News

The four films collected in Severin’s new set Hard Wood chronicle a seismic shift in cult filmmaker Ed Wood’s oeuvre. They see him moving from utterly idiosyncratic mashups of sci-fi and horror like Bride of the Monster and the immortal Plan 9 from Outer Space (not to mention the mockumentary delirium of Glen or Glenda?) to other perhaps less reputable pastures in the land of exploitation filmmaking. Starting with The Sinister Urge in 1960, except for one reasonably charming excursion into cornpone comedy, Wood largely confined himself to working within the increasingly explicit realm of sexploitation films.

Wood co-wrote but did not direct 1963’s Shotgun Wedding, a prime example of the hicksploitation craze that swept the nation in the early ’60s after the runaway success of the TV show The Beverley Hillbillies, which, in the world of exploitation filmmaking, bore fruit like Herschell Gordon Lewis’s gore-laden Brigadoon riff Two Thousand Maniacs!

The enduring legacy of campy cult favorite “Ed Wood” is still celebrated 30 years later.

The beloved 1994 film was directed by Tim Burton and starred Johnny Depp as the filmmaker known for helming B-movie greats, most infamously 1959’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Wood’s other features include “Orgy of the Dead,” “Glen or Glenda,” and “Bride of the Monster.” He was awarded the Golden Turkey title of Worst Director in 1975.

Burton’s 1994 biopic “Ed Wood” was written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, and co-starred Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Martin Landau, who won an Oscar for portraying Bela Lugosi.

“Ed Wood” producer Denise Di Novi detailed her own love of the film three decades later, explaining why “Ed Wood” is one of the most personal projects for both her and longtime collaborator Burton to date. After working as the creative consultant on David Cronenberg’s iconic “Videodrome,” Di...

Poet Maya Angelou once said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." And we couldn't agree more with her. Everyone has the capacity to tell a story of their own because that's what life is — a series of vignettes where each one consists of an experience. However, this doesn't mean everyone has the skill to tell a story. Certainly not the director of Hollywood's bizarre cinema experience Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Film directors — at least most of them — have realized they carry the craft deep within them. In the majority of cases, they're able to tell other stories than their own, but they should have enough empathy and artistic sensibility to make an interesting story out of an idea on paper. Edward D. Wood Jr., or Ed Wood, as he's mostly known, was one of those directors. And as "bad" as his films were considered to be,...

Chances are, if you’re familiar with the name Edward D. Wood, Jr., it’s thanks to Tim Burton’s delightful biopic, Ed Wood. Certainly, people were aware of the eccentric writer-director prior to the 1994 film, but Burton cast Wood in a whole new light, turning the quote-unquote “worst director of all time” into a lovable dreamer who wouldn’t let puny budgets, bad actors, or obnoxious producers impede his goals. Ed Wood gave us a reason to appreciate a man for whom making movies was the ultimate gratification, quality be damned. Settle into your favorite angora sweater, because we’re going to find out What Really Happened to Ed Wood.

To start off with the obvious, Wood’s real life wasn’t quite as peachy keen as the movie portrays. Tim Burton didn’t want to make a traditional biopic about the man, nor did the screenwriters, who based...

Rotten Tomatoes assigns low scores to some of the worst directors in cinema, including Dennis Dugan and Michael Bay. Some directors, like Ed Wood and Uwe Boll, have cult followings despite consistently receiving negative ratings. M. Night Shyamalan has a mixed record with some critically acclaimed films and others that receive unanimous negative reception.

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes lives up to its name by assigning some truly Rotten scores to some of the worst directors in cinema, ranging from frequent Adam Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan to blockbuster auteur Michael Bay. The website notably offers an aggregate score from both critics and audiences, leading to some differences between the two groups. Then, there are also times when both critics and audiences have equal Rotten Tomatoes ratings, sometimes even with a perfect score of 100%. But in the case of a Rob Zombie or M. Night Shyamalan, both sides tend to join...

If there's a basic, no-frills definition for movies, it's that they're made to be seen. Cinema is a populist medium, attempting to reach as wide an audience as possible for as long as possible.

