Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "The Violent Urge"

Two of Ed Wood's crime thrillers come together in "The Violent Urge."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "The Violent Urge" by Brian Carney

One of Ed Wood's crime thrillers.

Synopsis: A young thug named Dirk brutally murders a young woman named Lisa at Lover's Lane. He's been instructed to do this by his boss, Janet, but Dirk views his killings as "art" and doesn't really care about any financial compensation. Janet is the leader of an underground smut ring, and Lisa was about to rat her out to the police and so had to be eliminated. Dirk has done his part, but Janet is furious that he left a pornographic picture at the crime scene. 

Dirk's solution is to commit further murders and mayhem at Lover's Lane, making the cops think there's a sex-crazed psycho on the loose. They'll be so busy trying to catch him that they'll forget all about the smut ring. Dirk's insidious plan almost works, but one of his intended victims turns out to be an undercover cop in drag. Dirk barely escapes arrest, and Janet decides that he should lay low for a while. She has her boyfriend Danny drive Dirk to the home of Paula Parkins (aka Paul), a wealthy young lady who's part of a gang of female juvenile delinquents. Dirk, Paula, and the gang enjoy a wild and violent party, during which they watch some stag films starring the girls.

Later, Janet delivers some of the aforementioned stag films to a hard-boiled lady gangster named Gloria. It turns out Gloria is having some of the same problems that Janet had been having with Lisa earlier. She sure could use a hitman right about now, someone to neutralize any threats. Janet offers Dirk's services. Gloria thinks Dirk has potential.

Excerpt:

His body was black and blue with bruises, there were bite marks on his legs and shoulders. The gash on his chest had needed four stitches but it was barely a scratch. The trunk of the Star Chief was full of 8mm film cannisters, wrapped in flowered sheets stolen from Paula's parents' bed before they could come back and see the damage. 

Dirk does his thing.

Reflections: Some prayers are answered, readers. Not all, but some. At this point in my journey through Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams, for instance, I was praying for a story that had nothing whatsoever to do with ghouls, flying saucers, aliens, haunted houses, or cemeteries. I'd had my fill of all those things. Then Brian Carney, like a true hero, came to my rescue with a story inspired by two of Ed Wood's crime dramas, The Violent Years (1956) and The Sinister Urge (1960). Eddie's sci-fi and horror films tend to hog the spotlight, so it's nice to see his noir efforts get some love for a change.

"The Violent Urge" manages to answer one of the nagging questions from Ed Wood's filmography. Namely, how did gangster Gloria Henderson (Jean Fontaine) ever wind up hiring a loose-cannon thug like Dirk Williams (Dino Fantini) in The Sinister Urge? You have to admit, it's a strange pairing. She's no-nonsense; he's basically all nonsense. She demands order; he offers chaos. She tries to keep a low profile; he's bound to attract attention. And, ultimately, Dirk proves a liability to Gloria's operation.

Author Brian Carney manages to craft a convincing origin story for the unlikely Gloria/Dirk alliance, and he incorporates the juvenile delinquents from The Violent Years. I was glad to spend a little more time with those fun-loving gals. Does Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead) get to say her famous "so what?" catchphrase from the movie? You'd better believe she does. As a little flourish, Carney includes a sly reference to Hellborn (1956), one of Ed's unfinished films. Janet and Dirk are said to have attended Wellbourne High School, known colloquially as Hellborn High.

Better yet, Carney manages to write all of this in the gleefully nasty style of a trashy pulp novel, complete with loving descriptions of lurid violence. (The story literally starts with a lengthy, drawn-out description of  a stabbing.) The author refers to the shared fictional world depicted in this story as the "Delinquiverse," which I love. It would have been nice to include mixed-up Don Gregor (Clancy Malone) from Jail Bait (1954), too. Don, like Paula Parkins, is a spoiled, bored rich kid who gets into crime for kicks, so they may have had a lot in common. But then, what would Carney have called the story? "The Violent Jail Urge"? 

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Plan 9.1 from Outer Space"

Let's make just a slight adjustment to this famous title.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Plan 9.1 from Outer Space" by Robert Kokai

Synopsis: The narrator reveals he is in possession of the journal of an evil alien named Belug, the ruler of a race of space vampires who wish to conquer as many planets as possible, including Earth. The journal spans millions of years and details Belug's numerous unsuccessful attempts to take over our world with the questionable assistance of the oafish Space Admiral Torbo and the sexy Yeoman Vampita.

