It only took 510 B-Movie Enema reviews to finally arrive at the King of the B-Movie Films, Edward D. Wood, Jr.

This week, we’re going to review 1955’s Bride of the Monster. Before we do that… The story of Ed Wood is kind of interesting. For the most part, we know the major story beats of his life. Wood wanted to make movies. He made bad movies. He struck up a friendship with down-and-out Bela Lugosi and gave him work for the last few years of the Hungarian’s life. He liked to wear women’s clothing.

It’s a little more than that, honestly. Wood really WAS heavily into the performing arts and pulp fiction. Lugosi was an early idol of his. The story you heard in Tim Burton’s wonderful 1994 film, Ed Wood, about how the filmmaker was dressed as a girl by his mother when he was a child, was true. She did want a daughter, and for several years, little Eddie was her sole child, so she would dress him up in girls’ clothing as something of a coping mechanism. According to his second wife, Kathy O’Hara, that was the origin point for his continued crossdressing for the rest of his life and his particular affinity to feel angora against his skin.

Wood served in the United States Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946, where he faced considerable combat against the Japanese. He had his teeth knocked out by a Japanese soldier, and he’d pop his false teeth out for a big toothless grin to make Kathy laugh. A story told in the 1994 Burton film by Johnny Depp’s Wood about how he was terrified of being wounded and then discovered he was wearing women’s underwear by the field doctors was true. It sounds like something for a joke, but it was true. You gotta love it.

A year after his discharge from the Marines, he moved to Hollywood, California. Right away, he began writing scripts and even directed early television pilots and commercials. He even made a bunch of tiny budget westerns that ultimately found no distribution. By 1952, Wood met actor Bela Lugosi after an introduction from a friend, Alex Gordon. Gordon would go on to be involved with creating American International Pictures. We’ve seen MANY AIP films around these parts.

There are really two primary films in which Wood gained notorious notoriety, both of which featured Bela Lugosi. The first is 1953’s Glen or Glenda. It was a sort of autobiographical documentary. Wood himself appeared as Glen/Glenda in the film about a man who likes to crossdress and later gains acceptance from his fiancée. The film is absolutely a slice of 50s exploitation, but it did feature a crossdressing man who was NOT portrayed as a homosexual. With the fiancée accepting Glen at the end of the film, it really was a very early sign of progressive ideology around sexual identity – if done somewhat clumsily.

Four years later, Wood made Plan 9 from Outer Space. This would be his legacy. Most people would know that movie as what Michael Medved declared, “the worst film ever made.” However, it was not something that was immediately labeled as such. The film was released to almost no fanfare or anything. It was so low-budget and had very little distribution, it would take another four or five more years for it to begin playing on late-night creature feature shows to find any kind of audience. It still spent nearly 20 years in almost obscurity until Medved labeled it as such in his book The Golden Turkey Awards. It was at that point, in the early 80s, when people really started to form a cult following around it.

As the 80s continued, Wood’s other 50s films would start to be discovered again. That’s where Bride of the Monster lies in this story. This would be Bela Lugosi’s final speaking role in film. The film was both similar to an earlier film of Lugosi’s, 1942’s The Corpse Vanishes, and an earlier script by Alex Gordon, that friend who introduced Wood to Lugosi. Gordon couldn’t get the financing for the film. Wood revived it after a rewrite and ultimately got the production started in 1954, but the film’s financial woes continued, causing the production to be shut down until Wood got additional funding. As the story goes, the film got released through a deal with Samuel Z. Arkoff. Arkoff was another founder of American International Pictures. Arkoff would go on to make more money off of Wood’s films he distributed than Wood himself did.

When Bride of the Monster premiered, it played at the Paramount Theater, which is known as the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. After the premiere, a photo was taken that featured the theater’s manager. This was a publicity photo, but later, when people would see the picture and he was literally cut out of the picture by Wood. That was because Wood asked him what he thought of the movie, and the manager said it “stinks.” So Wood cut him out of the 8×10 photo. Whenever someone asked who was cut out, Wood would say, “Well, he’s not there anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”

I’ll have more to say about Wood, the man and the legacy, a bit later in this article, but for now, let’s talk Bride of the Monster.