Perhaps that's why the feeling of "discovering" a movie can be so powerfully enjoyable. It gives you the sense, however false, that you're stumbling upon a secret piece of entertainment made just for you. If you happen to discover such a movie in the wee hours of the morning, so much the better — the surreal setting only serves to make what you're watching seem that much more unreal, richer, and special.

It's that sensation that the programming block on Turner Classic Movies known as "TCM Underground" sought to capture every Friday night-turned-Saturday morning. Begun by Eric Weber in 2006 and continued by programmer Millie De Chirico starting in 2007, TCM Underground made it its business to curate some of the most obscure,...

Comedian Jonah Ray discusses his favorite year in cinema (1994) with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Airport (1970)

Airport 1975 (1975)

Airport ’77 (1977)

Airplane! (1980)

Basket Case (1982)

Destroy All Neighbors (Tbd)

Satanic Hispanics (2022)

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Black Christmas (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s franchise power rankings

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pooka! (2018)

Pooka Lives! (2020)

Harvey (1950) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

Ed Wood (1994)

Black Dynamite (2009)

Bride Of The Monster (1955) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s review

Glen Or Glenda (1953)

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Frankenweenie (2012)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Dumb And Dumber (1994)

Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997)

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

The Mask (1994)

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

Scream (1996)

Evil Laugh (1986)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Forrest Gump (1994)

Clerks (1994)

The Search For One-Eye Jimmy (1994)

Cabin Boy (1994)

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

Scary Movie 4...

“The police don’t believe in monsters,” we learned in Ed Woods’ 1955 B-movie horror favorite Bride of the Monster. But Full Moon Features does, and they know where to find them. On Friday, July 31, the channel and app dropped seven cult classics to their new 20-film series Haunted Hollywood. Every Friday for 13 weeks, they will add a new scary flick. Some of these films are frightening in their content, others for the stories behind the film. For some of these movies, the most horrifying thing is they ever got made in the first place.

Real life and Hollywood history blend in macabre ways, and no one blends these stories better than David Del Valle. The film historian and agent to the stars hosts Haunted Hollywood, opening each showing with a personal story. Del Valle hosted a series of television interviews entitled “Sinister Image,” speaking with moviemakers as varied as Cameron Mitchell to Russ Meyer.

Before we delve too deeply into the weeds, this viewer finds it imperative to make two big caveats. First, any finished movie, as Tfh Fearless Leader Joe Dante often preaches, is a bit of a miracle. Completing a project, especially a low-budget indie like Bride of the Monster (1955) that culled resources together from disparate backers and was at one point shut down three days into production due to a lack of funds, is a feat to be applauded. I am fully aware of that reality, even though I will take pains to explore the many shortcomings of this notoriously flawed cheapie chiller. Second, the actual protracted production of this picture, which was at one time to co-star Bela Lugosi and his fellow Universal monster luminaries Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr., is as compelling as the movie itself. So we’ll be touching on some behind-the-scenes morsels, too.

Bride of the Monster...

I’ve had the good fortune of attending a few of Hero Complex Gallery’s shows over the years, but their latest exhibition, “Blacklight 2,” might be something of an all-timer. Featuring 50 incredible pieces of pop culture-themed artwork from a variety of talents that include Vance Kelly, Bruce White, Dan Mumford, Luke Preece, Jeany Ngo, HagCult, Matthew Johnson, Duke Duel, and many more, fans can now order many of the badass Blacklight-reactive and/or Glow-in-the-Dark posters and other multi-media creations over at Hcg’s website. And for those curious about some of the artwork in “Blacklight 2,” here’s a look at several brilliant pieces genre fans would undoubtedly love adding to their poster collections.

“Wake Up Old Friend, It’s Our Time” by Dan Mumford

“Black Phillip” Red Variant by Vance Kelly

“After Midnight” by Pitchgrim

“Bride of the Monster” by Bruce White

“Darkness” by Mark W. Richards

“Part Man. Part Machine.

Conrad Brooks, star of Plan 9 from Outer Space, has passed away. Brooks was 86-years-old and his cause of death has not yet been announced. Reports of his death have been circulating on social media and several outlets have reported on his passing, though, no official obituary has been released. Neither his family or representatives have released a statement regarding Brooks' passing yet.

