Hellborn -- the Ed Wood wannabe movie that never was completed

 Review by Doug Gibson

Thanks to Greg Dziawer, Ed Wood researcher, I finally was directed to my first viewing of "Hellborn," a video marketed by Cult Movies Magazine 27 years ago. It contains takes from an Ed Wood-directed wannabe film that would have been titled, drum roll, "Hellborn." Plans were to have Conrad Brooks and Ed Wood star in this Wood-directed effort on the juvenile delinquency "crisis" of the 1950s.

Michael Copner, former editor at the magazine, hosts the video along with the late Wood company actor Conrad Brooks. Long ago I wasn't persuaded by the ads to buy "Hellborn." Later, after the magazine ceased publication and my interest in Ed Wood increased, I couldn't find a way to purchase "Hellborn." It wasn't streamed. It wasn't for sale on EBay or Amazon. I thought I'd missed my chance on this one.

Until this weekend, when Dziawer alerted me it's now on YouTube. It's not easy to find in the site's search function so here is a direct link.  So, after wanting to see this film for roughly a generation, what's my take?

First, the "Hellborn" takes included are not the best parts of the film, although they are fun to watch and mandatory for a Wood completist. The best takes from "Hellborn" are not in this film because they were used in two films, "Night of the Ghouls," and "The Sinister Urge," which features the best scene, a pretty cool fight between Ed Wood and Conrad Brooks. Wood apparently sold or donated that footage to producer Roy Reid, of Headliner Productions, for whom Wood directed "The Sinister Urge." The "Night of the Ghouls" "Hellborn" takes include a decent crash scene with a teen dangling, presumably dead, from the window of a car.

So what's left for "Hellborn" the video is a long take of a particularly violent beating on a street, with another Wood actor, Mona McKinnon, watching the beating. (A little bit of that is in "Night of the Ghouls.") The primary new scene for viewers is one of a bunch teens going out to a picnic of sorts, filmed at Griffith Park, and then pairing off later for sexcapades. As Wood fans know, several scenes include Wood in drag pretending to play teenage women. Even with the poor quality of the then almost 50-year-old footage in 2003, Wood does not really fool anyone.

Prior to the takes, Copner and Wood discuss the history of the Hellborn effort. The genesis of the film extends as far back as the "Glen Or Glenda" era. Producer George Weiss, Brooks relates, failed to generate interest initially among investors. Then later films crowded out time for and interest in "Hellborn," although sporadic filming continued well into the mid 1950s.

There's more to this roughly hour-long documentary. Although I think much of the footage can be seen in other films, Brooks narrates footage of a "home movie" Wood directed and produced for Conrad and his brothers in 1948. It's a western of sorts. As entertaining as the footage is Brooks' narration, pointing out Hollywood of 70 plus years ago and noting other Wood characters such as Johnny Carpenter. 

Frankly, in this footage the still-young Wood is incredibly handsome. Calling him an Errol Flynn type is not an exaggeration. It's easy to see why he attracted Dolores Fuller, for example. It's jarring to see this Wood and then turn the clock ahead 20 years and see the bloated, red-faced, alcoholic Wood of 20 years later in "Love Feast." 

There's more in "Hellborn." We then see an eight-minute short that Brooks directed, called "Mystery in Shadows." It's shot with actors as shadows, accompanied by a narrator/storyteller. It's actually kind of interesting and entertaining; as a one-reel short.

Finally, there's even one more segment to "Hellborn." It's my favorite part of the film; definitely the most bittersweet. It's an interview with former movie actor, Peter Coe, in whose house Ed Wood died in late 1978, soon after he and his wife Kathy were evicted. Coe's films included "House of Frankenstein" and "The Mummy's Curse." Coe relates incidents such as hunting with Lon Chaney Jr.

It's very emotional to see Coe in this interview. He looks very old and emaciated, lying in bed. He was very near death when this interview was conducted. Brooks is very kind, as is Copner, during the interview. Coe seems exhausted early and his answers are brief, due to his condition, not his temperament, which is polite. He perks up later, seemingly genuinely pleased when told fans of the magazine ask about him. Near the end of the interview, describing how Wood is removed from his home in a mere bag, Coe effectively conveys his outrage at the disrespect Wood was shown. "It was sickening," he says with passion and emphasis.

