Ed Wood’s Night of the Ghouls is an unofficial sequel to Bride of the Monster. There are several references to “The Old Willows Place” (Dr. Vornoff’s residence and lab that explodes in Bride of the Monster) and even Lobo, the kind-hearted beast from “Bride of the Monster” makes a reappearance (with much more gruesome make-up than before). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Swami scam artist that bilks people into believing that he can channel the dead, recruits an actress to play a roaming ghost at night in order to frighten people. Unfortunately for her, a real ghost dressed in black is following her with the same intentions. As the Swami (whose actual name is Dr. Acula. (Dracula, get it? Of course, you get it, you just didn’t want it.) holds his fake seances, he fools people with the weirdest tricks. One is a floating trumpet, a guy in a white sheet scuttles by every now and then with a very whimsical tune that plays as he shuffles by. There were also some other “floating” (obviously on a string) objects that I couldn’t even identify. All of this weirdness doesn’t even phase the people at the seance. These cheap theatrics never even strikes the seance members in the slightest as being strange or odd, they actually think it’s “normal”, although I use that term loosely. At the seance, there are even two attendees who are dressed as skeletons wearing cheap wigs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, after committing an endless list of criminal offenses, the Swami isn’t taken down by the law but instead by ghosts of the families that the Swami scammed. They crowd around him and the next morning, he’s gone and the “ghosts” are now just a pile of bones on the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Ed Wood film came a little later in the game than most of his movies. You see, Ed didn’t make movies, he made crap. Therefore he was broke and fit the perfect stereotype of the starving artist. And because he was so completely and utterly broke, he couldn’t even afford to have this film developed. Decades later when Wade Williams bought the rights to Ed Wood’s movies after they became known for being so bad they were good, he had the film developed so that we can now enjoy this classic that was almost nearly lost forever. If you loved Bride of the Monster, then Night of the Ghouls should definitely be sought out. I actually think it’s one of Eddie’s better pieces of cinematic doo-doo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n