The saga begins circa 67,000,000 B.C. (The author has helpfully converted all the space dates in Belug's journal into earth dates.) The aliens' first two plans fail quickly because of foolish mistakes on Torbo's part. Plan Three at least gets Belug and his crew to Mars, where Torbo successfully wrestles a bear. However, Torbo's numerous, disgusting gastrointestinal problems make the mission unpleasant for everyone on board the flying saucer. The aliens visit Earth but find no humans, only dinosaurs. These "thunder lizards" eat Torbo and Vampita, and Belug is forced to "rebirth" them using his own body.

Bela Lugosi as Jesus.

The vampires visit Earth a few million years later (this is Plan Four) and find some primitive homo sapiens there. Belug even meets a "hot little divorcee named Lilith" and begins an affair with her, but he quickly flees when he realizes she is "astonishingly fertile." Plan Five occurs in the year 48 B.C. Belug meets Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, but he accidentally sets fire to the Library at Alexandria. Plan Six happens in 30 A.D. but is abandoned when Belug meets Jesus, the actual son of God. Plans Seven and Eight allow the space vampires to witness the French Revolution and the American Civil War, respectively. Belug is both impressed and distressed by the brutality of the human race.

The project takes a major shift with the ninth and final plan, which goes into action in 1900 A.D. Belug has Torbo and Vampita drop him off on Earth, where he passes himself off as human and becomes a stage actor in Hungary. The alien ruler remains on Earth for decades in this form. He portrays both Jesus Christ and Count Dracula and also serves in the first World War. He then moves to America, where he acts on Broadway and then in motion pictures. By the late 1940s, his career has seen some ups and downs, but Torbo and Vampita have it even worse. They've been captured and detained in a place called Roswell, New Mexico.

By the 1950s, Belug is down on his luck, but he meets and begins working with a young filmmaker named Eddie. The films aren't good, but they give Belug something to do. Circa 1956, something strange happens: Belug becomes invisible. He can still see and hear what's happening, but no one can see or hear him. He wanders the streets of Hollywood for years, touched that people still remember him from his movies.

Excerpt:

I went to the movies today. Son of a bitch! The movie I saw was The Day the Earth Stood Still. It was like watching my life story. Seriously, 67,000,000 years all crammed into an hour and a half. It's the story of this guy from outer space named Klaatu who comes to Earth and lives with the Earth people to study them. That's what I've been doing!

Foremost authority Prof. Irwin Corey

Reflections: "Plan 9.1 from Outer Space" is one of the longer pieces in Warm Angora Wishes, and it's also one of the more difficult stories to review because of its sizable shifts in tone and style. It starts as one kind of story, morphs into another, and ends up as a third. I began to wonder if the author, Robert Kokai, had a game plan in advance when he sat down to write this or if he simply allowed his imagination to wander freely as he improvised this story.

In its early stages, "Plan 9.1" reminded me of the monologues of a comedian called Professor Irwin Corey (1914-2017). You might remember the disheveled, raspy-voiced Corey from his many TV and film appearances, especially on late-night talk shows. He looked like a combination of a country preacher and a mad scientist, and he was billed as "the world's foremost authority." Authority on what, exactly? Well, everything and nothing. He would proceed to give lectures about various topics as if he were some great expert on them, but his speeches/sermons would consist of a lot of silly puns and non sequiturs and wouldn't really convey any useful information.

Robert Kokai starts out in the Irwin Corey mode, pontificating at some length about the big bang and other topics without really communicating anything. Then, once the diary entries commence, the author uses the misadventures of the space vampires as the springboard for some middle-school-level sex jokes about Vampita and some elementary-school-level bodily function jokes about Torbo. But Kokai also uses the journal entries to comment on the follies of the human race, namely our penchant for killing each other with greater and greater efficiency over the centuries.

In its final stages, the story becomes a commentary on the life and career of Bela Lugosi, and it even gives us an origin story for how Bela met Ed Wood and came to be in several of Eddie's movies. Think of it as Ed Wood (1994) on a crash diet. These reflective, bittersweet passages—also reminiscent of David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)—largely abandon the Corwin-esque silliness of the early part of the story and the schoolboy humor of the middle part of the story. That's why I said that "Plan 9.1 from Outer Space" is like three stories in one. 