Issues of Cult Movies magazines contain articles on "Hellborn." I recall Brooks sharing some faux publicity blurbs Wood had written, including one about it being the "winner" at the Cannes Film Festival. Also, in another edition of Cult Movies magazine, there's a longer interview with Coe.

So that's the elusive "Hellborn" video. It's a must for the real fans of Ed Wood, and we know who we are. The takes from the main film are of interest. The footage of the Brooks film directed by Wood is great, and the interview footage with a dying Coe is priceless.

Criswell: The narrator from the coffin

“And now I tell a tale of the threshold people. So astounding that some of you may faint!”
-Criswell from “Night of The Ghouls” and “Orgy of The Dead.”

By Steve Stones

Like so many of Ed Wood’s entourage of stock actors, Criswell had a very unique personality all his own. Born Charles Geran Criswell King in 1907 to an Indiana mortician, as a red-haired, freckled-face young boy growing up in Indiana, Criswell developed an interest in how future events were going to turn out. Like so many young boys growing up, his mind was looking to the future, not to the present or the past. In Criswell’s own words, he describes his family labeling him as a “freak” when he was just a boy. “And perhaps a freak I have remained.”

Prior to his appearance in Ed Wood’s cult masterpiece Plan 9 From Outer Space, Criswell began his career as a radio newscaster in New York. Criswell also had a successful career as a newspaper columnist. He once appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and the Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin shows. He later established a reputation as a clairvoyant able to predict the future in very entertaining and strange ways on his television show broadcasted in Los Angeles. His TV show and syndicated column were appropriately called: Criswell Predicts.

Some of his strangest predictions included an influx of cannibalism across America, and seven women serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Other predictions included a Black Plague to hit the Midwest, the ghost of Napoleon being seen near his tomb in Paris, a secret graveyard being discovered near Denver, and the successful and inexpensive operation to change a woman into a man with the simple transplant of the sex organ.

Perhaps this prediction was fueled by Wood’s Glen Or Glenda, a film dealing with the subject of a man transforming himself into a woman by a sex change, and the rejection of transvestism in modern society. Glen Or Glenda was a film way ahead of its time in the early 1950s. His predictions were chronicled in two books he wrote: Journal of The Future and Your Next Ten Years. Criswell claimed that 86 percent of his predictions were accurate, when in fact they were seldom correct.

Criswell’s appearance in three Ed Wood films: Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night of The Ghouls, and Orgy of The Dead, remain as some of his most interesting and bizarre. His trademark “spit curl” hairstyle and black bow tie make him a recognizable character in contemporary popular culture.

“You are all interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable, for that is why you are here,” Criswell states while reading a cue card in the opening of Plan 9 From Outer Space while atmospheric library music plays in the background. A sequence of Criswell rising from an opened coffin in Night of The Ghouls remains a personal favorite of mine. He rises from the coffin and tries desperately to keep his head looking forward, not to give the impression that he is reading a cue card in front of him, which is quite obvious to the viewer.

Criswell crossed over to the land unknown in 1982. In the future I predict that Criswell and Plan 9 From Outer Space will continue to entertain fans for generations to come. See Criswell on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show below.

Notes: Criswell’s coffin was used in Wood’s adult film, Necromania; a Web site on Criswell is here.

'Final Curtain' Ed Wood does 'The Twilight Zone'

By Doug Gibson

Those who have read the recent BearManor Media book "The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood" are reminded that a previously thought-lost Ed Wood film resurfaced about three years ago (thank heavens it wasn't another porno). It is "Final Curtain," a film that had long tantalized Wood fans due to its partial inclusion in "Night of the Ghouls."

In "The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood," there is an interview with the pair who resurrected "Final Curtain," Jason Insalaco (nephew of Wood actor Paul Marco), and Jonathan Harris. After Marco died, Insalaco discovered production papers from the film in the late Marco's home. The interest led him to search for the film, eventually buying the decaying film from a collector. With Harris' assistance, it was restored and premiered at a film festival. Shortly thereafter it was bootlegged and placed on YouTube. That's where I saw it, although Insalaco and Harris say their original is a far better print.

