thumb|thumbtime=90|upright=1.5|Night of the Ghouls

Night of the Ghouls is an American horror film written and directed by Ed Wood, and shot between April and May 1958. The film features some reoccurring cast members and characters from the 1955 Wood-directed film Bride of the Monster, including Tor Johnson reprising his role of Lobo and Paul Marco again playing the character of Kelton the cop, while the Amazing Criswell plays himself in the film's frame story. Another returning character is Police Captain Robbins of Homicide, although the character was played by Harvey B. Dunn in Bride of the Monster, and by Johnny Carpenter in Night of the Ghouls.

Following a preview screening held in 1959 at the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, Wood felt that Night of the Ghouls required further editing. Correspondence between Wood and associate producer Anthony Cardoza indicates that Wood had plans to re-edit Night of the Ghouls, but was unable to do so because of unpaid bills owed to the film laboratory that developed the film. In the 1980s, Kansas City film hobbyist-entrepreneur and Wood fan Wade Williams located the film, paid the overdue bills to the lab, and claimed full ownership of it, releasing the film on VHS in 1984.

Plot

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At the beginning, Criswell rises from a coffin and narrates the events of the film. She is concerned by the presence of the Black Ghost which is not part of their hoax, though the cynical Acula dismisses her fears — he does not believe in the supernatural.

  • Don Nagel as Sgt. Crandall
  • Bud Osborne as Mr. Darmoor
  • Jeannie Stevens as The Black Ghost/Mannequin
  • Harvey B. Dunn as Henry Edwards (Dunn played Captain Robbins in Bride of the Monster)
  • Margaret Mason (Tom Mason's real-life wife) as Martha Edwards
  • Criswell as himself
  • Tom Mason as undead man in coffin
  • Ed Wood and Conrad Brooks as men in fight sequence (footage from Wood's unfinished Hellborn)

Production and analysis

Rob Craig suggests that the film could be in part based on an earlier work, Sucker Money (1933), produced by Willis Kent. The two films have significant similarities in concept. In the earlier film, Swami Yomurda (Mischa Auer) and his minions stage an elaborate scheme to extort money from gullible victims. Yomurda and his group use technological means to convince their victims that they are receiving audiovisual from the otherworld. Tor Johnson also plays a character called "Lobo" in both films, and both of the Lobo characters are monstrous manservants working for the main villains. Both films were shot around the same time, though it is unclear if one was intentionally modeled after the other.

The notion of a genuine ghost and a fake one that are active on the same area is not unique to this film. The Ghost Breakers (1940) has a real ghost appear in the end, Spook Chasers (1957) has a real ghost among several fakes, and Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959) has a real ghost residing in a "fake" haunted house.

Craig considers the film to have elements common in absurdist fiction, and also to have much of the pessimism and nihilism of a typical Samuel Beckett play. The film's main setting is the rebuilt house on Willows Lake that burned down in Bride of the Monster. There are frequent references to the mad scientist (Bela Lugosi) and Lobo (Tor Johnson), the latter of whom returns, his face now half-destroyed from the fire.

Wood, his face hidden by a dark veil, doubled for the Black Ghost in several shots. According to actor Paul Marco, Wood could not get Jeannie Stevens to film these scenes. So he wore the costume and acted as her stand-in. Also, a publicity photo of Wood is seen on a wanted poster on the wall of the police station.

Night of the Ghouls is the third part of what Wood aficionados refer to as "The Kelton Trilogy", a trio of films featuring Paul Marco as "Officer Kelton", a whining, reluctant policeman. The other two films were Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Release

Night of the Ghouls was originally to be called Revenge of the Dead. A December 1958 article about cast member Valda Hansen described the film as being "soon to be released". A contemporary article in Famous Monsters of Filmland referred to the soon-to-be-released film as Night of the Ghouls. Paul Marco recalled in an interview that the film had a preview screening in 1959 at the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, California. He said that after watching it on the big screen, Wood felt it needed further editing. A 1959 letter from Wood to Anthony Cardoza, the film's associate producer, records some of Wood's plans to re-edit Night of the Ghouls, including removing some of Criswell's scenes and replacing them with some Bela Lugosi archive footage, as well as a possible title change. Wood, however, was never able to make the changes, because he was unable to pay the bills owed to the film laboratory that developed the film, resulting in the ownership of the film belonging to the lab.

Years later, Kansas City film hobbyist-entrepreneur and Ed Wood fan Wade Williams managed to locate the film, paid the long overdue bills to the lab, and claimed full ownership of it. He also gave it its first home video release on VHS in 1984. This was the film's world premiere.

Critical reception

Writing in AllMovie, critic Bruce Eder reported that the film has "the strangeness, in the dialogue and characterizations, that one expects from one of Wood's movies," that "the edges of Wood's budget show more than ever, both onscreen and even in the music," and that it "isn't nearly as diverting [as] Plan 9 From Outer Space." Film critic Glenn Erickson wrote in DVD Talk, "Of course it's terrible," that "the acting is bad," and that compared to other films by Wood, "it's fairly coherent but more than a little boring, populated by less interesting characters than usual."

Bibliography

  • The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1996), documentary film directed by Brett Thompson
  • Rudolph Grey, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992)
  • Will Sloan, "Can Your Heart Stand the Shocking Facts About Kelton the Cop A/K/A Paul Marco?" Filmfax (April 2005), p.&nbsp;88-89

Sources

References