Bride Of The Monster [1955]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It's been a while since we watched a film by Edward D. Wood Jr. Early on we made a point to do a double feature of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" and back in early 2014 we watched his curiously unsympathetic movie about crossdressing, "Glen or Glenda," but we haven't really revisited him since. This movie is actually kind of different from those two in that the plot almost makes sense and the budget was clearly high enough to have multiple indoor sets. This doesn't mean the direction is any better and it certainly doesn't mean an improvement in the writing but what more could you hope for with the Ed Wood stamp of approval?

The Wikipedia description of the plot is actually crazy long for such a simple seeming movie so I'm going to break this down as easily as possible. First of all, the movie is called "Bride Of The Monster" but it was really hard to figure out why there had to be a bride for this monster. The movie starts with two guys finding a creepy house that is lived in by Bela Lugosi, a scientist who wants to use atomic radiation to create a race of supermen, his mute strongman servent he kidnapped from Tibet, Tor Johnson, and their giant octopus. These two guys' deaths by mollusk lead to three independent investigations by cops, a scientist hired by the homicide department, and a determined reporter. Reporter crashes her car and gets taken to Lugosi's lab. Cops ditch to go get coffee but when they come back one one decides to leave for coffee again and the other, reporter's fiance, gets taken to the lab. The scientist turns out to be a contemporary of Lugosi who thinks he's nuts and gets killed. Our final showdown happens when Lugosi curiously dresses the reporter in a wedding gown because she is going to be the "bride of the atom" and puts her in his machine to try to turn her into an ubermensch. His plan is thwarted by Tor Johnson who doesn't want to be a slave anymore and a stupidly long fight ensues. Ultimately, Lugosi beats Johnson, the reporter and her fiance escape, and Lugosi uses the machine on himself and manages to become super powerful. Until he literally blows up in a mushroom cloud. A cop who had arrived on the scene delivers the final observation: "He tampered in god's domain."

It's worth noting that the alternative title for this movie is "Bride Of The Atom" and that the atomic element was really indicative of what was popular at the time. And also that Ed Wood seemed to want a monster element too and only managed to come up with a giant octopus that was incredibly fake looking. Like "Plan 9" this movie can't decide if it wants to be a monster movie or a sci-fi movie so it decides to be both. Other than that, the movie lacks the crazy lines of "Glen or Glenda" or the plot twists of "Plan 9" but it was still fairly enjoyable. 

Quotes:
"There's no such thing as monsters! This is the 20th century!"
"Don't count on it!"

Spoon Raiting: 6.

Adam's Grandma's Review:
"Grandma, did you like the monster movie?"
"No."

Glen Or Glenda [1953]

[Originally posted on Facebook on January 29, 2013]

Last Monday we treated ourselves to a bad movie classic by one of the worst directors, if not the worst, in the history of film, Edward D. Wood, Jr. (who also plays the title role). The movie was “Glen Or Glenda” a semi-autobiographical story that is mostly about a man who likes to wear women’s clothing, a hobby Ed Wood himself enjoyed. Considering this, you would think the film would be more . . . positive? Sympathetic? Instead it essentially says that there are two types of cross-dressers: men who wear women’s clothes because of some childhood difficulties that must be resolved by partners in adulthood and men who want to actually be women and they are probably either hermaphrodites or pseudo-hermaphrodites. Tumblr’s social justice brigade would have a field day of outrage. Also, this is only about half the movie. The rest is stock footage, Bela Lugosi waxing poetic about the horrors of life, and a curious S&M scene that Lugosi watches in traumatized interest. The plot is paper thin, dialogue and scenes are repeated so often you can get up and use the bathroom at any time, and the acting isn’t even slightly believable but somewhere beneath all that failure, is probably a decent message about acceptance. Too bad it’s probably covered in a stock footage superimposition of running bulls.

Quote: [Huge Bela face] "PULL THE STRING!"

Plan 9 From Outer Space [1959]

[Originally posted on Facebook on May 11, 2013]

Plan 9 From Outer Space: "This movie is murder . . . and someone's responsible!"

We watched "Plan 9" as a double feature with Tim Burton's "Ed Wood".