It's an intriguing, odd film, an episode of a Twilight Zone-type series, "Portraits in Terror," that Wood failed to sell. It stars James Duke Moore, a perennial Wood star, as an aging actor trolling through a deserted theater in early AM after the troupe's last performance. Shot by William Thompson, it looks well on the computer screen, with appropriate shifts between light and dark. The film is all narration, done in emotional but unintentionally campy style by Dudley Manlove, Eros in "Plan 9 From Outer Space." Moore, a limited actor, is not too bad aping the moods and fears expressed in the narration.

The creepiest sequence is the complete scene of Moore encountering a vampire mannequin (played by Jeannie Stevens) in a closet who comes to life, flashing a sinister smile and beckoning the aging actor. This scene is also in "Night of the Ghouls." Stevens is creepy effective in the small role and it's the scene that comes closest to igniting any terror in the film. (Wood apparently made a second episode of "Portraits in Terror," the lost "The Night the Banshee Cried," and it's a safe bet that scenes of Stevens' character by a cemetery in "Night of the Ghouls" is what's left of "Banshee.")

In the new book, Insalaco, misstating Stevens' name as "Janet," claims that she's a mystery and that nothing is known about her. It's true little is known about her, but Rudolph Grey's Wood oral history, "Nightmare of Ecstasy," has a newspaper photo, from 1948," that shows Stevens and her sister, Suzi, pictured, listed as cast members of a Wood play, "Casual Company."

Many have criticized or lampooned Manlove's narration as overly melodramatic, and it is, but it's important to remember that Manlove was a radio announcer, skilled in that medium. It'd be interesting to just hear "Final Curtain" as a 30s or 40s radio show. It might have worked. Also, Harris notes that when viewed sans sound, it has a creepy element. It would also be interesting to re-show "Final Curtain" with mood music substituting for narration.

The final scene is fairly effective as Moore's character lifts the lid of a coffin. When it drops he is unseen, having entered the coffin for an eternal rest.

A rumor, more or less debunked, is that Bela Lugosi was reading the "Final Curtain" script when he died in 1956. However, it is accurate that Wood wrote "Final Curtain" with Lugosi in mind. Had Lugosi been alive and healthy enough to star and narrate, "Final Curtain" would undoubtedly be a lot better and may have made it to at least local Los Angeles TV 58 years ago. As it stands now, it's a worthy addition to Wood's body of work and we can be grateful to Insalaca and Harris for finding it and restoring it for viewers.

A comparison between Ed Wood the film and Ed Wood the book

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. One day I'll add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. After years of not being available for viewing, Final Curtain finally had a screen showing and was released to YouTube a while back. You can see it here and we have embedded it below. Night of the Ghouls was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Comparing "Ed Wood" the movie with the book

By Doug Gibson

Tim Burton's wonderful film, Ed Wood, recently was chosen as one of the "new classics," by Entertainment Weekly. It's a worthy selection. Burton's black & white tale of Hollywood in the 1950s is a romanticized fairy tale. Johnny Depp's exuberant, ceaselessly optimistic Wood carries the day with a triumphant Plan 9 from Outer Space premiere at the Pantages. (That didn't happen, of course. Plan 9 was screened once at the tiny Rialto and then sat on the shelf for three years). When Plan 9 was put into general release, Wood didn't see a cent.

Later, before the credits to Burton's film roll, the epilogue tells us Wood descended into alcoholism and pornography. It's appropriate that not be shown in Burton's film. It is, as mentioned a fairy tale, of optimism and perserverance. In a general sense, it is accurate. Wood battled tremendous odds in the 1950s. He filmed Glen Or Glenda, Jail Bait, Bride of the Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Ghouls with virtually no money. He managed to attract a diverse and eccentric collection of well-known and semi-known cast names, including Dolores Fuller, Criswell, Kenne Duncan, Steve Reeves, Bud Osborne, Timothy Farrell, John Carpenter, Harvey Dunne, Lyle Talbot, Vampira, Herbert Rawlinson, Gregory Walcott and, of course, Bela Lugosi. It appears Wood's enthusiasm was contagious, and many thought he might make it. That he didn't have a long career at least in directing low-budget thrillers must be attributed to his alcoholism, which made him unreliable. Even near his death, his writing was amazingly prolific. More than one friend recalls him writing a screenplay in a day. He wrote hundreds of paperback novels.