Though I've never met Mr. Kokai, a horror host in his own right, I can only imagine that a conversation with him would be entertaining, exhausting, and largely one-sided. An innocent question like "How are you?" might well provoke a half-hour answer.

Before we leave this story, I would like to point out that "Plan 9.1 from Outer Space" covers some of the same comedic ground as a song called "Plans One Thru Nine" by The Rifftones. I had a vague memory of hearing this song several years ago, but it was the redoubtable Philip R. Frey who helped me identify the title and artist. Thank you!

P.S. We are just ten stories into this anthology, and this is already the third named after Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). We've previously had "Ridin' the Sunset Trail with the Plan 9 Kid" and "Plan One from Poughkeepsie." I get that Plan 9 is Ed Wood's defining work, but I'd kill for some Bride and the Beast (1955) fanfiction right about now.

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "The Black Madonna of Pioneer Cemetery"

There's a very familiar-seeming ghoul at this cemetery.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "The Black Madonna of Pioneer Cemetery" by Lina Martine

The spooktacular cast of Plan 9.

Synopsis: After attending a horror movie, two young couples on a double date decide to visit a creepy and mostly-abandoned cemetery. One of the girls, Tina, is reluctant to explore the grounds, even though it was her idea to go there in the first place! Ultimately, she and the others—Jimmy, Betty (aka Betts), and Eddie—climb over the fence that surrounds the graveyard. The rather eccentric but nice Eddie is especially excited to visit the grave of an outlaw named Freno Frost and make a rubbing of his tombstone. Tina is dating Eddie only because he's friends with Jimmy. She plans to become Jimmy's girlfriend once he and the fickle Betty inevitably break up.

The four young people are shocked when a tomb opens and a female ghoul emerges. They all immediately recognize her as the Witch, a sinister woman who'd been married to a much-older man. Jimmy, Tina, Betty, and Eddie are terrified when they hear more figures approaching them in the dark. The Witch attacks Jimmy and begins clawing and chewing him. Betty tries to fight her, but to no avail. Then, the Old Man attacks her by biting her neck.

The two survivors, Eddie and Tina, have no choice but to abandon their doomed friends and make a run for it. While trying to leave the cemetery, they barely escape a third ghoul: a large, clumsy, heavyset man. Betty and Jimmy are never heard from again, while Tina and Eddie break up due to the latter's transvestism.

Excerpt:

Tina's eyes were glued to the tomb door, which continued to swing outward. Spindly white arms reached out of the darkness inside. A lean, white, wolf-like face loomed out of the inky blackness, lips curled in a savage snarl. Shaking and quivering spasmodically, a woman in a torn black dress staggered out into the moonlight. She lurched to a halt, face turned up toward the moon, and let out a piercing shriek.

Reflections: As I've made my way through Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams, I've been reminded that Ed Wood is still largely defined by the handful of films he made in the 1950s. You say Ed's name, and people think of ghouls, cemeteries, and angora sweaters. All of those things are on prominent display in "The Black Madonna of Pioneer Cemetery," a story that takes the three iconic zombies from Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)—the ones played by Vampira, Bela Lugosi, and Tor Johnson—and gives them a new set of victims to chow down on.

But author Lina Martine obviously knows more about Ed Wood than just the few core movies that have been played to death. For example, she includes a prominent reference to Kenne Duncan's character Freno Frost from The Lawless Rider (1954), an extremely obscure Western co-written by Ed. Who else but a superfan would even know that? And the story's framing device, i.e. horny young people visiting a spooky old cemetery, feels like a nod to Orgy of the Dead (1965). Come to think of it, cemeteries remained prominent in Ed's writing all the way through his career, even during his porn days of the '60s and '70s. If he could steer a story toward a cemetery, he would.

In her biography at the end of the story, Martine declares herself "addicted to James Dean/Maila Nurmi gossip." It's no surprise that Maila's Plan 9 character is at the very center of this story and that one of the doomed youngsters is named Jimmy. The story even mentions Jimmy's movie-star good looks, and I'm sure it's symbolic that Maila's character literally tries to eat him alive. Eddie is obviously a stand-in for Ed Wood, right down to his angora sweater fetish. But are the characters Betty and Tina meant to represent anyone in particular, or are they just typical horror movie victims? Only the author knows for sure.

