Bride of the Monster

Release: 1955
Director: Ed Wood
Production Company: Rolling M. Productions

Notable Cast:

Bela Lugosi as Dr. Eric Vornoff
Tor Johnson as Lobo

Plot: The movie starts off with two hunters essentially being killed by Dr. Vornoff. Then we find out that Janet Lawton is doing investigative journalism into the disappearances before becoming a captive of Vornoff. We learn that Vornoff is performing experiments to create a race of atomic supermen. Can the police find Janet and put and end to Vornoff's mad experiments?

The Monster: We had a couple of choices for monsters here. There is the giant octopus that catches people and possibly kills them. It isn't too scary though as it's victims see to need to do most of the work.

Then we have Lobo and Vornoff. Lobo is a speechless Igor type of character. He appears to have superior strength to average men. Lobo does appear to have intelligence as he makes a decision to save Janet at the end and turns on his master. Vornoff is a weird one as he appears to be a regular man but the end run sees him go toe to toe with Lobo, get shot a dozen times, get hit with a giant boulder and mauled by a giant octopus and still needed a lightning bolt to finish him off. Yeah, that end scene with him was kind of dumb.

Thoughts: It had to happen at some point and here we are. Ed Wood. A lot has been said, written and even put to film by Ed Wood since the early 1980s. I would highly recommend checking out Tim Burton's film Ed Wood if you want a questionably accurate but loving exploration of what we're going to call a fairly infamous film director.

I have a real soft spot for Ed Wood films. There's a certain comfort in his films as you see familiar faces like Tor Johnson, Bela Legosi, Criswell and numerous others. You also know you are in for bad dialogue and a script that at the best of times doesn't make a lot of sense. But here's the thing. The movie doesn't make sense, the dialogue is terrible and there are obvious production errors but it's all done with a loving hand and a real passion for film.

I have seen this movie quite a few times and I wasn't sure what I thought of it this time. For the sake of this blog, Plan 9 From Outer Space would be a surefire Hall of Fame entry. That movie is just a clinic in making a memorable bad B movie. This is not Plan 9 though. I would argue this is probably his best film though.

That's not to say this movie was good. It has the same dialogue issues, that other Ed Wood movies do and it honestly just doesn't make sense at points. The lightning at the end is just absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary. But I would argue this movie flirts at times with being mediocre instead of bad.

The story more or less holds together. The lochness monster part is dumb but it's kind of a weird side ploy to pad out the time. I think Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson have some chemistry and make for pretty solid villains in this movie. Tor seems to be a very limited actor but Lobo seems to play to his strengths and I think Legosi puts in an okay performance.

The octopus scenes are pretty hilarious in this movie. The prop was broken so people trash around in unmoving octopus tentacles. It happens more than once and could watch it over and over again. It's really just ridiculous as is the lightning that just strikes anything and everything with no logic to how lightning works.

This ends up just being a sub-par mad scientist genre flick. It has a lot of those Ed Wood flares that you don't get anywhere else but it also isn't a love letter to bad films like Plan 9 From Outer Space is.I honestly don't think this movie is super worth your time and energy unless you get super deep into the B movie scene.

Verdict: This one is a bit of a struggle to rate. It by no means belongs in the Hall of Shame but I also wouldn't rate it highly. It lacks a lot of the extra touches that Plan 9 has and it's competence in areas also hampers it greatly. I am willing to say this is probably the best technical film Ed Wood produced but that kind of hurts it. You get left with a mostly bad movie that doesn't fully embrace it. I would give this *. I don't see a great reason to seek this film out unless you are deep diving 50s and 60s B movies or want to experience the entire Ed Wood catalog.

Where to Watch:
Amazon Prime Streaming
MST3K Version (Paid Link)
Buy It On DVD (Paid Link)