A couple of hunters are stuck in a terrible thunderstorm that one of them calls “unnatural.” They attempt to get back to the main road and to their cars, but the storm is too strong and too dangerous with the lightning to make it. So, one of them says they might be able to make it to the “old Willows place,” but the other balks at the idea. The Willows House is abandoned, but supposedly haunted.

When they get to the Willows House, they see an indication that maybe it isn’t all that abandoned. They knock and discover it is inhabited and haunted by a Dracula! Well, Bela Lugosi lives there. He plays Dr. Eric Vornoff, and he’s not too hospitable. He tells the hunters to pound sand, you know, beat cheeks, but they plead with Vornoff to stay. That’s when Vornoff’s servant, Lobo (the great Tor Johnson), shows up to scare them off.

The old ghost stories about the Willows House are that a monster lives there. The hunters thought Lobo was the monster, but that’s not the case. He’s just a Tor Johnson. Vornoff does have something that is a little more befitting the term “monster,” a giant octopus. I suppose this could be a kraken. Aren’t those giant octopuses or squids or something?

I think you need to get used to me saying something about this movie is “charming” or “quaint.” That’s exactly what we have going on here in just these first few minutes of this movie. Naturally, a monster movie starts with a storm. We have two unwitting innocents who attempt to seek shelter from that storm in a supposedly haunted house. Inside the house is a spooky mad scientist. What’s the scientist doing? Creating a monster. What’s the monster? Stock footage of an octopus. He looks into a little window into the octopus’s tank, and Lugosi has these reaction shots of him that are meant to tie everything together, but it really kind of doesn’t. Again, it’s charming and quaint how Wood would kind of stitch these concepts together. He knows what elements he can work with, but all the limitations of budget, sets, actors, and the general idea itself hamper this movie, turning it into total schlock.

That’s definitely something I want to keep in mind for later.

The hunters are still running from the storm and away from the Willows House. One of them falls into a pool and becomes the next victim of Vornoff’s actual monster. The other, trying to shoot the octopus to free his friend, becomes the victim of Lobo.

The man grabbed by Lobo awakens in Vornoff’s lab strapped to a table. Vornoff explains that Lobo is mute and kind of a dullard. He introduces himself and says that the name would mean little to him. He goes over and turns on some science shit in the lab. The experiment will either mutate the hunter into a hulking behemoth with the strength of 20 men or will die, like all the others.

His fate is like all the others.

Somehow, the papers get the word that the “Monster Strikes Again!” as the front page says. Apparently, a local vagrant was in the swamps the night of the storm and saw the shenanigans that went down outside the Willows House. He tries to tell the cops, but his general, I dunno, drunkenness leads to him being belligerent and tossed in the drunk tank.

Alright, so here’s the skinny: a cop, Lt. Dick Craig, is the boyfriend of Janet Lawton, crack reporter at the city newspaper. Dick and Janet are both working on different angles of these dozen or so mysterious disappearances over the last few weeks. All of these disappearances are in the local vicinity of the Willows House. People go out there. They go missing. Clearly, the place is haunted or has a monster, or both. Ya might ask, “Why aren’t the cops actually out there in the swamps and looking around, and possibly trying to get inside the Willows House to see if a creepy Dracula is living there?”

You dumb asshole idiot… This is an Ed Wood movie. You can’t apply that kind of normal, mundane logic to these goings on. Besides, there might be a ghost or a monster out there that will gobble up the coppers!

Janet enters the movie coming in HOT. She’s yelling at the young cop outside Police Captain Robbins’ office. She spouts off about how reporters can’t get any information around these parts like in the old days. She accuses Dick of dodging her all day. She tells him she thinks that doesn’t bode well for their future marriage. Sister, that’s not what’s boding well. I think this general combative reporter’s doggedness is going to present a bit of an issue, too, if this is how you enter every room.

