1950s Ed Wood

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER
(1955)
Overall: MEH

The first in Ed Wood's unofficial Kelton Trilogy was Bride of the Monster.  Never again would Wood have such a modest, (yet still relatively small), budget at his disposal and never again would he come close to making a borderline competent, "real movie".  The dialog is silly yet not altogether embarrassing, the acting occasionally stiff yet mostly acceptable, the pacing slow yet not detrimentally so, and the script which was revised by Wood after screenwriter Alex Gordon had initially worked on one by the title "The Atomic Monster" is as half-baked as any other schlocky, Poverty Row film of its era.  Make no mistake, there is still plenty of, well, mistakes such as a laughably ineffective, giant squid monster, poorly used stock footage, (what Wood film would be complete without that?), and a lack of continuity editing.  Still, all of these ingredients were much more integral with other works in his filmography.  Bela Lugosi in his last speaking role is understandably uneven given such goofy material, bouncing between being surprisingly moving to accidentally ridiculous often in a single scene.  Speaking of unexpected, Wood actually gets some actual intended laughs here or there, though the unintentional ones naturally reign supreme.

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
(1959)
Overall: MEH

The most famously bad movie ever made and the one that Ed Wood's legacy is most unavoidably synonymous with, Plan 9 from Outer Space is the benchmark of unintentional hilariousness and filmmaking 101 ineptitude.  So much has been written and said about Wood's ultimate anti-masterpiece that it has become the stuff of Hollywood legend and in that regard, the insurmountable hype surrounding its terribleness is both fully warranted and worthy of some dispute.  Some of the most obvious technical mistakes such as visible microphones and accidental, visible props are actually due to the aspect ratio being changed when Wood had initially framed his shots accurately for theatrical, widescreen purposes.  As half of the actors are competent ones, (meaning those who are not part of Wood's inner circle of weirdos who had never acted before), their performances are fine and there is certainly something admirable to be said of Wood's far-reaching, genre mash-up intentions.  The execution of his ideas combined with his complete inability to disguise the microscopic budget though are what make it such a laughably enduring trainwreck.  The dialog, pacing, costumes, sets, "special effects", editing, and mish-mash of random stock and Bela Lugosi footage, (let us forget his ridiculous fake Shemp stand-in), are what truly make it the laughing stock that it is.

NIGHT OF THE GHOULS
(1959)
Overall: MEH

The last horror movie Ed Wood was ever allowed to make and to date the last one released, (it did not see the light of day until 1984 when the film lab that owned the print was finally paid off), Night of the Ghouls acts as a somewhat official sequel to Bride of the Monster and to a lesser extent Plan 9 from Outer Space.  It features many of the same actors, some of whom are playing the same characters or variations of them, and tone-wise it is as technically inept and bizarrely scripted and presented as the rest of Wood's outrageous material from the era.  He is still using stock footage and cobbling together scenes from other projects of his, (the unused TV pilot The Final Curtain in this case), he still has no idea how to maintain even a moderately acceptable pacing, still feels the need to have almost incessant narration that further emphasizes his specific knack for comically asinine dialog, and a fair number of scenes look as if another take or two where necessary to iron the kinks out.  With Ed Wood movies, the most memorable moments are always such because of unintended reasons and Night of the Ghouls could have the most hilariously on drugs seance scenes ever filmed with toy skeletons sitting at the table, someone in a white bed sheet making spooky noises and swaying side to side, a trumpet on a string, and a random black guy making googly faces while an actor in a coffin fools his loved ones into thinking he actually is their loved one.  It is still way too slow to really recommend, but otherwise it is Wood firing on all cylinders.

1950s Horror Shorts

RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL
(1953)
Dir - Hilton Edwards
Overall: GOOD

Made during a break from the filming of Orson Welles' Othello by Irish actor Hilton Edwards who founded the Gate Theatre along with fellow thespian Micheál Mac Liammóir, (and both of whom appear in the aforementioned Othello), Return to Glennascaul is a traditional and mostly successful retelling of the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend.  Coincidentally, it is structured similarly to the radio play The Hitch-Hiker which was featured on The Orson Welles Show in 1941, Welles once again providing the narration here.  Though it is a flawed offering with an obnoxious harp score that blares out of nowhere every fifteen seconds or so, (and systematically breaking all tension by doing so), there is nevertheless a creepy, understated tone in place by Edwards.  Moments of humor do not truly emerge until the last minute or so, but the familiar story is just spooky enough elsewhere to carry it and seeing Welles in a rare horror offering in and of itself is rather a treat.

THE TELL-TALE HEART
(1953)
Dir - Ted Parmelle
Overall: GOOD

The American version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart released in 1953, (not to be confused with the British one, also a short), was this brief, highly stylized effort from animation studio UPA.  The production is splendid from top to bottom with narration by none other than James Mason who does a more than competent job of conveying the appropriate madness.  Bulgarian-born composer Boris Kremenliev's manic score deserves equal credit as does the primitive, heavily German Expressionism influenced animation and mostly blue, purple, and green color scheme by Paul Julian and Pat Matthews.  The short has deservedly been well-regarded enough all of these decades later to be preserved in the Library of Congresses National Film Registry and out of the many cinematic versions of the Poe source material, this is easily one of the most memorable.

INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME
(1954)
Dir - Kenneth Anger
Overall: MEH

One of the more well known and influential of Kenneth Anger's avant-garde films was his explicit ode to Thelema, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.  Filmed at actor, salon host, and fellow occultist Samson De Brier's home, Anger re-edited and re-released the movie three different times, the original 1954 print running for thirty-eight minutes and featuring a full performance of "Glagolitic Mass" by Czech composer Leoš Janáček.  Featuring both De Brier, Anger, and a slew of other Aleister Crowley enthusiasts and actors playing another slew of random mythical gods, literary characters, and even Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, it is little more than a dialog-less, highly colorful, hedonistic magik party.  Unapologetically pretentious, monotonous, and slow, it still manages to be visually engaging at least and as fascinatingly bizarre as any of Anger's other works.

