The Sinister Urge

Some people believe that Ed Wood knew exactly what he was doing: that he *intended* to make "bad" movies in order to make people laugh. There are plenty of good reasons not to buy into that theory, and THE SINISTER URGE is Exhibit A.

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA, and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are endearing in their goofy lunacy. This one, though just as bad as the rest of Wood's oeuvre, is mostly just plodding and dull.

Not that there isn't entertainment to be had here, at least for the bad movie connoisseur: my personal favorite is the obvious use of pre-existing (and completely unrelated) footage, shoehorned in on the waste-not want-not principle and "justified" through the use of atrocious dubbing and risible expository dialogue (which takes place *after* the inserted scene, making it even more ludicrous).

But that's not the sort of thing calculated to make a mainstream audience roar with laughter.

I can imagine someone trying to make a movie like PLAN 9. I can't imagine anyone trying to make a movie like this.

You know that when Mr. Wood made a film he did put all of his heart and soul in each one of the films (ok the ones I saw and the 50's films that most people see) The problem being is that he was completely incompetent as a director. You can't polish a turd and all of these films are turds. But he did try his best, in my opinion this is one of the best and funniest, with or without MST. A fairly static film, the only action happening with a fight scene. The rest of the film consist of all the actors explaining about the plot. Carl Anthony is the most static of this bunch. Kenne Duncan and Duke Moore, two of the laziest cops on the beat. Then the rest, Jaffe, Mr. Taxpayer, Dirk (a swell guy), Kline (KLINE!!!!!) and best of all: GLORIA. The scariest woman on the planet who's probably passed on by now of throat cancer, or squeezed to death by some of those outfits, likely from Mr. Woods own collection. Why this film is not on DVD like the rest of the Ed Wood collection I don't know. Somebody get out there and pester Wade Williams productions and get this on DVD too.

The Sinister Urge (1960)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s hard-hitting look at the smut business has Lt. Carson (Kenne Duncan) and Sgt. Stone (Duke Moore) trying to solve a couple murders where the victims had just taken part in the pornography world. They believe the victims can be traced to a certain woman (Jean Fontaine) but they need to find out who's actually doing the killing. THE SINISTER URGE is Wood's attempt to show how ugly and evil the porn business is so I guess it's kind of ironic that this would be his last directing job for ten years until he would start working in, you guessed it, the porn business. As you'd expect, this here is a pretty poor film that like most of Wood's stuff has an interesting idea but the story is all over the place and in the end it just makes no sense. It seems that Wood was wanting to do the story about a psycho turned on by porn and then mix in a detective tale and the two items just didn't mix very well. The film is certainly a tad bit sleazier than the normal 1960 production but this doesn't make up for the weak dialogue or bad performances. It's funny but the film really puts down those who take advantage of girls who come to Hollywood to become stars and the film also preaches that girls should just stay home. The first female victim has such a Southern accent that I'm guessing Wood found her as she stepped off the bus. Wood's regular outlaws (Duncan, Moore, Conrad Brooks) are all here and it's worth noting that this here was Duncan's last feature film. Fans of Wood's work will still want to check this out but it's certainly miles behind his classics.

This movie is so unintentionally funny, like all Ed Wood movies. It's not on the same level as Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it comes mighty darn close. Not only that, but MST3K riffed it, as well. That raises the humor level about a hundred points. I recommend it to anyone with a love for bad movies.

In a very ironic twist, the anti-pornography film, "This Sinister Urge", was made by Ed Wood, Jr.....and all of his subsequent films were, in fact, porno movies! While by today's standards the Wood films of the 1960s and 70s were pretty tame, nonetheless they were filled with nudity and were shown in theaters in the roughest parts of town! He was responsible at that time for such 'classics' as "Sex Orgy", "Nympho Cycler", "One Million AC/DC" and "Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love"!

Of course, Ed Wood, Jr. is known less for his porn and more for his 1950s craptastic films...perhaps the worst movies of the era. Think about it...he was responsible for "Jail Bait", "Bride of the Monster", "Glen or Glenda" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space"!! All of these movies are terrible in every way...the acting, the scripts (if they even had one), direction,....the works. So is "The Sinister Urge" any better than Wood's typical output?

The film opens with a horribly filmed scene of a half-naked woman running towards the camera. It's gratuitous but also very badly done...with a very shaky camera and it's artless to say the least. Soon a weirdo shows up and is apparently chasing her. Soon, he murders her (perhaps he does more...but the film cuts away but strongly implies she's sexually assaulted). What follows is a police investigation of the crime as well as the snuff film* industry.

The acting is often terrible in this film. 'Actors' often have trouble delivering their lines or over-emphasize the wrong words or syllables. The murderer showed all the subtlety of Snidely Whiplash! With a competent director and reasonable budget, they would have re-shot these awkward scenes.

I was also surprised as the film does show some nudity...even though it's usually not associated with Wood's soft-core output. I have a hard time believing even in 1960 that Wood had an easy time showing such a film in traditional theaters and it must have either run in porno theaters or was taken on the road and shown in odd locations here and there. All I know is that for an anti-porn film, it shows a surprising amount of flesh!!

Overall, it's pretty much an Ed Wood film....need I say more?!



*Snuff films have been widely talked about over the years and supposedly show actual murders perpetrated for the audience's amusement. However, there's no evidence that any such films ever have been made. Do the research....you'll see what I mean.