With a career dating back to 1953, in an uncredited role in William Beaudine's Jalopy, Conrad Brooks had a career that spanned more than six decades. The late actor was known best for his relationship with director Ed Wood, who directed legendary B-movies such as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Bride of the Monster. Jerry Williams, who worked with Brooks several times over the years, had this to say in an Instagram post.

"Rip Conrad Brooks...plan 9 from outer space alum and you starred in several of my films.

“My girlfriend still doesn’t know why her sweaters are always stretched out!”

Tim Burton’s Ed Wood screens Thursday December 5th at 7:30pm at Schlafly Bottleworks

Ed Wood tells the story of the world’s worst movie director. Ed Wood Jr. was the man behind a number of inept American b-pictures such as Glen Or Glenda, Bride Of The Monster and his bizarro world masterwork Plan 9 From Outer Space. Wood (played in the film by Johnny Depp) had an incompetent directorial style, which included casting a group of non-actors that included dope addicts, transvestites, a struggling TV horror queen and the fading Hollywood legend Bela Lugosi. He was content to botch scenes by allowing his actors to muff their lines and he also mixed day and night shots together with no disregard for continuity. Ed Wood also focuses on the way his erratic career and behavior affected...

Marvel Studios is taking its biggest risk yet with Guardians of the Galaxy, banking on an obscure team of heroes to bridge the gap until the next Avengers flick roars into theaters. But there's an even larger obstacle standing in the way of box-office success: Dave Bautista.

To the uninitiated, Bautista is a six-time world champion in Vince McMahon's wrestling circus, and one of the most iconic squared-circle stars of the last decade. In Guardians, he plays intergalactic warrior Drax the Destroyer, which is unquestionably his biggest role to date.

Review by Sam Moffitt

When you are a true movie geek some titles become a sort of Holy Grail. When I was a monster kid growing up in the 60’s I read Castle of Frankenstein magazine avidly (one of the greatest magazines ever published by the way!) That periodical discussed so many movies that I just knew I would never get a chance to see, foreign films, independent films, odd ball avant garde’ experimental films, it made me determined to see them by any means necessary.

I recall reading about Night Tide in Castle of Frankenstein and wanting to see it very badly. I didn’t get to view that title until sometime in the 90s. I found it on vhs on the Rhino label and was happy to finally get to see it, it lives up to its reputation, for me anyway. Now I am happy to report Image...

On this day in 1924 the worst filmmaker the American Film Institute ever encountered Ed Wood was born. Like many filmmakers that cant get adequate backing for their work Wood began by making many microbudget horror movies. Those that became prominent only after his death include Bride of the Monster (1955) starring Bela Lugosi Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956) starring Lugosi and Vampira (Maila Nurmi) Night of the Ghouls (1958) The Sinister Urge (1960) and Necromania (1971).

Joe Mendillo of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. has launched a fundraising campaign so his town can have a life-size bronze figure of one of its most famous native sons: low-budget sci-fi director Edward D. Wood Jr. Mendillo tells The Poughkeepsie Journal he’s aware Wood's name is synonymous with bad cinema, thanks to movies like Bride Of The Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Nevertheless, he believes Poughkeepsie's most esteemed former resident (if you don't count Predator actor Bill Duke) still deserves to be honored, because of the inspiring spirit that drove his cult movie career. "Here ...

Actors often get their accolades for doing drama, comedy, or even action, but it never seems like we properly recognize those actors which do a splendid job scaring us. This is a list of the top ten actors that are excellent at being scary.

Make-up, prosthetics, computer animation, and costumes can only go so far. What makes a movie character really scary is the actor or actress portraying that character. And it’s not enough just to yell “boo!” at the right moment. No, the best in the business know how to create a believable persona that is disturbing, creepy, disgusting, mysterious, or maybe all at once.

This is a list of my pick for the top ten scariest actors of all time. These actors are veterans and legends in the film industry because of the ingenious ways they were able to spook the audience consistently throughout their career. Their...

”My girlfriend still doesn’t know why her sweaters are always stretched out.”

