Tor Johnson

Ed Wood's belated follow-up to Glen or Glenda, and the closest he came to a conventional horror film. Bela Lugosi, in one of his final roles, plays Dr. Eric Vornoff, a mad scientist experimenting with atomic energy in a swamp-side laboratory, attempting to create a race of superhumans with the help of his brutish assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson). When a nosy reporter (Loretta King) investigates, she becomes Vornoff's next subject. The film features Wood's trademark blend of earnest ambition and staggering incompetence: a rubber octopus prop with visible wires, mismatched day-for-night footage, and dialogue that defies logic. Yet Lugosi gives it his all, delivering lines like "Home? I have no home. Hunted... despised... living like an animal!" with genuine pathos. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Ed Wood's spiritual sequel to Bride of the Monster, also known as Revenge of the Dead. The Amazing Criswell introduces the story from a coffin, narrating the tale of Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan), a phony medium who runs a fake seance operation out of the old Willows Lake house where Bela Lugosi's character died in Bride of the Monster. But the ghosts of the dead are real, and they have come for Dr. Acula. Tor Johnson reprises his role as the lumbering Lobo, now scarred from the lab fire, and Paul Marco returns as the hapless Officer Kelton. Shot in 1958 but shelved for decades because Wood couldn't afford the lab fees to get the prints, the film was finally released in 1984. The film is in the public domain.

Horror

Aliens resurrect the dead to stop humanity from developing a doomsday weapon. Bela Lugosi appears in a few minutes of footage shot before he died; the rest of his scenes are played by a taller man holding a cape over his face. Often cited as the worst film ever made, which is unfair. It is cheap and incoherent, but also earnest and fast-paced. Ed Wood wrote, produced, and directed it in a few days on a tiny budget. The film was not released until two years after it was made, and it was a commercial failure. It found its audience through television reruns in the 1980s.

Sci-Fi · Horror

A defecting Russian scientist, fleeing through the Nevada desert, is caught in a nuclear blast and transformed into a mindless, murderous creature. Tor Johnson, the Swedish wrestler best known for his work with Ed Wood, plays the beast, lurching through the flats and strangling anyone who crosses his path. The film is essentially a silent picture told through narration, with almost no dialogue between characters. Coleman Francis wrote and directed it for an estimated thirty-four thousand dollars, and it is widely regarded as one of the strangest and most incoherent films ever made. Its reputation was sealed by Mystery Science Theater 3000. It entered the public domain and circulates widely on budget labels.

Horror · Sci-Fi