The same
year as the legendary Plan 9 From Outer Space our hero Edward D. Wood Jr
squeezed out another classic, Night of the Ghouls! It was actually not released
until the early eighties when Wade William's - after Wood's widow told him
about it - paid the lab-fees and released it to a fresh generation of
unsuspecting audiences.
A
mysterious medium, Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan) holds séances in an old house out
in the forest. It was previously owned by a crazy scientist who created
monsters there! Anyway, nowadays Dr. Acula lures stupid people there and with
the help of homemade special effects and actors fooling them he's in contact
with the dead - or...? Because outside in the forest, two ghosts is messing
around, the white ghost and the black ghost and yeah... Acula also have Bolo
(Tor Johnson) to protect him from those who might want to stop
him...something...
In many ways
this feels like something of a sequel to both Plan 9 and Bride of the Monster.
The villain, Dr. Acula (played by a very, VERY boring Kenne Duncan) is an
obvious nod to many of the exotic characters Lugosi did during his fine career.
The story references a house where a mad scientist created monsters (Bride of
the Monsters) and the "black ghost" in the forest echoes Vampira in
Plan 9 a lot. Maybe it wasn't the meaning, but there's a lot of Wood in
this movie - including fun in-joke where
a portrait of Ed Wood is visible in the police station, hanging on a wall in
the back ground.
The thin
plot is almost impossible to trace, but I actually think this film has a couple
of really neat ideas. I think the final twist is quite good - but could have
been made a lot better and maybe more logical (if that's possible) and the
INSANE séance gives it an extra dimension of wackiness. It has everything from
a flying trumpet, obviously played by a ghost who can't play to a flying afro-American
head, wearing a safari hat, who talks with a grotesque slowed voice! Much of
the sets is just a flat wall - or even worse, a totally black room - and most
of the actors is behaving like they really wanna be somewhere else. The big exception
is Paul Marco, a Wood-veteran, who does his mumbling cop once again. You can't
blame him for being a good actor, but at least he gives everything he has in
the performance.
Another
interesting idea, who predates X-Files and all those TV-shows, is that one of
the characters, Police Lieutenant Daniel Bradford (not a bad job by Duke Moore)
works for a special section of the force, dealing with the unknown and
supernatural. It's a pity Moore
And hey! I
almost forgot! Criswell, my role model in life, stars as himself and as some
supernatural being. I love the knullrufs Criswell have the first time he raises
from his coffin in the beginning of the movie. He might be the coolest guy on
earth, but the fact is that he can't act himself out of a wet paper bag and
can't keep his eyes of the signs with dialogue just beside the camera. Way to
go, you're the best anyway!
Night of
the Ghouls is not the best movie Wood made, but the title is very cool and it
has a couple of brilliant, crazy, scenes that's hard to forgot + pretty
interesting ideas.
 |
| A classic case of knullrufs. |
1 comment:
"The thin plot is almost impossible to trace, but I actually think this film has a couple of really neat ideas."
Sounds very surreal, at least.
"Another interesting idea, who predates X-Files and all those TV-shows, is that one of the characters, Police Lieutenant Daniel Bradford (not a bad job by Duke Moore) works for a special section of the force, dealing with the unknown and supernatural."
Seems like he was way ahead of his time, Wood.
"And hey! I almost forgot! Criswell, my role model in life, stars as himself and as some supernatural being. I love the knullrufs Criswell have the first time he raises from his coffin in the beginning of the movie."
hahahahhahhah...thanks for the screencap. A realife psychic I think he claimed to be.
Cool review...thanks for the tip Ninja.
Megatron
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