Of the eight collaborations between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, most of my movie buff friends will choose Ed Wood as their favorite, yet it was the least successful at the box-office, grossing less than 6 million dollars in 1994. Chronicling the man’s rise to “personal success” and his overwhelming desire to become the next Orson Welles, Ed Wood charted the director’s fascinatingly manic career; from Glen Or Glenda, to Bride Of The Monster, to Plan 9 From Outer Space. These were three of the most shamefully undesirable disasters “Hollywood” has ever produced, but to Ed Wood they were gold. Wood was a man who had the utmost level of zest for his so-called “art” and would never back-down to the barrage of criticism he would constantly receive. To him, Glen Or Glenda was a highly personal film,...

Horror fans today are spoiled. With the vast array of films available on DVD and Blu-ray via storefronts like Best Buy and Fye, online outlets like Amazon and Deep Discount, and rental/streaming services such as Netflix, there are few films that are unattainable. Virtually anything one might hear of is available some way, somewhere. But it wasn't always so...

Back at a time before disc (or VHS for that matter), the only way - and I mean the Only way - to see classic and not so classic genre pictures was on broadcast television. As a kid, I remember getting the local TV Guide and a yellow highlighter and systematically going through the listings, marking each and every show time of movies I'd heard about either from friends or ones that were obliquely mentioned in Forry Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland . I would meticulously go over each entry...

The story goes that at the time of his passing in 1956, Bela Lugosi was grasping a script called Final Curtain, penned by pal Ed Wood. Final Curtain was a television pilot for an anthology series to be called Portraits Of Terror, intended to be a Twilight Zone-esque theater of the bizarre. While Lugosi would miss the boat, Wood ended up shooting the show in 1957 with a cast made up of Duke Moore, Dudley Manlove, and Jeannie Stevens. The 22-minute short concerned a cop who makes the mistake of investigating a mysterious theater late at night while on solo patrol.

Nothing became of the show, and while Wood would go on to many other projects, including his career-defining Plan 9 From Outer Space in 1959, Final Curtain was something the director often brought up, sharing footage with his friends and hangers-on, dreaming of what could have been. One of those friends was actor Paul Marco,...

The Roman Empire was brutal, repressive, tyrannical, corrupt, morally bankrupt… Well, nothing’s perfect, right? After all, the Empire’s collapse after 700 years didn’t bring freedom or reformation, but the Dark Ages – disease, ignorance, witch trials, book burnings, illiteracy, and all that other bad stuff which made the Dark Ages so damned dark.

It’s like that line in Monty Python’s Life of Brian: a Jewish revolutionary group is plotting the overthrow of their Roman overseers, and ringleader John Cleese declares, “After all, what’ve the Romans ever done for us?”

After which Cleese’s followers offer a shopping list – a long shopping list – of the benefits of Roman occupation. An exasperated Cleese finally concedes/concludes with, “All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

To...

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp make the world's worst director look charming, despite some historical fact-bending

Director: Tim Burton

Entertainment grade: A–

History grade: B+

Edward D Wood Jr made low-budget Hollywood films in the 1950s, including Jail Bait, Night of the Ghouls and Plan 9 From Outer Space. In 1980, Plan 9 was voted the worst film of all time in the Golden Turkey awards. Wood was posthumously voted worst director.

Talent

It's 1953, and aspiring film-maker Eddie Wood (Johnny Depp) is thrilled to hear that a producer is filming the story of a famous transsexual. The reason? Wood himself loves wearing women's clothes, particularly angora sweaters. He pitches himself as writing, directing and starring – "just like Orson Welles did in Citizen Kane". The result – Glen or Glenda? – fell slightly short of the critical acclaim bestowed upon Welles's movie. The New York Times said "It isn't quite a camp classic, although...