The following are some inconsistencies between Burton's Ed Wood, the romanticized, fairy tale film, and Grey's often gritty absorbing oral biography account of Wood's short rise and long descent. One day I'll add to this as time goes on. Here are inconsistencies by film:

Glen or Glenda: In the book, George Weiss is shown as short and trim. In the film he is an overweight slob; It is doubtful that Wood's gay friend Bunny Breckenridge auditioned transvestites for the film. By the way, actor Bill Murray does a great job portraying Breckenridge. The film set for G&G though, matches it as described in the book. Lugosi was not divorced, as the film depicts him. He was still with his wife, Lillian, although she left him soon after. In fact, Grey reports that Lillian pushed Lugosi to take the film. It is also very doubtful Wood gave G&G to a major producer to watch, as the film shows. Also, the film shows Depp's Wood as unhappy that the film was not reviewed in LA. Obviously, Wood would have known where the film was debuting and not checked the LA Times for a review. Burton's scenes of Wood's company stealing shots on LA streets are accurate, according to Grey.

Jail Bait: This film is not even mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood (probably for time and continuity reasons) so let's give it some ink. It's a crime thriller that involves a hood (Farrell) pressuring a plastic surgeon (Rawlinson) and his daughter (Fuller) to make him a new face. Interesting co-stars were Reeves (in his pre-muscleman days) and then-top model Theodora Thurman. Also in the cast are Wood regulars Mona McKinnon, Don Nagel and Bud Osborne. The film's score, which is a bit grating, was taken from Mesa of Lost Women. Howco Films released the film, which likely mostly played the southern drive-in circuit. It's too ambitious for its budget, but is not a bad hour-long time waster. According to Grey, scenes were stolen at an LA motel. (Scene stealing is shooting at private and public locations without permission) Grey, and many rumors, claim that ex-silent film star Rawlinson died the morning after his scenes were shot. Lugosi was slated to play the plastic surgeon, but was either exhausted from his recent Las Vegas gig, too addicted to morphine, or perhaps just had a better offer.

Bride of the Monster: Burton's scenes in LA's Griffith Park of Wood filming in the early AM the finale to Bride are accurate to Grey's description with one exception: Lugosi never got in the water to tangle with a rubber octopus. That was handled by his stand-in, stuntman Eddie Parker. Burton portrays Loretta King, who starred as a nosy reporter, as an airhead. Grey's depiction is fairer, and recent interviews support that she was a capable actress who got the job not for her supposed money, but for her skills. Dolores Fuller's anger at losing the role is accurately portrayed in both film and book. Also, Burton is very unfair to leading man Tony McCoy. He is portrayed as borderline retarded. Wood calls him the worst he ever had in Grey's book. But a viewing of Bride of the Monster shows McCoy to be a very average but capable actor. He certainly knew his lines and can be personable on screen. In fact, McCoy and King were both handled by agent Marge Usher, who supplied Wood with several actors.

Plan 9 From Outer Space: First, although it is a marvelous scene in Burton's Ed Wood, Wood and his idol Orson Welles never chatted at a Hollywood bar. That scene is fiction. By the way, Wood's friend and actor Conrad Brooks plays the bartender in that scene. Also, Burton has Vampira and Kathy Wood being baptized as a Baptist with other Wood regulars to get funding for the film. I don't believe Vampira would have done it, and Kathy Wood says in Grey's book she wouldn't get baptized. It is doubtful Wood would have been angry at Gregory Walcott being cast in his film, since he was a minor name actor at the time. Also, Wood never agreed to his film, Grave Robbers From Outer Space, being changed in title to Plan 9 From Outer Space, as Burton's film show. A minor point; but Ed and Kathy Wood did not meet at Lugosi's hospital, as the film shows. In later interviews, Kathy Wood said they met in a bar. The film was not premiered at the Pantages, and certainly wasn't the elaborate affair as Burton's film shows. In fact, Wood sold the rights to Plan 9 to his Baptist financier, J. Edward Reynolds, for $1 (as Grey recounts) and the film received a minimal release from a small firm, Distributors Releasing Corporation of America. It opened as a second bill to a now-obscure British film called Time Lock.

