Night of the Ghouls

Ed Wood rounds up the usual suspects for this craptastic shocker. Lt. Moore is hot on the trail of shyster medium Dr. Acula (Uh huh, Dracula…I get it) who sets up his show in the good old Dr. Vornoff's (Bela Lugosi's lair in 'Bride of the Gorilla' (1955)) old lair to bilk little old ladies hard earned social security by channeling their love ones with floating sheets and phantom trumpet players who couldn't hold a tune even if they had pockets.. This guy couldn't talk to the dead with a two cans connected by string.

The Woodmeister really outdoes himself with 'Ghouls'. I was laughing my butt off during the good doctor's séances. Oh great swami salami please raise the dead. 'Night of the Ghouls' is badly acted with horrible dialogue and some of the cheesiest effects in all his films. I had a great time with this one. 4/5

I know what you're thinking. This is an Ed Wood movie so it can't be that good. Yeah, well, it ain't that bad either. An elderly couple show up at the police station frightened out of their wits having claimed to see a ghost near an old house in the woods once owned by a deranged scientist. The police feel they need to check it out so they send in one of their officers who specializes in ghosts (don't all police squads have a ghost unit?). Another officer is sent who is very possibly the worst cop in the history of cinema. He fires his gun at anything that frightens him in the least. He's played by Ed Wood regular, Paul Marco, played with not one ounce of common sense or normalcy. Anyway, the two cops investigate the house and see it's just a front for the new owner, named Dr. Ackula (I'm not kidding), to run a profitable scam that involves talking to peoples dead relatives. One of Dr. Acula's goons to do his dirty work is played by Tor Johnson who is always a welcome sight in a movie like this. Criswell narrates the film but really is unnecessary to the story, although it kind of adds to the campiness. It is rumored that this movie sat in the can for almost two decades because Ed Wood couldn't afford to have the film developed. If you liked "Plan 9 from outer space" you'll probably at least find this film moderately amusing.

How can you not like a picture that opens with a man (Criswell)sitting up in a coffin and warning that the story you are about to see may make you faint. Then the credits come on and you see the director is Edward D. Wood Jr. Yes, you may indeed faint . . .but from laughing too hard. This sequel to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER is fun on many levels. It offers unrelated footage from the unfinished movie HELLBORN (some of which later turned up in THE SINISTER URGE) which narrator Criswell tries to tie into the plot: there is also footage of Duke Moore that was shot for a 1/2 hour TV show that is woven in also. What was called "the old Willows house on Lake Marsh" is now "the house on Willow's Lake" and everyone remembers it used to be lived in by "the mad scientist who made monsters". The giant octopus is long gone but Lobo (Tor Johnson) has somehow survived and is now employed by Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan) a phony medium. Lobo is supposed to be the "monster" in the plot but one look at him makes you think otherwise. Dressed in rags, badly burned, half blind, groaning like he is in constant pain, Lobo inspires more pity than fear. In one scene Lt. Bradford (Moore) does not even seem to notice Lobo when he is standing right next to him! Well this is still a fun movie. The ineptness of an Ed Wood movie is compensated by the sincerity that he put into every production. Ed really believed he was contributing to the movie genre and making his mark. He sure did! Not quite in the way he expected, but look how many people are still watching his movies to-day!

Seriously bad movies takes the viewer into unexplored realms of weirdness quite beyond the range of more conventional films (there's an extraordinary sequence in 'Night of the Ghouls' depicting a seance, for example); although when a film begins with Criswell rising from a coffin to deliver a pious homily on the existential threat posed by juvenile delinquency you've got a pretty good idea what to expect. Veteran cameraman William C. Thompson meanwhile creates some memorable images; the single most haunting probably being the closeups of Jeannie Stevens in her fleeting appearances as the Black Ghost.

If you like Ed Wood's crazy body of work, you'll like this film. It's not as good as "Plan 9," and it rivals "Glen or Glenda?," but it's better than the rest of Wood's films. It's clearly shot with such a low budget that it's almost like watching a live, closed-circuit video feed from the inside of a spookhouse, circa 1959. The plot is inexplicable, and Wood's ensemble of actors is in top (or should I say bottom?) form, especially Paul Marco as Kelton. For sheer ultra-low budget fun, the film is right up there with "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies," "Robot Monster" and "The Brain from Planet Arous." See it, if you get a chance.