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Plan One from Poughkeepsie"

Bela Lugosi and the Hindenburg both had an impact on Ed Wood's childhood.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Plan One from Poughkeepsie" by Frank Dello Stritto

Synopsis: December 1936, Poughkeepsie, New York. Edward D. Wood, Jr., 12 years of age, skips school to attend a showing of The Invisible Ray starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The truant officer catches him and reports him to his parents. Apparently, Eddie does this kind of thing frequently, much to his father's chagrin. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day, Eddie's parents give him his own 8mm movie camera, a Kodak Cine Special. Junior stores this treasured gift in the same closet where he keeps the dress that his mother gave him. 

A Bela Lugosi serial.

During that same Christmas break, Eddie sees the final chapter of a Bela Lugosi serial called Shadow of Chinatown (1936). The ending is a dud, but this is how the budding filmmaker learns about stock footage. He dreams of making a combination horror film and Western starring his idol, Buck Jones. Has anyone done that before, he wonders?

May 1937. Junior has been struggling to learn how to use his new camera, and some of his precious, expensive footage has been overexposed. But he does manage to film the Hindenburg as it flies overhead. Later, over the radio, he hears that the famed German airship has burst into flames. He makes sure to take good care of the film he shot.

December 1937. Eddie, now 13, watches another Lugosi serial called SOS Coast Guard at the local movie theater with his friends. The only part he likes is how Lugosi's villainous character is killed alongside his giant sidekick, Thorg. He also sees a newsreel about the Hindenburg and remembers the footage he has stashed away in his closet. He shows the film at school, where it makes a big hit with his classmates. This is the moment when he decides he wants to be a filmmaker when he grows up. Again, he carefully stashes the film in the closet at home alongside his favorite dress.

December 1939. Two years have passed, and Eddie is still watching Bela Lugosi serials. This time, it's The Phantom Creeps, with Bela as a mad scientist with a killer robot. Eddie is shocked and thrilled when the film uses a clip of the Hindenburg flying over what might be Poughkeepsie. Eddie is again impressed by the clever use of stock footage and vows to make his own movies someday.

Excerpt:

Junior and his friends sat in the theatre. He told them about an Amazing Story that he had just read. A mad doctor was trying to create a race of supermen. Then the boys ran through the plot of the serial whose first 11 chapters they had seen. The last chapter would start in a few moments. The houselights dimmed.

Reflections: It had never occurred to me to compare Ed Wood to Jean Shepherd, but "Plan One from Poughkeepsie" reads like an alternate universe version of A Christmas Story (1983). Imagine Ed Wood as Ralphie, pining for a Kodak Cine Special instead of a Red Ryder BB gun, with cantankerous but lovable Ed Wood, Sr. as the Old Man, Lillian Wood as Mrs. Parker, and Eddie's little brother Bill as Randy Parker. 

In this short story, much of which takes place at Christmas, young Eddie is inspired by the same things that inspire Ralphie: comic books, radio shows, and cowboy films. Since Ed Wood and Jean Shepherd were born just a few years apart (1924 and 1921, respectively), it stands to reason they had similar experiences growing up in America. I'd imagine, however, that if young Eddie got a fuzzy pink bunny suit for Christmas, he would secretly love it.

"Plan One from Poughkeepsie" is Frank Dello Stritto's imagining of what Ed Wood's childhood in 1930s Poughkeepsie was like. As the author admits in the story's prologue, he's really piecing this narrative together from the few scraps of information we have about Ed's adolescence. And since Eddie had such a tenuous relationship with reality, who knows how much of this actually happened? All we can do is guess. It's to Dello Stritto's credit that "Plan One" is plausible. It may or may not be accurate, but it seems like it could be. It has the ring of truth to it.

Podcast Tuesday: "Grecian Kid Stuff"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) meets a sorceress on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

One of the most anxious nights of my childhood happened circa 1985 when a local TV station—probably WKBD in Detroit—announced that it would air the film Clash of the Titans (1981) as part of its Friday night lineup. Ads for the movie ran frequently during the station's weekday cartoons, which I watched routinely after school, and I was hyped for the upcoming broadcast. You know how impressionable kids can be. Clash of the Titans became all I could think about.