Night of the Ghouls: Again, not mentioned in Burton's Ed Wood, this film was a sequel to Bride of the Monster, as it involved Tor Johnson's giant Lobo, and a semi sequel to Plan 9 as it had Paul Marco's Patrolman Kelton and Duke Moore's Lt. Daniel Bradford in the cast. It involves a phony medium (Duncan, in a role obviously intended for the late Lugosi) and his young squeeze (Valda Hansen) ripping off elderly fools in an old house. The tables are turned on the pair as the police close in on them and the dead really do start to awake. It has Criswell, narrating from a coffin as he does in Plan 9 and having a brief acting role as well. (Let me digress and say that Jeffrey Jones was brilliant as the late psychic in Burton's film). As mentioned, Tor Johnson's Lobo shuffles around menacingly. The film is intermixed with scenes from an unreleased Wood film called Final Curtain. That sequence, which stars Moore and actress Jeanne Stevens, is quite creepy. If anyone knows where to find a complete version of Final Curtain, it would be quite a find. Night of the Ghou;s was premiered but Wood ran out money, couldn't pay a lab bill and the film was seized for about a quarter of a century before Wood fan Wade Williams paid the bill and it was released. The film's budget is threadbare and dirt-cheap. A cut out picture of Ed Wood is posted on a police wall. The police commander's office has no doorknobs. Obviously, Wood planned more editing and shoots before he lost control of the film. Night of the Ghouls was the first in a planned sequence of films that Wood wanted to make.

Night of the Ghouls

Night of the Ghouls, 1958, B&W, about 68 minutes. Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Starring Kenne Duncan as Dr. Acula. Valda Hansen as the White Ghost, Tor Johnson as Lobo, Duke Moore, Paul Marco, and Criswell. (Also known as Revenge of the Dead) Schlock-Meter rating 7 stars out of 10.

By DOUG GIBSON

Night of the Ghouls is a lot of fun. It features a bizarre plot, weird characters, ridiculous special effects and actors who -- like all Wood films -- take the convoluted plot very seriously. Narrated by Criswell (in a coffin, of course) It involved a fake medium (Duncan) and his girlfriend (Hansen) who have inhabited the old mansion that Bela Lugosi's mad scientist lived in in Bride of the Monster. The hulkish Lobo (Johnson) is still hanging around as well.

As with any Wood film, plot holes are a mile wide, so it's best to just sit back , don't think much, and enjoy the chaos onscreen. Two cops from Plan 9 From Outer Space, Moore and Marco (who was also in Bride), eventually team to stop the scam artists. It's not very scary stuff, but it's a pleasure to watch if you're a Wood fan, particularly since it's the only horror film Duncan ever made for Wood and the only Wood film Hansen starred in.

The director was thrifty and used anything he could to add to plot and save cash. Here's an example: Wood used scenes from his completed short, Final Curtain (starring Moore) and inserted it in the middle of Night of the Ghouls. The only problem was Moore is wearing a tuxedo in the Final Curtain clip. No problem for Wood, of course! He just has cop Moore, early in Night of the Ghouls, all dressed up in a tux, ready to leave the station house and go to the theater! Of course, Moore is asked to work overtime and visit Dr. Acula, so he takes right off, still wearing his tux! Sometimes you just have to admire Ed Wood's ingenuity ... or his just plain gall! Watch a scene below!

Night of the Ghouls -- Classic Ed Wood!

Night of the Ghouls, 1958, B&W, about 68 minutes. Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Starring Kenne Duncan as Dr. Acula. Valda Hansen as the White Ghost, Tor Johnson as Lobo, Duke Moore, Paul Marco, and Criswell. (Also known as Revenge of the Dead) Schlock-Meter rating 7 stars out of 10.

