Bride of the Monster
Watching an Ed Wood film after watching Tim Burton’s 1994 ode to the “Worst Director of All-Time” is an odd experience. You understand the thought-process a little more. You can tell the stock footage a lot more. And you find yourself waiting for moments you saw recreations of in Burton’s movie.
This is my fourth Ed Wood film over the years- after “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” “Glen or Glenda,” and “Night of the Ghouls”- and the experience hasn’t gotten any less entertaining (or excruciating) over the years. Watching the black-and-white monstrosities, you can’t help but think of Crow, Tom, Joel (or Mike) at the bottom of the screen, wisecracking away.
“Bride of the Monster” tells of Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) and his experiments in a creepy old house with his mute assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson). A pretty young reporter named Janet Lawton (Loretta King) in town keeps writing about monster sightings and death around the old Willow place, but the cops want her out of it. Well, something like that anyway.
Here’s the thing about Ed Wood movies- would we see him differently as a filmmaker had he had bigger budgets? Access to bigger stars? And the freedom of filmmakers like Hitchcock or John Ford? We certainly would’ve gotten less-wooden performances, better sets and effects, and certainly less stock footage. But did Wood have the talent to pull it off?
We’ll never really know. But Wood can rest easy knowing that while he’s never garnered the acclaim of his idol Orson Welles, his movies have given people plenty of entertainment over the years (truth told, “Plan 9” is too damn unintentionally funny to be the “worst” film of all-time, and “Night of the Ghouls” isn’t as bad as some of the films I’ve seen). He had passion. He knew what he liked (whether it was in a performer, like Lugosi or the barely-comprehensible Tor Johnson, or in a take). And he knew the type of stories he wanted to tell (even if the execution, like in “Glen or Glenda,” is damn-near unwatchable).
In a way, Wood has helped pave the way for shoe-string filmmakers, who can’t afford Hollywood talent or luxuries, but have a desire to tall the stories they want to tell. That’s a big reason why “Ed Wood” is one of my favorite films. While I think I have more than a little more talent than Wood, the affection Burton and Johnny Depp show for him reflects my own artistic drive.
But what about “Bride of the Monster?” It’s got that Woodian “charm,” as it were. The cheesy effects (oh, those glorious octopus fights). The overdrive use of stock footage (especially at the beginning). The stiff dialogue readings (only Lugosi- the only real legend Wood ever worked with- seems capable of some realistic performance). Yeah, it is a bit too much to take (when the police officer on the case gets caught in quicksand, it’s hard to feel any suspense when he’s being attacked by stock footage crocodiles), but it’s a delightfully hammy experience at its’ best. The overwrought music. The surreal performance touches. That doesn’t make it a “good” movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if I could only watch one movie again, and I was given a choice between this, “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale,” “Manos: The Hands of Fate,” “Gamer,” and “Soul Survivors,” Ed Wood would win out by a comfortable margin…