I'd been a little too young (just five years old) when the film was originally released, but I was now ready for the action and thrills of this Greek myth-inspired blockbuster and its wonderfully hideous stop-motion creatures. I'd been going through a Greek myth phase at the time, and my parents had even rented a VCR so we could screen Jason and the Argonauts (1963) for my birthday. Based on the ads, Clash of the Titans looked like Jason on steroids. I couldn't miss it.

But there was a problem! You see, Friday nights were when my family and I would go out to dinner and spend quality time with each other. That's a lovely tradition, but I couldn't bother with family togetherness when Perseus, Medusa, and a robot owl were waiting for me at home. Today, I could just DVR Clash of the Titans or stream the movie whenever I wanted, but such options were not available to me in 1985. So I just tried to eat as quickly as I could and hurry my family through dinner as much as possible. No one was happy with me. As I remember it, we got home just as the film was starting. I may have missed the opening credits, but I saw the rest of the film, and it blew my mind.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing an episode called "Greece is the Word." It, too, is based on Greek myth, and it is even less faithful to those stories than Clash of the Titans. But does it make for a good episode? Let's find out together!

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Mr. and Mrs. Ghoul"

A writer becomes suspicious of his strange neighbors in "Mr. and Mrs. Ghoul."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Mr. and Mrs. Ghoul" by Bobby "Lugosi" Zier

Synopsis: It is 1956, and aspiring screenwriter Glen Kelton lives in Hollywood with his girlfriend, Barbara. Glen is also a closeted transvestite and an alcoholic, so he's under a lot of stress. He is highly suspicious of his neighbors, a couple named the Ghouls, and suspects that Mr. Ghoul is actually the notorious mad scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff. One night, while spying on the Ghouls, Glen learns that they are conspiring with the Martians to create a race of octopus-men and take over the universe. Glen desperately wants to convey this information to the authorities, but he fears that the Ghouls will expose Glen's own personal secrets in retaliation. He doesn't know what to do.

Suburban paranoia: The 'Burbs.

After listening to a special Halloween night radio broadcast by the psychic Criswell, Glen decides to take matters into his own hands. He grabs a gun and breaks into the Ghouls' house. He finds a mad science lab in the basement and even has to grapple with an octo-man, whom he shoots in the eye. Mr. Ghoul (a.k.a. Eric Vornoff) confronts him and declares Glen's bullets will have no effect on him. Then, Mrs. Ghoul flies into the room, having taken the form of a bat. She bites Glen on the neck and drains his blood.

Glen awakes the next morning, having no memory of his encounter with the Ghouls. In fact, he is now under the control of the seemingly unstoppable Vornoff.

Excerpt:

Glen knew there was more to the Ghouls than meets the eye, but he never imagined this, he began sweating profusely and his hands were shaking, in fact, they were shaking so much that he dropped his cocktail glass, and it shattered on the concrete.

Reflections: I assume most of you are familiar with Joe Dante's black comedy The 'Burbs (1989), in which a harried husband and father named Ray (Tom Hanks) becomes convinced that his eccentric new neighbors, the Klopeks, are secretly murderers. Ray and some other nosy local homeowners start spying on the Klopeks, even breaking into their house to snoop around for clues. Ultimately, they manage to blow the place to smithereens. All this would be reprehensible, except... Ray and his pals were right all along. The Klopeks really were murderers. They're arrested, and Ray is shaken but redeemed.

I'm with The 'Burbs up until the ending. Ray is basically a decent guy at heart, albeit confused and misguided. His friends, however, are portrayed as hateful and small-minded jerks, and the script ends up validating them. The ultimate message of the film is that you should be suspicious of eccentrics and outsiders because they're probably up to no good. So go ahead and spy on your neighbors, folks! Destroy their house if you have to! Perhaps author Bobby Zier was thinking of The 'Burbs when he wrote "Mr. and Mrs. Ghoul." Perhaps he wasn't. I only know that I thought about Joe Dante's movie frequently while reading this short story. 