Every Halloween, TV channels pump out some of the best/worst horror movies. However, there are films that transcend the badness until it becomes funny. Here are some kid-appropriate schlock films:

The Killer Shrews

During the 50's, most horror films had pretty bad special effects. The best it could hope for was some cheesy stopmotion, and with the worst you get something like The Killer Shrews. Some people are stuck on an island where some science experiments have resulted in some slightly large killer shrews (rats). First sign of trouble: the shrews are just some ridiculously dressed up dogs. The film fails to have any conflict in the first half of the film . ..and it's only 69 minutes long! Also, it's hard to understand some of the actors' thick accents. The film's available via the Internet Archives or you can see it through "Mystery Science Theater 3000" for some added hilarity.

Chicago – Would I love Ed Wood as much without Tim Burton’s amazing film of the same name? Probably not. I’ll admit that I can’t watch “Bride of the Monster” and Not think of Martin Landau’s Oscar-winning performance and I smile when thinking of Wood directing some of his awesomely-bad features but I’m really picturing Johnny Depp more than the actual filmmaker. Does it matter? For whatever reason you enjoy the king of Z-movie cinema, the 6-disc “Big Box of Wood” set is a treasure for cheesy movie fans.

DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0

Where does one even begin to review the filmography of Ed Wood? He was a Horrible director. And yet there’s something about his most beloved works (“Plan 9 From Outer Space,” “Bride of the Monster,” “Glen or Glenda” [which is, sadly, not includes in this 13-movie set]) that reflects the overwhelming love for cinema held by their director. Ed Wood loved movies. He...

There was only one Ed Wood. To call the man different is a bit of an understatement. One thing is for sure though ... for better or worse, Ed has become a legend, and a new box set is on the way that celebrates the very best (and worst) from the world's most infamous filmmaker.

From the Press Release

Ed Wood was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor who often performed many of these functions simultaneously. In the 1950s, Wood made a number of cheap genre films (and attempted a number of failed TV pilots), now enjoyed for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, large amounts of ill-fitting stock footage, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements, although his flair for showmanship gave his projects at least a modicum of critical success.

Wood's popularity waned soon after his biggest "name" star, Bela Lugosi, died. He was able...

Hollywood actor known for her roles in the so-bad-they're-good films of Ed Wood

There are artists in various fields whose fame rests solely on how bad their work is alleged to be. Among them are the poet William McGonagall, the novelist Amanda McKittrick Ros, the soprano Florence Foster Jenkins and the film director Ed Wood. The latter's reputation as the world's worst film-maker rubbed off on Dolores Fuller, his muse, lover and leading lady, who has died aged 88.

It would be unfair to pick on Fuller for her stiff posture and stilted delivery in Wood's movies when the others in the casts were equally awkward, mainly because of the minimum amount of takes and the lack of strong direction. The "peak" of Wood and Fuller's collaboration was the camp classic Glen or Glenda (aka I Led Two Lives, 1953), an unintentionally hilarious, well-meaning film on transvestism. The theme was particularly close...

Dolores Fuller, the muse to the “worst director of all-time” Ed Wood, passed away on Monday from complications of a stroke, according to the New York Times. She was 88. Fuller had been a small-time television actress when she answered a casting call from an unknown director in the early 1950s. Wood was immediately smitten by her beauty — and her angora sweater — and the couple went on to live together for four years, during which the cross-dressing filmmaker turned his fetish into the film, Glen or Glenda. “The first time I saw the whole film, I wanted to crawl under the seat,...

Let's all take a moment to remember the late Dolores Fuller, the B-movie actress whose soft angora sweaters brought out the best in filmmaker boyfriend Ed Wood. Portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Fuller starred in Wood's early films Glen or Glenda, Jail Bait, and Bride of the Monster, and later enjoyed a successful career as a songwriter.

Best known as Ed Wood.s girlfriend and co-star of his films Glen Or Glenda (1953), Jail Bait (1954), and Bride Of The Monster (1955), Dolores Fuller had a bit part opposite Clark Gable in It Happened One Night (1934) and co-starred in the cult fave Mesa Of Lost Women (1953). When she attended horror movie conventions, she always brought her white angora sweater that she wore in Wood.s films and let fans wear it for photos. Less-known about Ms Fuller is that she was an accomplished and prolific songwriter. She wrote for Elvis and penned songs that were featured in twelve of his films (!), the most famous being Rock-a-Hula Baby from Blue Hawaii. Fuller was 88, led quite a life, and was known as a warm human being.

