La nuit des revenants

All the mad ingredients that make up Ed Wood's delirious world are in full force here.

A spiritualist is busy raising the dead in a haunted house, and the cops investigate in classic Wood style. Ghouls, skeletons, bizarre and protracted dialogue aplenty in this 'sequel' to Bride of The Monster, which the script constantly refers to. There's even a narration delivered from a coffin by the inimitable Criswell!

It's no use arguing the merits of any Ed Wood film. At best, they're interminably silly by any conventional standard. Yet to his many fans they radiate with a weird appeal that defies explanation. I like 'em anyway.

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.

The story goes that 'Night Of The Ghouls' sat in the can for over twenty years because Ed Wood couldn't afford to have it developed. I've sometimes seen it passed off as a sequel to 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', but it's actually a sequel to 'Bride Of The Monster'. The links are slim but the mad scientist played by Bela Lugosi is mentioned once or twice, and his assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson) appears in horribly disfigured form. As well as Johnson a few Wood regulars are involved, notably Criswell and Paul Marco. Criswell is a hoot as always but Marco is tiresome. He's the comic relief but I can't stand his character who is always whining and screwing up. Duke Moore from 'Plan 9' plays the main cop and Kenne Duncan, who trash hounds might remember from 'The Astounding She-Monster', plays "Dr. Acula", a crook posing as a spiritualist. 'Night Of The Ghouls' is a lesser Wood movie. It's neither as crazy as 'Glen Or Glenda' or as effective as 'Bride Of The Monster', and frankly I miss Lugosi. So don't get your hopes up, it's fun but pretty forgettable.

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

My review was written in June 1984 after watching the movie on THe Nostalgia Merchant video cassette.

"Night of the Ghouls" is a below-average B-picture, of interest since it is the 1959-lensed, theatrically unreleased sequel to the cult favorite "Plan 9 from Outer Space". After 25 years in the vaults, it now is available to home video fans and is reviewed here for the record.

Narrated by Criswell, the late psychic who used to appear annually on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show" with his "I predict" routine, "Ghouls" has the L. A. County Sheriff's office investigating strange goings-on at the old house on Willows Lake. Years before (a vague reference ro "Plan 9"), a mad doctor had made monsters there, but everything was destroyed by lightning.

Currently, the fake swami Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan, wearing a turban), is swindling gullible folks by pretending to reanimate dead relatives. Unbeknownst to him, Acula's fake powers were strong enough to actually bring back the dead, who, in the lore of this film, have 12 hours of freedom to walk on Earth every 13 years when called forth by a spirit medium. Led by Criswell, the undead attack, and Aculas's assistant Sheila (Valda Hansen) is lured by a black-veiled ghost (Jeannie Stevens) to join them in the grave, as a real ghost rather than a fake one. Despite its title, film is not about ghouls, since there is no grave-robbing per se, nor any of the currently fashionable (in horror films) feeding on corpses.

The late filmmaker Edward D. Wood unior displays his usual minimal approach, utilizing barely dressed sets (typically a blank wal with a lonely looking picture hanging on it, poor eating tending towards swishiness in the supporting cast and an assortment of silly sound effects and cheapo insert shots which lamely try to inject humor into a dull script.. For those who place Wood's work on a pedestal, beyond the usual critical standards, it should be recalled that other earlier directors (e.g., Edgar Ulmer) and contempo ones (John Sayles, Wayne Wang) have crafted effective pictureson similarly minuscule budgets, with no apologies necessary.