Janet is entirely bought in on the monster story that she herself kind of concocted. Twelve disappearances in three months MUST mean inhuman violence! The police say it might be an alligator attack. Or quicksand. Or just tomfoolery, I don’t know. But all of those possible explanations just lead Janet right back to believing this is a monster attack. I mean, I guess if the cops can’t come up with any kind of explanation or have that many clues, what else could it be but a big ol’ monster?!?

I will admit, Janet is doing a little more work than the police to try to figure out what’s going on with these disappearances. She’s finding out who last bought the Willows House. She decides to actually physically go out there to take a look around herself. Meanwhile, I guess the cops at least want to disprove the “monster” theory. They bring in a weirdo professor to discuss how he investigated the Loch Ness Monster. He talks about how the people of Loch Ness swear they saw a monster, even though he never found it. He offers his assistance in the investigation if there really is a monster. Robbins and Dick agree to accept Professor Strowski’s help to see what is really there, if anything.

Janet drives out to Lake Marsh. Another storm brews and ultimately creates treacherous conditions. Janet wrecks and is saved from a giant snake by Lobo, but passes out in the process. She’s taken to Dr. Vornoff, who tells her that she’s safe now. The best way to prove to her that she’s safe, Vornoff tells her that it’s not important how she got there and then hypnotizes her to rest. You know, all very normal shit someone who claims he’s providing safety would do.

The next morning, Dick and his partner, Marty, were supposed to meet Professor Strowski at the police station, but the suspicious professor took off for the swamp without them anyway. When they investigate the area around the swamp, they find Janet’s wrecked car. They go back up the road to see if they can find out if Janet sought help at the diner they passed on the way to the lake.

That good host, Dr. Vornoff, brings Janet some breakfast, but also whips the shit out of Lobo when he doesn’t leave when ordered. This is a classic Beauty and the Beast type of situation. Ol’ Lobo seems to be sweet on the not entirely unattractive Janet. Lobo was found in the “wilderness of Tibet” by Vornoff, and he kind of keeps him as a bit of a pet. When he realizes that Janet won’t shut the fuck up and stop asking questions about what is going on at the Willows House and why she’s there, Vornoff hypnotizes her again to put her to sleep.

Outside, Professor Strowski approaches the Willows House. He just decides to walk into the house. Turns out Strowski and Vornoff are from the same country. That country is particularly interested in the work that Vornoff does with atomic energy, and he’s there to recruit Vornoff to return home to continue his work to create super soldiers through nuclear power.

I guess, 20 years earlier, Vornoff suggested to his government that he could use atomic energy to create super beings of incredible strength and power. They laughed at him. He was exiled, never to see his family or homeland ever again. While Strowski says he looked further into his research and realized all of his experiments COULD actually work, Vornoff has no intention of returning to the place that ruined him. Strowski pulls a gun to force Vornoff to return to their homeland together, but Lobo is there to capture Strowski and place him in the monster octopus’s cage to be killed by the creature.

Meanwhile, Dick is out in the area around Lake Marsh now looking for both Strowski and Janet. Turns out the cops were right, there is an alligator out there with a taste for human flesh. Dick nearly gets attacked by the alligator, but is able to get away from it as easily as if he’s being attacked by a puppy. I do like that the little throwaway line about an alligator possibly being to blame for the disappearances over the last few months actually did come back into play in this movie. I guess that’s good writing from Wood.

Back at the ol’ Willow House, Vornoff is setting up another experiment. This time, using Janet, whom he summons hypnotically because he apparently has that power over people. Look, the guy is Bela Lugosi. You expect him to have some hypnotic powers or something. Now, in this scene, Janet’s dressed as a bride. Why, you ask? Because the fucking movie’s title is Bride of the Monster, okay? There’s a monster octopus. So that part is covered. There’s a woman in this movie so she needs to be dressed as a fucking bride for the monster, got it?

Lobo is reluctant to help Vornoff experiment on Janet. So, it’s more of the whip for the big oaf until he straps Janet to the table. Meanwhile, Dick arrives at the Willow House. Elsewhere, Robbins also learns the same thing that Janet did earlier at the newspaper; Willow House was purchased some years ago by Dr. Eric Vornoff, so he heads out to the Willow House with backup.

