Derek Winnert

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This article was written on 14 Apr 2017, and is filled under Reviews.

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Night of the Ghouls * (1959, Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Tor Johnson, Paul Marco, Criswell) – Classic Movie Review 5287

This astoundingly awful 1959 horror and sci-fi mixture is another ghoulishly ghastly movie from writer-producer-director Edward D Wood Jr, ever renowned as the maker of the world’s most enjoyable worst movie, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956).  Wood Jr bases his screenplay on his own novel.

Movie stuntman Kenne Duncan stars as Dr Acula, a swindling medium or phony spiritualist, who pretends to contact the relatives of the living, and then, unfortunately for him, revives killer corpses, actually raising the dead.

A walking dead sequel to Ed Wood’s own Bride of the Monster (1955), Night of the Ghouls is definitely some so-bad-it’s good fun for collectors of terrible films.

Wood stock company regulars Tor Johnson, re-creating his 1955 role as the brutish Lobo, and Criswell (as himself) also appear. Criswell, the world’s most famous predictor, is of course famed as the narrator of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956). He predicted in 1963 ‘that President Kennedy will not run for re-election in 1964, because of something that will happen to him in November 1963, but he also predicted the destruction of Denver, shifting polar caps, Castro’s assassination and the end of the world!

Also in the cast are Duke Moore as Lieutenant Daniel Bradford, Paul Marco as Kelton, Johnny Carpenter as Captain Robbins, Valda Hansen as the bogus White Ghost, Jeannie Stevens, Don Nagel, Bud Osborne, Harvey B Dunn, Margaret Mason, Clay Stone, Marcelle Hemphill, Tom Mason, James La Maida, Anthony Cardoza and Edward D Wood Jr.

It is also known as Revenge of the Dead.

It is followed by The Sinister Urge (1960).

Wood could not afford to pay the lab to develop the film, so it was not till 1983, with both him and Criswell dead, that entrepreneur Wade Williams paid the 24-year-old lab bill and the movie was finally released.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5287

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

 

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