Fuller hated the way Sarah Jessica Parker played her in Tim Burton.s Ed Wood bio-pic in 1994. Here.s an interview with her where she discusses...

On July 12, S’More Entertainment will issue Big Box of Wood, the most comprehensive group of movies by the renowned bad moviemaker Ed Wood Jr. (Plan 9 from Outer Space) ever released in a single DVD collection.

Vampira lives in Ed Wood's deliciously bad Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Clocking in at nearly 17 hours, the six-disc Big Box of Wood DVD includes 11 films and two TV specials spanning Wood’s 24-year filmmaking career. It will carry a list price of $49.98.

Included in the box are six of Wood’s later exploitation films from the Seventies, including two that have never before been released on DVD: 1972’s Snow Bunnies and 1976’s Beach Bunnies.

Here’s a list of everything that’s included in the collection:

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958)

Jail Bait (1954)

Bride of the Monster (1955)

The Violent Years (1956)

The Sinister Urge (1960)

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

Drop Out Wife (1972)

Fugitive...

Even the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film is honouring the Royal Wedding - in its own inimitable way.

The event, known more informally as Sci-Fi-London, is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a bigger programme than ever during its 10-day schedule from April 23 to May 2. For the first time, the BFI Southbank and BFI Imax will host events.

In addition to the core programme, highlights include The Royal Wedding all-nighter, from 11pm to 9am on Saturday, April 28.

The night before Prince William and Kate Midddleton's nuptials, organisers will look at a weirder world of weddings with such stars as Veronica Lake, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

The evening features five black-and-white classics: Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The Corpse Vanishes (1942), I Married a Witch (1942), Bride of the Monster (1955) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Hopefully the real Royal Wedding is less of a horror story...

For many fans, independent horror filmmaking seems like a relatively new concept. So you may be surprised to find out the maverick spirit that fuels our beloved genre has been burning for almost 100 years now, since the 1912 version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was produced by the independently-run production house Thanhouser Company.

Since then, we’ve enjoyed countless films that bucked the studio system tradition and gave us bold, refreshing explorations of some of our greatest fears and introduced us to some pioneers in the entertainment industry. In honor of these achievements, we here at Dread Central are taking the entire month of March to celebrate all things indie horror.

To kick things off, over the next five days we’d like to take you on a historical journey through the last 100 years of indie horror by taking a look at 25 milestones that helped define the horror genre and, in many cases,...

If you've spent any considerable length of time watching film then you know there are bad movies -- and then there are the really bad ones. You can identify these stinkers because there's something just not quite right about them. Sometimes it's their budget (or lack of one). On other occasions money wasn't the problem; it was the acting, or the writing, or the special effects, or the over-the-top concept. Sometimes it's several of these reasons, and on really spectacular occasions, when the stars and moon are in alignment, it could be all of these things.

Throughout my cinemaphile life I've seen my share of bad movies. Some of them are even ones that I like for pure nostalgic reasons, or because I like to root for the underdog that's going uop against the deep pockets of the Hollywood machine, or because the premise is so absurdly high concept ("Look!

Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Adventures in B-Movie Land, the monthly column where I take a look at some of the strangest, cheapest and worst films ever made ... and explore why you have to see them. Look for new entries during the second week of every month.

The Motion Pictures:

'Glen or Glenda' (1953), 'Jail Bait' (1954), 'Bride of the Monster' (1955), 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1958) and 'Night of the Ghouls' (1959).

Also Known As...

'I Led Two Lives,' 'He or She?,' 'I Changed My Sex,' 'The Hidden Face,' 'Bride of the Atom,' 'Graverobbers From Outer Space' and 'Revenge of the Dead.'

Featuring the Talented...

The legendary (and at the time, completely forgotten) Bela Lugosi, the incomprehensible Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, the incredibly inaccurate psychic Criswell, Wood's long-suffering girlfriend Dolores Fuller, Ed Wood himself...

Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Adventures in B-Movie Land, the monthly column where I take a look at some of the strangest, cheapest and worst films ever made ... and explore why you have to see them. Look for new entries during the second week of every month.