Night of the Ghouls is a lot of fun. It features a bizarre plot, weird characters, ridiculous special effects and actors who -- like all Wood films -- take the convoluted plot very seriously. Narrated by Criswell (in a coffin, of course) It involved a fake medium (Duncan) and his girlfriend (Hansen) who have inhabited the old mansion that Bela Lugosi's mad scientist lived in in Bride of the Monster. The hulkish Lobo (Johnson) is still hanging around as well.

As with any Wood film, plot holes are a mile wide, so it's best to just sit back , don't think much, and enjoy the chaos onscreen. Two cops from Plan 9 From Outer Space, Moore and Marco (who was also in Bride), eventually team to stop the scam artists. It's not very scary stuff, but it's a pleasure to watch if you're a Wood fan, particularly since it's the only horror film Duncan ever made for Wood and the only Wood film the teenage ingenue Hansen starred in.

As with all Wood films, the director was thrifty and used anything he could to add to plot and save cash. Here's an example: Wood used scenes from his completed short, Final Curtain (starring Moore) and inserted it in the middle of Night of the Ghouls. The only problem was Moore is wearing a tuxedo in the Final Curtain clip. No problem for Wood, of course! He just has cop Moore, early in Night of the Ghouls, all dressed up in a tux, ready to leave the station house and go to the theater! Of course, Moore is asked to work overtime and visit Dr. Acula, so he takes right off, still wearing his tux! Sometimes you just have to admire Ed Wood's ingenuity ... or his just plain gall!

---Doug Gibson

A Tribute to Criswell

“And now I tell a tale of the threshold people. So astounding that some of you may faint!”
-Criswell from “Night of The Ghouls” and “Orgy of The Dead.”

By Steve Stones

Like so many of Ed Wood’s entourage of stock actors, Criswell had a very unique personality all his own. Born Charles Geran Criswell King in 1907 to an Indiana mortician, as a red-haired, freckled-face young boy growing up in Indiana, Criswell developed an interest in how future events were going to turn out. Like so many young boys growing up, his mind was looking to the future, not to the present or the past. In Criswell’s own words, he describes his family labeling him as a “freak” when he was just a boy. “And perhaps a freak I have remained.”

Prior to his appearance in Ed Wood’s cult masterpiece Plan 9 From Outer Space, Criswell began his career as a radio newscaster in New York. Criswell also had a successful career as a newspaper columnist. He once appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and the Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin shows. He later established a reputation as a clairvoyant able to predict the future in very entertaining and strange ways on his television show broadcasted in Los Angeles. His TV show and syndicated column were appropriately called: Criswell Predicts.

Some of his strangest predictions included an influx of cannibalism across America, and seven women serving on the U.S. Supreme Court. Other predictions included a Black Plague to hit the Midwest, the ghost of Napoleon being seen near his tomb in Paris, a secret graveyard being discovered near Denver, and the successful and inexpensive operation to change a woman into a man with the simple transplant of the sex organ.

Perhaps this prediction was fueled by Wood’s Glen Or Glenda, a film dealing with the subject of a man transforming himself into a woman by a sex change, and the rejection of transvestism in modern society. Glen Or Glenda was a film way ahead of its time in the early 1950s. His predictions were chronicled in two books he wrote: Journal of The Future and Your Next Ten Years. Criswell claimed that 86 percent of his predictions were accurate, when in fact they were seldom correct.

Criswell’s appearance in three Ed Wood films: Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night of The Ghouls, and Orgy of The Dead, remain as some of his most interesting and bizarre. His trademark “spit curl” hairstyle and black bow tie make him a recognizable character in contemporary popular culture.

“You are all interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable, for that is why you are here,” Criswell states while reading a cue card in the opening of Plan 9 From Outer Space while atmospheric library music plays in the background. A sequence of Criswell rising from an opened coffin in Night of The Ghouls remains a personal favorite of mine. He rises from the coffin and tries desperately to keep his head looking forward, not to give the impression that he is reading a cue card in front of him, which is quite obvious to the viewer.

Criswell crossed over to the land unknown in 1982. In the future I predict that Criswell and Plan 9 From Outer Space will continue to entertain fans for generations to come.

Notes: Criswell’s coffin was used in Wood’s adult film, Necromania; a fan Web site on Criswell is at http://www.evil-pumpkin.com/jake/criswell/