Night of the Ghouls (1959)

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's performance is hampered by some really crappy editing, which makes his reaction shots look very out of place.

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.

Bride of the Monster (1955)

When everything else fails I just watch a movie by Ed Wood and everything is fine again. Bride of the Monster is actually one of the few financial successes in Wood's filmography, at least when it was released. Not a surprise actually, because it's one of his most even and "normal" films, even if that in the eternal Edwoodian language means it's completely nuts at times. But like all good movies it's just over an hour long - which is good, I'm tired of overlong shitfests - and keeps the pace quite good.

Dr Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) has one dream in life: to create, with the help of nuclear power, super humans who can - I guess - take over the world or something. To his help he has Lobo (Tor Johnson). When yet another man disappears in the swamp, a brave journalist, Janet Lawton (Loretta King) takes it upon herself to solve the mystery... and of course she's caught by Lobo and soon realizes she's the next in line for his horrible experiments!

Wood always had a good eye for striking visuals, and even if this movie is so cheap it's hard to build a good atmosphere there's some wonderful shots - for example when Prof. Vladimir Strowski (George Becwar) is laying in the arms of the giant octopus, a gorgeous shot that somehow reminded me of what Luigi Cozzi did later at the end of Contamination. Several of Wood's trademarks is here, including not-so-fitting stock footage and corny cops trying to solve the mystery, but the real interesting story is in the mansion, the characters of Dr Vornoff and Lobo.

It's a touching little story, a story about two lonely characters trying to survive in their own ways. The good doctor by trying to creating super soldiers, something that he obviously never succeeded in doing earlier and his brute butler, Lobo (an interesting performance by Tor Johnson), a severely retarded fatso who obviously is kinda nice in real life (he just do what his master says)- and with a nice healthy fetish for angora! The lack of characterization of the rest of the cast just enhances the wonderful madness of our baddies and they end up being the only interesting folks in the whole movie. I rooted for them, because who cares about a rude female journalist and stupid cops? Not me.

The special effects is something special here and even if it's not as packed with wacky effects like Plan 9 it still has the infamous (stolen) octopus without a motor, a monster poor Bela battles in the end - while its completely unmovable! Some says it's a stuntman doing the battle, but no... I think it looks like Bela and it's really not a battle either. He just lays there trying to get the arms of the octopus to move! The prop itself is nice, it just very... dead.

Bride of the Monster might not be the best Ed Wood-movie to start with - it's too normal and too mainstream, but it give it a try after Plan 9 and Glenda and you'll have a lot more fun and admiration for the unique creative craft of Edward D. Wood Jr. 

I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998)

Around five years ago, not long after I met my G, we hanged out in my rented room outside Stockholm talking about watching a movie. Somehow, from someone, I had heard about this movie called IWoke Up Early the Day I Died - but because of legal reasons it was never released. I'm kinda stupid, so I checked the torrent sites, everything... and suddenly, there it was! Okay, I wanted to see it and I downloaded it. A few hours later I came to think of it and I wanted to try it, just check the quality. Ninety minutes later we had seen the whole movie!

That's how good this movie is. It's not a normal movie by any means, it's based on a crazy incoherent comedy/thriller script by Ed Wood (I think it was written in the fifties or sixties), without dialogue and with a bizarre cast of legends and has-beens. How is it possible to not love this?

It starts with Billy Zane dressed as a nurse. He's just escaping from an asylum and after fixing himself some less spectacular clothes he robs a bank, shoots one in the staff and escapes with money! Soon he looses the money and he needs to find them, but where? He has four suspects and goes after them one by one until... well, it's difficult story to describe, so try to find it and watch it yourself!

I Woke Up Early the Day I Died feels like a big, bold, colourful, crazy music video slash slapstick-thriller with a huge does or surrealism and anarchy! Billy Zane, who also is the producer, delivers a very funny and over-the-top performance as "The Thief", and everyone in the cast goes 100 % for the best form of overacting! And what a cast! From Tippi Hedren to Ron Pearlman, Christina Ricci, Ann Magnuson, Will Patton, John Ritter, Tara Reid and even Vampira herself, Maila Nurmi! Oh, and another Ed Wood-veteran, Conrad Brooks plays... a cop, of course!