The Motion Pictures:

'Glen or Glenda' (1953), 'Jail Bait' (1954), 'Bride of the Monster' (1955), 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' (1958) and 'Night of the Ghouls' (1959).

Also Known As...

'I Led Two Lives,' 'He or She?,' 'I Changed My Sex,' 'The Hidden Face,' 'Bride of the Atom,' 'Graverobbers From Outer Space' and 'Revenge of the Dead.'

Featuring the Talented...

The legendary (and at the time, completely forgotten) Bela Lugosi, the incomprehensible Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, the incredibly inaccurate psychic Criswell, Wood's long-suffering girlfriend Dolores Fuller, Ed Wood himself...

It’s that time of year again, when sites the web-over compile helpful holiday shopping lists to guide you into the deepest, darkest pits of retail with a map that will hopefully get you out alive. Here now, without further ado, is the 2010 Fred Holiday Shopping Guide.

(If you see anything you like, please support Fred by using the links below to make your holiday purchases - it’s appreciated!)

It’s been over 10 years since cultural icon Stephen Fry released his first memoir, Moab Is My Washpot, which left leaders with only a portion of the story, ending as it did in his teenage years, just released from a prison sentence for credit card fraud, with college - the legendary Cambridge - and fame still before him. Well, he picks it all right back up in the same warm, witty, candid style with The Fry Chronicles (Penguin, £20.00 Srp), a must-read volume that,...

Starting today and until I run out of cool giftable stuff to tell you about or until we run out of days till Christmas, I’ll be sharing some neat-o things that your geeky pals might enjoy, or that you might want to give to yourself, if you’ve been especially good this year. Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volumn Xix is the best MST3K gift set yet, and not just because it includes a six-inch-tall, startlingly lifelike figurine of Gypsy, the robot stranded spaceman Joel Robinson created to run his orbital life raft. The set also includes the classic “experiment” during which Joel, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo riff on the Ed Wood eyesore Bride of the Monster, which could well be packed denser with laughs than any other... and which also features a short that prompted some of the wittiest pushback ever: Hired!, a Chevrolet sales...

With nineteen boxed sets under its belt, Mystery Science Theater 3000 knows exactly what it’s doing. Like the show itself, the DVDs rely on an expected formula that the fans know by heart and that carries no nasty surprises. So it was when Rhino first released the sets, and so it is under Shout Factory. Give consumers the episodes they want, throw in a few bells and whistles, and deliver it all in a handsome package that looks snazzy on the shelf. The 19th collection makes good on that promise, while delivering an unexpectedly strong array of movies to boot. Hit the jump to read my full review.

As always, the box set contains four episodes of the beloved cult series, in which two mad scientists torture a hapless guinea pig and his robot pals by forcing them to watch the worst movies ever made. The subjects respond by mercilessly ridiculing said movies,...

Pahrump - Call it Hof Vegas. Dennis Hof of HBO’s Cathouse no longer wants me to warn readers that his Bunny Ranch empire is in only Reno and not Las Vegas. He’s bringing his style of adult fun to the outskirts of Sin City. He called up the hotline from the middle of Crystal, Nevada to spread the news. The sounds of hammering and drills came from his end of the phone.

“We’re moving around here and getting some things done,” Dennis Hof said. “I bought two 35 year old rundown, rat trap brothels. What you’re buying is the licenses.”

The two old names were Cherry Patch Ranch and Mabel’s Whore House. The new places are Love Ranch and Dennis Hof’s Cathouse. “Those are name that are synonymous with good times.”

There are no good times for the former owner. He got arrested for bribing a county official.

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

It was with some trepidation that fans entered the 5th season of Doctor Who (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$89.98 Srp) - Not only were we losing fan-favorite David Tennant as the 10th Doctor, but the 11th Doctor would be the ridiculously young unknown Matt Smith. Surely this would be when the new series stumbled. Well, no. No it didn’t. In fact, Matt Smith is a wonder in the role,...