FINAL CURTAIN
(1957)
Dir - Ed Wood
Overall: MEH

Terrible, odd Ed Wood films are to be expected and the failed television pilot Final Curtain, (meant to be part of a proposed series called Portraits of Terror which logically was never picked up), assuredly qualifies as such.  From a technical standpoint, this is shot surprisingly competently with, (gasp), effective cinematography and an unflinching, spooky tone.  Well, at least the latter element is what was attempted.  One of the most prominent ingredients to any Ed Wood work is the man's obliviousness to pacing and the twenty-two minutes of Final Curtain feels like it is still going on.  Wood regular Duke Moore simply walks around an empty, dark theater while another Wood regular Dudley Manlove ridiculously narrates every possible detail of how he is trying to find the endeavor terrifying.  Of course nothing is remotely terrifying and virtually nothing at all happens the entire time either.  The strangeness naturally comes in how clearly Wood fails at what he was trying to achieve, but a boring movie is a boring movie so it is only really worth witnessing for the most fanatical enthusiast of the man's work.

TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN
(1958)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

An interesting, unlikely collaboration between Columbia Pictures and Hammer Studios, Tales of Frankenstein was to be a television series of twenty-six episodes, thirteen produced by each studio.  The deal fell apart even before the only entry was produced, with neither studio being able to agree on the look, tone, or direction of the proposed series.  Columbia who had already acquired the Universal horror catalog for syndication with their Shock Theater package naturally wanted to capitalize on the style of those movies while Hammer was already planning to launch their own reboots and wished for this project to be more akin to those.  The only result of the pairing was to be called "The Face in the Tombstone Mirror" and starts Anton Diffring as an effective Dr. Frankenstein to be sure, though he regrettably would never get to play the Baron again.  While the pilot is certainly interesting and even essential for classic monster movie purists due to its inception, it is also nothing very unique and only manages to wet ones appetite for what could have came in its wake with its highly formulaic presentation.

1960s American Horror Part Two

ORGY OF THE DEAD
(1965)
Dir - A.C. Stephen
Overall: WOOF

When viewing anything under the Ed Wood umbrella of awful, you are usually guaranteed to be in for a very bizarre experience to say the least.  Orgy of the Dead is an Ed Wood movie in all but the fact that it was technically "directed" by A.C. Stephen, with Wood handling nearly every other level of production including holding up the cue cards for one of his most infamous alumni The Amazing Criswell to badly and obviously read from.  Essentially nothing more than a nudie-cuite, (an exploitation subgenre and precursor to adult films featuring female nudity in place of any narrative content), Orgy of the Dead features a whopping total of ten topless dance sequences, all performed by women who look as bored as we are watching them.  The fact that these striptease scenes make up over an hour of the movie's ninety-two minutes is the one thing that makes it an easy contender as one of the most absolutely boring movies ever made.  Actually, if not for how suicide-inducingly dull all of the nudity is, the movie would have otherwise been a masterpiece of trash.  The dialog, acting, and preposterous set up of Criswell and his female ghoul/vampire/whatever, (plus a werewolf and mummy for no reason), conversing with each other is just hilariously stupid.  It further boggles the mind that Wood would later turn the "script" here into a novel, yet another example of how he was probably the most clueless filmmaker who ever breathed air.

THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN
(1966)
Dir - Alan Rafkin
Overall: MEH

Hot off his success on The Andy Griffith Show, Don Knotts scored a contract with Universal for a number of staring vehicles, the only one of which that had a horror connection being The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.  Unfortunately this is not one of the comedies of the day that has aged particularly well as it remains pretty consistently unfunny throughout its running time.  As one could imagine, Knotts spends the entire movie with his eyes wide open while being nervous and scared at absolutely everything.  Right from the very opening scene where he is frantically screaming at everyone that he just witnessed a murder, it becomes something of a chore to sit through.  It is hardly spoiling anything that the "ghost" of the title is simply a Scooby Doo-style red herring and naturally it is a rather shrug-worthy twist.  Then there is also an "adda boy" running gag that likewise gets really old, really fast.  Perhaps if the movie spent more than one scene in the Gothic mansion and delivered a few more fun, spooky moments, (and if Knotts toned down his cartoonish persona a bit), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken could have been more welcoming, but alas it is just adequately dull.

NIGHTMARE IN WAX
(1969)
Dir - Bud Townsend
Overall: GOOD

The deliberately cheap, ham-fisted House of Wax rip-off Nightmare in Wax very oddly overcomes its shortcomings and makes the absolute best use out of its silliness.  Technically speaking, the movie is poor for the most part.  The cinematography is occasionally terrible, the sound design is muffled, there are some embarrassing attempts at humor, and the ending is either incomprehensible or laughably stupid.  Plot details are hardly important as within the first few minutes, we pretty much then know exactly what is going to happen for the whole movie.  All of that said though, the camp level is certainly high and great mileage is gotten out of the familiar premise of a wax museum operator out for revenge.  Cameron Mitchell mostly made a career out of appearing in B-movies that were all levels of bad, (from fun bad to unwatchably bad), and thankfully he was still giving it his all here, sinking his scenery-chewing jaws into the material.  While he does not bring a level of class to the proceedings like say a Vincent Price or Christopher Lee would have, he makes up for it with a delightfully outlandish portrayal that is anything but shallow.  His performance is enough yet all things considered, this is the good kind of dumb movie that keeps up the pace, making it quite user-friendly to chuckle at.