The production is a bit rough around the edges, but it fits the story and the soul of Wood is all over the movie. Director Aris Iliopulos might be a little bit more advanced in his visuals than Wood, but never goes to far and is smart enough to keep it simple. He also uses stock footage, mixes day and night shots and other classic Ed Wood-trademarks to bring the movie even closer to what it might have been if Wood himself directed it.

It's also one of the best soundtracks I've heard, often more obscure indie-bands and old-school music in an odd mix, which perfectly to the always weird and tacky Los Angeles scenery.

There's a lot of love in I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, a lot of love for Ed Wood and to create something a little bit out of the ordinary. It's fun to see serious actors just having fun, not caring about looking good or without that silly shame that some actors seems to have after appearing in a "b-movie".

I wish this flick got the respect it deserves and that a proper DVD or blu-ray release could come sooner or later. It's well worth it. 

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

I'm not sure this is a movie review. I see it more like a love letter to a man I admire very much. 

I've seen Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space countless times over the years, from cinema to VHS to DVD and now, finally, a gorgeous blu-ray from Legend Films. I think the world since long has passed that stage where it was okay to laugh at Ed Wood, some kind of respect and admiration has instead replaced the mockery. No, I don't love Wood because he's considered a bad director or adore Plan 9 because some people consider it the worst movie ever made - because it's not the worst movie ever made. Crappy movies is forgotten, despised and never seen again. Plan 9 finds new fans every damn day.

The secret - which might not be that secret - to Ed Wood's success and especially the uniqueness of this movie is that every second, every frame of it is sloppily made and lousily written. Not a bad thing, please understand that. This creates almost pure, 100 % cinema. If one single scene was perfect, brilliant, technically outstanding, the whole movie would be less good. Now it's a league of it's own, something only one man could have done. He did it his way, and boy, don't we all love him for that?

Beyond the ultra-cheesy dialogue, the wobbling sets and insane script lies an enthusiasm that very few other directors has been able to reproduce. Imagine you have no money at all, you have hardly any sets and actors who - some of them at least - can't act, but still... you're working hard, doing your best, never giving up. Wood did that, up to a certain point - until something, that dreaded sadness, took control over him and alcohol was the best way to soothe the pain. Plan 9 is his magnum opus, a movie so twisted and crazy that he never could make a similar film again. Maybe it broke him indirectly, maybe it made him - some kind of odd self-loathing direct the actually quite good anti-porno exploitation The Sinister Urge before he dived into that particularly genre himself.

Well, back to Plan 9. The blu-ray from Legend Films looks excellent and pretty sure we will never see it in better quality. The cinematography is quite decent at times and so some of the actors, mostly the veterans like Lyle Talbot, Tom Keene and Gregory Walcott, but Bela Lugosi is okay in his last part ever (shot long before this movie even was a twinkle in Wood's eye) and my favourite, Bunny Breckenridge is splendid as The Ruler - just a little tiny bit miscast. Criswell is awesome, but you all know that. I hope. Oh, Tor Johnson is fantastic, but that's because he plays Tor Johnson and no one else!

I'm a sensitive person and included on the BD was something very touching: two home movies from the Woodian estate. The first one includes a fragment of something that looks like a party. We see a transperson, maybe Wood himself, and some people smoking. The next part is Wood eating birthday cake together with a young man (a relative of some kind I guess), looking happy. The third part is, well, it feels very private. Like we're entering the soul of Wood.

It's Ed alone in his living room. This is probably late sixties or early seventies. He's dressed in a wig, a dress and his beloved angora sweater. He admires himself, looks at couple of huge ladies undies, sits down and starts trying them on. Fades to black. Wood is a bit plump here, maybe his alcoholism has affected him, but what's more important: he's human, he's frail. He loves himself, he looks down at this man dressed in woman's clothing and loves him.

It's one of those moments where all the problems in his world couldn't touch him, when fiascos and failed love affairs is far away. It's the Ed Wood he always wanted to be: 

Himself. 

Glen or Glenda? (1953)

I first saw Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda at a bad movie festival in my old hometown, Östersund. The salon was packed - like with all the movies - and the audience was hysterical. Everyone loved the movies and laughter and applauses filled the house. This was years ago, before Tim Burton's brilliant biopic about Mr Wood or easy to find DVD releases of his work. So it was time to watch it again and it's now I fully can appreciate it for being what it is, not a bad movie - but a very silly and confusing movie getting the facts wrong, but still with it's heart at the right place.