This week, Shout! Factory releases Mystery Science Theater 3000 Vol. Xix (yes, that's 19), featuring four more classic episodes from the show that made it Ok to talk back to the screen: Devil Doll, Devil Fish, Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster, and Phil Tucker's infamous Robot Monster. A writer for most of the show's run, Mary Jo Pehl (who played the evil Mrs. Forrester during the SyFy run of MST3K), sat down to talk about her history with the cult cable classic as well as her current movie-riffing project Cinematic Titanic, which teams her with MST3K creator Joel Hodgson and fellow show vets Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, and J. Elvis Weinstein on live shows and DVD releases.

Tim Burton fans in the Toronto area have cause to celebrate and rejoice. Tiff Bell Lightbox will be offering a major exhibition and retrospective on the director’s work. The exhibition will hundreds of pieces of Burton’s artwork going back as far to work he did as a teenager. There will be more than 700 items including paintings, drawings, puppets, costumes, storyboards, and maquettes from Burton’s personal vault, studio archives, and private collections. There will also be an “extensive film retrospective spanning Burton’s 27-year career, including his early shorts and a related series of films that influenced, inspired and intrigued him as a filmmaker, will run parallel to the exhibition.”

Hit the jump to check out the full press release. The exhibition will run from November 26, 2010 until April 17, 2011. Tickets go on sale October 26th.

Here’s the press release:

Tim Burton Exhibition And Retrospective Opens On November 26

At...

The art that stays with us, that moves us, that captivates, beguiles and enthralls us, is the kind that goes to extremes.

No comedy is as funny as when the action therein is taken to extremes of the farcical and absurd. Film noir depicts human beings in their most extreme states of moral decay, asking questions of us as to whether we can be decent people in an indecent world. Superheroes inspire by operating on the extreme side of nobility. Horror films thrive by confronting the extremes of evil, pain and death and forcing us to confront terrors deep and even instinctual within our conscious as well as our subconscious.

The cinematic phenomenons of late – whether one would evaluate these pictures as “good” or “bad” – are no exception. The extravagance of Avatar’s fantasy is matched by the outrageousness of the financial and technical resources required to create it. The...

This coming weekend we all get to go with Alice down the rabbit hole again into the fantastic world of Wonderland.  Johnny Depp again teams up with director Tim Burton to bring us this visually stunning and imagination filled motion picture to give us the continuing story of Alice's adventures in the strange world filled is amazing characters.

Joining Depp on the screen for "Wonderland" are Mia Wasikowska (most recently seen in "Amelia") as Alice, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, Cristin Glover as the Knave of Hearts, Alan Rickman as the Blue Caterpillar and Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit.

In "Alice In Wonderland", 19-year-old Alice returns to the magical world from her childhood adventure, where she reunites with her old friends and learns of her true destiny: to end the Red Queen's reign of terror.

But did you know that "Alice In Wonderland...

Edward D. Wood Jr. lives! 1. In the soul of underground filmmaker Andre Perkowski; and 2. On this DVD release of Devil Girls, Perkowski’s adaptation of one of Wood’s lurid paperback novels. The film is now available for purchase on Amazon.

While Wood is mostly known for directing low budget — and low quality — sci-fi and horror films, like the classic Plan 9 From Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, he turned to churning out sleazy exploitation paperbacks after his filmmaking career never took off. Writing these books is how he primarily made his living from the early 1960s until his death in 1978.

In the mid-’90s, Perkowski planned to make a trilogy of films based on three different Wood books, but only finished two before “realizing this would be a silly way of starting a career.” It would be close to another 10 years before Perkowski would start to send...

Their names are synonymous with classic horror films. Together, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff presented an unbeatable tag team of terror. For over 25 years they dueled for horror superiority with films such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, White Zombie, The Bride Of Frankenstein, Mark Of The Vampire, and dozens of others. Film historian Greg Mank, the foremost expert on classic horror of the 1930s and 1940s, takes horror fans on an incredible journey through the lives of these two icons of the silver screen in Bela Lugosi And Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story Of A Haunting Collaboration.

In a volume nearly 700 pages long, Mank looks at their films both individually and together, as well as their personal and private lives and relationships. Over the years Mank has conducted interviews with hundreds of personalities related to classic horror including many surviving stars, crewmembers, and the families of the stars. With Mank’s work,...