Vornoff tells Janet that she will soon have super strength and become the most beautiful woman in the world. She will become the Bride of the Atom! Wait. I thought she was going to be the Bride of the Monster? Well, this movie was originally released as Bride of the Atom. Admittedly, that is a much better title for this movie. It makes a lot more sense if you ask me. She’s going to be the first successful result of his experiments to use nuclear power to create super people. That would be a flowery word to use for her importance in these experiments.

Oh whatever… Bride of the Monster kind of works too. The fuck do I know?

Alright, so Dick tries to save Janet, but he didn’t realize that Lobo was right behind him. Lobo knocks out our intrepid hero, and he’s chained to the wall to watch as Vornoff continues his experiment on Janet. Just as things are about to pop off with that experiment, Lobo decides to rebel. He attacks Vornoff, who shoots him, like, all the times. Lobo knocks Vornoff out and frees Janet.

Lobo goes back to finish Vornoff off by strapping him to the experiment. Janet frees Dick, and Dick’s ready to shoot every-fucking-body, even if Lobo is trying to help them by defeating Vornoff. And, yeah… Lobo’s trying to destroy Vornoff with his own experiments. What does Dick do? Tries to shoot Lobo. What the fuck, man? What the actual fuck? Lobo was about to melt Vornoff’s head, and you attack him? Is it because he’s kind of ugly, and, therefore, does not fit the appropriate physical appearance of 1955 America? What a fucking asshole. I’m glad Lobo knocked you out, Dickie boy.

Robbins and Marty arrive at Willow House. Inside, Vornoff’s experiment did work this time. He is able to tear the straps off himself and match Lobo’s strength. He’s also taller… maybe? Anyway, I think Lobo intended to cook Vornoff’s brain because he only ever saw this experiment fail. I guess he didn’t really have any clue that it might actually work. He’s just a dumb guy, after all. Being a dumb animal gets Lobo killed when Vornoff smashes a thing over his head, causing him to back into the science shit on the walls and electrocute himself.

This sets the entire place on fire. Vornoff makes off with Janet while Dick follows and gets his cop buddies to follow with him. Lightning strikes Willow House, causing it to explode. Vornoff, conveniently, puts Janet down so she’s no longer in trouble. This gives the cops the chance to open fire on Vornoff, but he ain’t goin’ down.

Yeah, the guy is basically invincible now. So, how do you defeat a superhuman? Well, he’s basically gotta defeat himself. Dick rolls a giant boulder down a hill, which knocks Vornoff off his feet. This causes Vornoff to fall into the octopus’s pit, and his own monster octopus kills Vornoff.

Perfect ending, no notes…

Well, except for that guy is clearly not Bela Lugosi wrestling with an octopus prop.

Look, I think we’re all supposed to look at Ed Wood’s catalog of movies and say, “Ugh… This guy was THE WORST.” But, honestly, the guy had passion. His failings weren’t so much that he didn’t know what could make a good monster movie. His failings were that he was limited by a lot of things. He was a nobody trying to make it in Hollywood. It was likely going to be impossible to really make his own movies without studio interference working for a Warner Bros. or Paramount or Universal.

That meant he had to do things independently. In the 1950s, that meant he would have to raise all his own money for the movies. He was going to be limited based on what he could raise. He couldn’t get an actual star to appear in movies as they were usually wrapped up with studio contracts and stuff. He wasn’t going to have the best props or propmakers. He was going to be limited in terms of sets. Shit, I know he wanted Vornoff to have a lab that evoked a Dr. Frankenstein-type of set, but it’s very clearly a flat wall with the appearance of stone masonry painted onto it. It’s cheap as hell.