It's basically a docudrama about transvestites, telling the stories of three men and their road to happiness... or death. One of them, Glen, is played by Ed Wood himself and his real-life girlfriend Dolores Fuller is playing his girlfriend. This is also the part that takes up the bulk of the movie and dives in to some truly surrealistic and experimental sequences that goes from weird striptease and S&M to classic fifties kitchen-melodrama.

And... it's first now I put everything together. This movie was released in 1953! Somehow, in my imagination, I always felt it was made later - maybe in the end of the fifties or very early sixties, but imagine - 1953, a crazy, wacky movie dealing with transvestism! Not that it ends on a truly positive note. Glen learns to control his "Glenda"-character and becomes a happily married man. That never happen in real life. Dolores broke up with him, he got into heavy drinking and he never stopped wearing women's clothing. Glen or Glenda was his fantasy, his good old happy American fantasy about living his life as a respected man. Or what he thought was a good way of living.

Even of Glen or Glenda is full-blown exploitation it's made with a heart and a passion, with a few iconic images. The scene where Dolores gives Ed his angora sweater, or when Ed is sneaking around the stores spying on the mannequins in the windows. This has forever been imprinted in modern pop-culture, not only because of Tim Burton's movie but because they are strong images worthy to be remembered.

But even more iconic is the odd footage of Bela Lugosi, like a God-character watching over the life's of these transvestites, rambling immortal lines. I'm not sure what the purpose was, but it's still an essential part of an exploitation-classic. Let's finish this with the words of Bela Lugosi, the scientist...

Beware.

Beware.

Beware of the big, green dragon that sits on your doorstep.

He eats little boys, puppy dog tails and big, fat snails.

Beware. Take care.

Beware.

The Sinister Urge (1960)

I'm pretty sure the enigma of Ed Wood will live on forever. If his little b-movies from the fifties and sixties still getting released and appreciated, even in a bad way, until today it mean he was something special. He almost created his own kind of cinema, with hilarious dialogues, fifties kitsch and special effects from hell - but still surprisingly consistent quality. Maybe not THE best quality, but his it shows that he had a specific style and that he tried to refine his storytelling more and more. The Sinister Urge was his last "real" movie, what I've heard anyway, and it's an interesting and not that bad trashy thriller-melodrama about "a smut racket" and a serial killer who lurks on innocent women!

Gloria Henderson (Jean Fontaine) is a cold-hearted and greedy business woman who owns a pornographic film company. Her right-hand man Johnny (Carl Anthony) lures naive women to star in their seedy productions (often against a beefy Hawaiian guy, Henry Kekoanui, with a big moustache - kinda hot actually, if he shaved that facial hair and didn't rolled his eyes like a cartoonish rapist all the time!). This is of course just a small-time business, but everything is owned by a big even seedier company in the background. Anyway, every time one of their actresses is causing problem, they're calling in their expert - a serial killer named Dirk (Dino Fantini) who takes care of them in the most violent and nasty ways! Will the cops stop them? Will Ed Wood get a chance to include a man in drag? The answer is yes on both questions, what did you expect?

The Sinister Urge has all the ingredients we learned to love from Mr Wood: goofy cops, teenagers dancing, men in drag, long dialogue scenes behind desks, tits, fist-fights, over-acting and superb melodrama á la random daytime soap. But here, finally, all of this comes together in surprisingly even mess. It's clearly one of Wood's finer moments as a director and he easily mixes sleaze with a couple of well-staged thriller-sequences. The murders, especially, are nasty and violent and I didn't really expect full frontal boobs, but hey - this movie has it all. I also like the quirky humour, like the porno director who only has an exotic "European" accent when he's directing, but not in private.

Ed Wood always created pure cinema, and there's no chance you ever will believe he's trying to create a reality. This is always set in a very special crazy universe, much like John Waters filmography or much of Ken Russell's cinematic world. An office without anything on the walls could be from any bad movie director, but when the actors start to talk and the storyline becomes more clear it's impossible not to guess that it's the work of another director than Ed Wood. More colour and much of the material could have been written by Waters, but lacking the seriousness that Wood wrote with.

Better than you would think, at trashy, sleazy movie who uses the word "smut" more times than explosions in a Michael Bay blockbuster. When I come to think of it, "smut" could be the perfect drinking game when watching this movie. So go ahead, have fun - and send Mr Wood a thought please.