Edward D Wood Jr., he's known as one of the worst directors of all time. He independently made films fast, wrote, directed and sometimes acted in his films. He would also hire some iconic horror actors and actors who are just plan bad. His movies maybe bad but they're so bad that they're fun to watch and are very different. So on Halloween month, horror movie or not (Like I do for Burton, Hitchcock & Stephen King for example) expect to see an Edward D Wood Jr. film. Let's start by one of his first well known some what horror flop...
The film was suppose to be a film about Christine Jorgensen who's a woman that was originally man. However, the film is about Edward D Wood Jr's obsession of wearing woman's clothes with a few what the hell and out of place surreal moments.The film's host is Bela Lugosi. What kind of film is it, it's a mess of horror, auto biography, documentary and a bit of a some what porn film.
Ed Wood's acting and writing is defiantly not Oscar worthy in the least, however for the Glen plot he's at least trying. The transvestite stuff and keeping it a secret from a loved one actually happened to Ed Wood. It's not powerful but in a way it's treated like a real life thing, well ok aside from the crazy, random and pointless stuff we see. If Ed Wood just made a short film with just the scenes of him and his girl, maybe it wouldn't be that bad. The acting from most of the people are bland and boring and yes I was expecting that to happen.
Bela Lugosi (At the low point of his career) as our host is very out of place and he plays no important role in the film what so ever. Most of the narration comes from the psychiatrist, Bela Lugosi just sits in his chair and just blabs and blabs and says random things. His study looks like a study you'd see in a Haunted House show, not a film about a transvestite. In fact he even mixes chemicals for no reason. There's even a random shot when he makes our character disappear and reappear as him in woman's clothes. Lugosi is so pointless that you can run the film without him but with that said he's still enjoyable to watch in this really bad film.
Most people who've seen this film remember the Dream Sequence. We go from seeing Glen and his Girl, to seeing a devil, to sex and strip tease mild porn, to hearing voices, to people appearing and disappearing, seeing ghostly images of people, a strange montage of hands and peoples faces and seeing the reactions of Glen and Bela Lugosi. This sequence does nothing for the story what so ever and like Lugosi's part you can cut it out. Actually the porn stuff has been cut out in some releases. Like Lugosi in this film, it's so odd, surreal and dark that you just got to enjoy it.
Now let's talk about the fun stuff. The fun thing about the Ed Wood films are the many flaws you can point out. The headline to the News Paper is clearly tapped on and is out of place in the news paper article section. We see the same costumes, props and pointless stock footage over and over again at different times and settings. There's a man wearing an extremely fake beard. On Bela Lugosi's first shot be sure to look for a camera shadow. There's also a bunch of times when we hear voices off screen, where the heck are the actors? I even notice that actors disappear for no reason and the editing is terrible. There's also a story with a guy named Alan who we've never met or built up too and feels pointless.The film is full of so many flaws that you're going to have to watch it a bunch of times to find them all but that's why watching an Edward D Wood Jr movie is so fun.
While the film being bad, it's still fun to watch for Lugosi, the dream sequence and many many flaws. Yes it gets dull and boring but it's still enjoyable, also for you Ed Wood fans you'd probably enjoy it if you know about Ed Wood and seeing him on screen as the star.
RATING 2/5
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