But I also cannot lie. Bride of the Monster is far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s cheesy, sure. It’s got some pretty bad dialogue and acting in some spots. That said, Ed Wood had some concept about what a monster movie could be. He’s not too far off from a Bert I. Gordon or a William Castle. He has the mind to say these are things that would be fun little monster movies. None of them is going to be an Oscar winner. None of them would likely make tens of millions of dollars. But, with a little more money and better quality of cast and crew, these could have been fondly remembered for something more than what they are today.

Okay, yeah, Wood still wrote his own scripts and, as seen with Plan 9 from Outer Space, sometimes what he gave actors was truly terrible dialogue. But, shit… If he had someone who could be a writing partner or a trusted rewrite guy, that could have been fixed too.

I mentioned Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 from Outer Space a few times. Those two straddle Bride of the Monster, and they tend to be more talked about or remembered than this one. Neither Plan 9 nor Glenda would be something I’d be interested in reviewing. They’ve been talked about to death across the internet and books and what have you. They are on the list of no-gos that I have for the site. There’s nothing new I could add to the commentary. I wanted to talk about Ed Wood and really could only do so through Bride.

As a filmmaker, Ed Wood’s legacy is uncomplicated. He made cheesy movies that, yes, are in the realm of the “fun bad” types of movies. These are the movies you should play while having a bad movie night with friends during the Halloween season. Wood’s movies, though bad, are also charming. There’s an obvious love for the genre from Wood. I think he specifically wanted to make sci-fi and monster movies. Okay, Glen or Glenda is an exception, and he did the random exploitation movie like Jail Bait. Still, he seemed to enjoy the monster subgenre most. He had many unrealized projects that leaned into that as well.

He’d later go on to make pornographic movies. That gave him a meager living while also allowing him to make films for at least a period of time. However, the realization of his true legacy and fame wouldn’t come until after he passed away in 1978. Throughout the 80s and 90s, people were rediscovering his movies with the help of horror hosts and late night creature features. Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed Bride of the Monster, The Sinister Urge, and The Violent Years. In the years since the end of the original run of MST3K, members of the cast went on to riff several other Ed Wood movies as well – including the most famous of his movies, Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Once 1994’s Ed Wood by Tim Burton got released, Wood’s legacy was somewhat rehabilitated as the guy who made bad movies that were tolerable to watch and have fun with. On the other hand, his personal legacy is somewhat complicated. He’s portrayed in the film by Johnny Depp with a very likable and affable demeanor. He was almost boylike in his love of making movies and trying to pitch them to people. That might have been true at that time, and the movie was focusing specifically on his films of the 50s, specifically Glenda, Bride, and Plan 9.

However, later in life, his personal legacy is, as I said, complicated. Yes, he did ultimately marry Kathy O’Hara in 1956. O’Hara was portrayed by Patricia Arquette in the Burton film and seen as this kind of soothing, accepting, and very loving presence in Wood’s life. However, in truth, their marriage was very rocky in their later years. They were living in poverty. They both became alcoholics, and violently so. They were known to get into terrible fights. At times, Wood would even knock Cathy unconscious; their fights were so violent. The night Wood died of a heart attack, she failed to bring him a drink or respond to his claim that he couldn’t breathe because she was tired of being bossed around by Wood. She would later say that the look on his face when she saw him dead that night looked like he had seen Hell. Later, actor Paul Marco, a frequent actor in Wood’s productions, would say that Kathy was devastated by the loss of Wood.

I think Wood’s personal legacy is devastating because his depression, alcoholism, and poverty were all results of his failed movie career. This is something that would affect many others trying to get into the biz. I think the 1994 film about Wood is something that we should think of Ed Wood being like, at least in the 50s. He was a guy who wanted to make movies. He got the chance to make a handful of movies. All of them are quite bad. But all of them come from an honest place. Each of them has quaint and charming elements to them, even if they are pretty bad. I think that charm elevates them and helps us see what Wood wanted to show audiences. Alcoholism and spousal abuse aside, I can see what Wood was trying to put on screen and how much he truly loved making movies.

Next time, I’m going to review a movie that I definitely remember from my video store days, as well as the days in which Keri Russell was everyone’s girlfriend on the WB’s Felicity. Let’s take a look at 1999’s Eight Days a Week!