Signal Corps in order to learn how to direct movies. He was based in New York, which allowed him to act in stage plays in the evenings. In the early 1950s, Buchanan began producing, directing, writing, editing, and acting in his own low budget movies. The first was a one-reeler, The Cowboy (1949), which he shot back in Dallas for $900. His first feature film was Grubsteak (1952); he knew Stanley Kubrick from working in New York at this time and Kubrick offered to be his cinematographer on Grubsteak, but he wanted more money than Buchanan could pay. Buchanan worked as an assistant to director George Cukor on The Marrying Kind (1952). Buchanan is perhaps best known for exploitation, science fiction, and other genre films, including Free, White and 21 (1963), The Naked Witch (1964, made for $8,000), High Yellow (1965), A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970), Goodbye, Norma Jean (1976), Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell (1977), Mistress of the Apes (1979), The Loch Ness