I also thought of two more films: Parents (1989), in which a young boy (Bryan Madorsky) suspects his mother and father (Sandy Dennis and Randy Quaid) are cannibals, and Society (1989), in which a teenage boy (Billy Warlock) comes to realize that many of the people around him are members of an unspeakably horrible cult. Isn't it an odd coincidence that all these paranoia-driven horror-comedies came out in the same year? And that, in all three films, the characters' worst fears turn out to be justified?

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "The Plan 9 from Outer Space Universe"

It's all connected, says author Tom Shubilla.

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "The Plan 9 from Outer Space Universe" by Thom "Beefstew" Shubilla

Synopsis: This article purports to tell the true-life events that inspired many of Ed Wood's most famous movies. Most of it centers around a strange, supposedly haunted house called the Old Willows Place in San Fernando, CA. The house, a "vector for the supernatural,"  dates back to the 1800s, but it gained everlasting infamy after it was purchased by exiled Russian scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff in 1948. Vornoff had been expelled from his native country and separated from his family after the Soviet government took a dim view of his attempts to create a new master race by exposing human beings to high levels of atomic power. 

Vornoff: Lynchpin of the entire saga.

After his banishment, Vornoff traveled the world, acquired a henchman named Lobo in Tibet, and developed a keen interest in cryptozoology. He bought the Old Willows Place to be near a giant octopus who lived in a swamp near the home. Vornoff continued his experiments in America and killed several innocent people in the process. Eventually, the police tracked him down, and the scientist died in a massive lab explosion in 1955. Vornoff's research influenced NASA scientist Dr. Carl Bragan, who created a plant monster while on sabbatical in Japan in 1970. But there is no truth to the rumor that a mad scientist named Dr. Charles Conway, who attempted to prolong human life through the invention of a new gland, had any connection to Vornoff. It's coincidental that both scientists had sidekicks named Lobo.

Two years after Vornoff's death, a cemetery not far from the Old Willows Place became the site of a truly bizarre series of events involving flying saucers and the resurrection of dead bodies. It seems an alien civilization attempted to frighten the human race into pacifism by unleashing a plague of zombies on the small community of San Fernando. Unfortunately for the aliens, they only managed to create three zombies, including a woman known as the Black Ghoul, before their plans were thwarted by a small band of humans.

In 1959, an itinerant conman named Dr. Karl Acula and his wife Sheila set up shop on the site of what had been the Old Willows Place. An ex-vaudevillian from Ed Wood's hometown of Poughkeepsie, Acula drifted from city to city as an adult. He altered his appearance frequently and even paid a highly-skilled plastic surgeon named Dr. Boris Gregor to change his entire face. In San Fernando, Acula passed himself off as a medium and started holding phony seances in order to trick gullible older people out of their money. Eventually, though, Acula somehow managed to provoke the wrath of the dead, and they dragged him down to hell.

Ironically, Acula had taken inspiration from the famed TV psychic Criswell. What Acula didn't know was that Cris was actually the Emperor of the Dead. In 1965, a writer named Bob and his girlfriend Shirley reported seeing the Emperor of the Dead presiding over a strange erotic ritual in an abandoned cemetery with the Black Ghoul of San Fernando at his side. 

Excerpt:

The Old Willows Place was not the only case of the supernatural for the San Fernando Police Department. In 1957 a spaceship reportedly landed in the backyard of Jeff and Paula Trent who lived next to a cemetery adjacent to the Old Willow's House. According to secret testimonies of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal, aliens planned on resurrecting the recently deceased on Earth by using long-distance electrodes shot into the pinion pituitary glands of recent dead, march the dead on the world's capitals with the goal of nations recognizing the alien's existence and stop the Earth from developing the deadly Solaronite bomb.

Reflections: We're lousy with universes these days. Somewhere along the line, we decided that we enjoy fictional stories more when they're connected to other fictional stories. Now, we're inundated with endless talk of franchises, dimensions, multiverses, alternate realities, and timelines. It's not enough that Marvel and DC have their own, incredibly complex universes; especially popular characters like Spider-Man and Batman have their own universes within those universes! Meanwhile, multimedia franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have become so elaborate that their lore can (and does) fill up entire encyclopedias.

Patton Oswalt rants about Star Wars.

