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"...There is so much fun to be had playing in horror's garbage. Rent an Ed Wood flick today, and you'll feel better tomorrow!..." |
Many of us will admit to a misspent youth spent watching monsters rather than studying math. One monster fan goes even further than that...he claims that...
By NATE YAPP Everyone would like to say they only enjoy the best in horror: Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Rosemary's Baby, and other equally notable films. Some of us say we wish we never had to deal with finding that gem amongst a sea of dreck. We are, of course, lying. Admit it. One night when it was dark and you thought nobody was around, you stayed up to watch the late showing of Night Of The Lepus. Or, you nonchalantly picked up an EP tape of The Devil Bat while shopping for some Hitchcock. My personal experience with bad horror has been something like that. Most of my video collection consists of only the finest classics...but nestled in between copies of the Old Dark House and The Wicker Man sit Bride Of The Monster, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and The Unearthly, just to mention a few of the more notable stinkers. My secret passion for crap is mainly held for cult classics. Anything with Tor Johnson or directed by Ed Wood is fair game. I also love to skewer early Roger Corman flicks. I'll take on horrible dialouge, bad special effects, and lousy direction without a single thought.
My fascination with the stinkier side of the genre began when I was about 11 or 12. Up until this point, I only knew Universal classics, and didn't watch Friday the 13th not because it was bad, but because I thought it would be 'too scary' (ah, my innocent years). I was visiting my mother in Des Moines. Now, there were two reasons I loved to visit Mom. First, she's my Mom. Second, Des Moines is home to the Video Warehouse, a rental place with the best selection I've yet encountered. We were visiting this great monument to movie lovers, and I noticed that they'd moved their classic horror from the Science Fiction room to Modern Horror, an area I was absolutely terrified of due to the very graphic video covers (I was a big ninny). As a result, I found myself browsing in the Just Arrived rack, a place where old movies new to the store were temporarily shelved. One video called out to me: Bride Of The Monster. Being a bigger Lugosi nut then than I am now, I picked it up. My mother smiled and asked if I was sure that's what I wanted. I, not knowing what I was getting it to, said that of course it was what I wanted. It had Bela, fer chrissake! We watched it that evening. I don't remember much of that first viewing. I recall flickering between boredom and mild amusement, and thinking that Tor Johnson should be a wrestler.
Flash forward about 3 years, with my first Ed Wood experience firmly repressed in some terrifying place in my psyche. I began hearing vague rumblings of some show called Mystery Science Theater 3000. It sounded like a take on the old Mr. Wizard programs to me. I was in Des Moines visiting Mom again, and this time she brought forth the bad video, The Amazing Colossal Man. But, my mother pointed out, it wasn't any old bad movie. It was an MST3K episode. I agreed to watch it (anything to stop her renting those BBC Jane Austen adaptations). For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 takes really bad movies, and makes fun of them. A guy and two oddball robots sit in front of a giant screen and literally hurl jokes for an hour and a half. Well, at my impressionable age, I was absolutely taken by the irreverent approach to lousy films. Sure, these movies could, conceivably, be funny on there own, but these wacky guys made them real side-splitters. To this day, I remain devoted to the fabulous hosts Joel, Mike, Tom Servo, and Croooow! Since then, I've amassed quite the collection of absolute drivel. Out of all of the torturous tapes, my favorites have to be the ones directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. Ed, as most critics will tell you, was the worst director of all time. Less talked about, though, is what a lousy writer he was, too. Long-winded philosophical mumbo-jumbo was his trademark. "Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future," says phony psychic Criswell as he opens Plan 9 From Outer Space, right before he puts the movie's action in the past.
My favorite part of any Wood production, though, has always been the technical difficulties. UFOs that look a bit too much like paper plates, a stubbornly immobile rubber octopus that has to be shaken by its "victims," and those pesky night-to-day-to-night-again changes. Wood couldn't afford a good number of the post-production fees, including the processing to make days shots look like night ones. Another problem was the unreliability of his leading ghoul, Bela Lugosi, either due to fraility or death. This often lead to a far too obvious stunt double filling in. Just look at Plan 9--Bela...Not Bela! Bela...Not Bela! Of course, there are some close runner-ups to Ed Wood productions in my personal worst list. There's the zany (and unforgetablly titled) Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-up Zombies, a film which tried to combine a hypnosis murder plot with mutant beasts and swinging music. The film alternates from hilarious to painful, and occasionally manages to be both at once.
A particular dirty gem in my collection is the John Carradine flick The Unearthly. Carradine is your typical mad scientist seeking out eternal life, assisted by his hulking manservant Lobo (Tor Johnson, who has a penchant for playing hulking manservants named Lobo). A criminal on the run gets caught up in the doc's hi-jinks. Actually, this could have been quite boring, but thanks to Carradine's hammy overacting, it becomes a truly great bad movie. These are just a few examples of the worst our favorite genre has to offer. I could list more. The Undead, Beast Of Yucca Flats, The Exorcist II, are all really horrible, yet fun in their own unintentional manner. The purpose behind this little article (and I assure you, there is one) is, in part, to convey a very sad habit to you, the reader, and ask that you get involved, too. There is so much fun to be had playing in horror's garbage. Rent an Ed Wood flick today, and you'll feel better tomorrow! The other part to all this madness is to help me sort out a particular problem. In recent days I have become increasingly obsessed with bad horror. Roger Corman "Z" pictures, I Was A Teenage Whatevers, and assorted Tor Johnson vehicles are being replayed, while the quality material like Psycho and Dracula falls to the wayside.
Perhaps I'm no longer seeking out quality terror and just plopping down for cheap entertainment because my brain doesn't want to have to work to enjoy its movies anymore. This is a frightening thought, because my hobby and passion is reviewing films, a task requiring a good deal of mental energy. A more likely explanation, and one that makes me a wee bit more comfortable, is that I simply need a break. Bad horror isn't truly horror in any way. It's comedy, and just the right relief from the deluge of scary cinema I put myself under last month (even for the most devoted of genre fanatics, I wouldn't recommend more than 20 a month). In any case, I began to understand what makes for bad horror, personally. Like faith, what makes a really horrible film is not the same for any two people. My interest, as a student of the genre as well as fan, turned to exactly what other folks cringed at. Luckily, I had a forum from which to find out these answers. My humble website, Classic Horror, had done a well-received poll on the best horror in December. Now, it was time to roll one out for the worst. I called it the Bride of Ed Wood Awards. When you read this, the results will have been tabulated and posted. At the time of writing, though, I'm still sifting through the votes, and so far, people have been agreeing with me, but adding a twist. A good number of votes have put recent films like The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense at the top of their lists. I wonder if these aren't voters lashing out because they didn't feel the movies deserved their success. Bad movies have been with us for a very long time, and will probably continue to be with us for even longer. I, for one, am quite content with that. Every once in awhile, I need to watch something bad to appreciate the finer things in film. Now, if you don't mind, Ed Wood is calling me back to the TV... * * * Nate Yapp is webmaster and head reviewer at Classic Horror . Currently, he is a junior in high school. He began his obsession with horror when he caught the Wolf Man on American Movie Classics at the tender age of eight. At six-foot six-inches, he also one of the taller terror fans around (taller than Christopher Lee, even!). Which just goes to prove that Mom was right after all...those horror movies will rot your brain! Cheers! Article copyright Nate Yapp |