"The Plan 9 from Outer Space Universe" is Thom Shubilla's attempt to create an interconnected franchise out of Ed Wood's best-known films. Eddie already laid some groundwork for this in advance, since three of his films—Bride of the Monster (1955), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), and Night of the Ghouls (1959)—form an extremely loose trilogy and share some characters. Ghouls has even been called a direct sequel to Bride. But Shubilla has fun with the premise by throwing seemingly unrelated films like Jail Bait (1954), Orgy of the Dead (1965), The Venus Flytrap (1970), and even Boris Petroff's The Unearthly (1957) into the mix. 

I'll admit I had thoughts along these lines when I was reviewing Blood Splatters Quickly (2014), an anthology of Eddie's short stories. "Wouldn't it be fun," I mused, "if all of these strange, violent, and perverse stories were happening in one really messed-up town?" In retrospect, many of them do. The town just happens to be Los Angeles.

What Shubilla's story really reminds me of, however, is comedian Patton Oswalt's notorious filibuster from the sitcom Parks & Recreation (2009-2015). In an episode from 2013, Oswalt plays a man who desperately wants to prevent the city council from voting on a measure, so he deliberately wastes the council's time by pitching a Star Wars sequel. His proposed story not only includes characters from Marvel but also the entire pantheon of Greek gods. When I read "The Plan 9 from Outer Space Universe," I imagined it being delivered aloud with the same level of misguided passion Oswalt brings to his speech.

Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Ripped and Torn"

Some bachelorette party attendees get more than they bargained for in "Ripped and Torn."

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (Arcane Shadows Press, 2024).

The story: "Ripped and Torn" by Sean Collins

Synopsis: A hideous, decaying monster shambles toward a home in suburban America. Inside, three young women—Helen, Judi, and Beth—are throwing a bachelorette party for their friend Liz, who is engaged to a man named Ray. There seems to be some mild friction between Liz and and the snarky, sarcastic Helen, whose nickname is "Hellraiser." When the monster shows up at their doorstep, the women assume he is the male stripper they hired.

The monster is totally disoriented and can only communicate in grunts and growls, but the women are insistent that he start dancing and stripping. Somehow, the creature becomes entranced by the music and actually starts putting on a show for them. Things quickly get out of control, however, as he not only removes his clothing but also his skin, flesh, and eyeballs. The women realize this is not the stripper they'd been expecting.

Fortunately, Liz has a plan! She distracts the monster with Helen's angora sweater, then disorients him by throwing a shower curtain over him. Helen finishes the creature by stabbing him with a fireplace poker. Ray arrives at the party and informs the women that the dead have been rising from the grave due to a science experiment gone awry. A radio announcer informs them that the crisis has passed. Only then does the actual stripper arrive.

Excerpt:

Thunder roared in the distance outside. Liz looked over at the window and wished she was outside. Miles away, she had to get them out of here. She looked over at Helen who still watched the bizarre spectacle. Liz couldn't tell if it was now from fear or amazement. There was another horrible tearing sound. Liz looked at the monster and saw that now the flesh of his torso had been ripped away.

Reflections: "Ripped and Torn" is a departure from the previous stories in Warm Angora Wishes in that it is not based on any particular work by Ed Wood, such as Bride of the Monster (1955) or Plan 9 (1957), nor does it use Eddie and his eccentric cohorts as characters. Instead, it is a comedic horror fantasy that tries to evoke the tone of something Eddie might have written. Author Sean Collins talks about Ed's influence in the story's lengthy prologue, but the story itself is a wholly original work.

Having read many of Ed Wood's short stories from the 1960s and '70s, I can attest that Eddie would have been intrigued and amused by the idea of a stripper who peels all the way down to the skeleton. It's the kind of ghoulish, gory twist that could easily have been in one of his own stories. But I'm pretty sure Ed would have made the stripper character female, and he would have set the whole thing in a bar or a club rather than some lady's living room. The only way he would have written about a male stripper is if the audience had also been men.

For the last couple of days, as I've been preparing to review this story, I've been wracking my brain to remember exactly where I saw a scene in which a stripper removes her skin and flesh until she's just a skeleton. My first instinct was that it was an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996). But then, I thought it must have been one of those horror anthology movies, like Creepshow (1982). After some digging, I think I've narrowed it down to The Monster Club (1981), featuring Vincent Price and John Carradine. But if you have a better idea, I'd like to hear it.