Night of the Ghouls * (1959, Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore, Tor Johnson, Paul Marco, Criswell) – Classic Movie Review 5,287

The astoundingly awful 1959 horror sci-fi film Night of the Ghouls is another ghoulishly ghastly movie from writer-producer-director Edward D Wood Jr, the world’s most enjoyable worst movie-maker.

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. A rag-bag jumble of undigested ideas collected from other better places, it makes no sense at all, except maybe in the weird Wood mind, but is continuously amusing, often funny and sometimes hilarious, particularly the floating trumpet and the flying eye.

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 Karl Acula, a swindling medium or phony spiritualist, a turbaned swami who pretends to contact the relatives of the living, and then, unfortunately for him, revives killer corpses, actually raising the dead. Dr Acula! Well, really!

Kenne Duncan is rather entertaining, with his daft looks and silly stares, in a tour-de-force of eyeball acting. Valda Hansen as Sheila the White Ghost and Jeannie Stevens as The Black Ghost are hysterical, staggering pointlessly around tiny cardboard sets, while Harvey B Dunn and Margaret Mason are hilarious as Henry Edwards and Martha Edwards, the older couple in the car frightened by the White Ghost. Now this is what we call great acting!

Wood stock company regulars Tor Johnson, re-creating his 1955 role as the brutish Lobo from Bride of the Monster, Paul Marco, again playing the character of Kelton, the cop from Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Criswell (as himself) also appear. Criswell rises from a coffin at the start of the film and narrates its events. He returns to his coffin in the epilogue, saying it is time for both the old dead and the new to return to their graves, and telling the audience  they can soon join them in death. Well, that’s nice then.

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!

Paul Marco as Patrolman Paul Kelton in Night of the Ghouls.

Paul Marco (born Angelo Inzalaco, June 10, 1927 – May 14, 2006) is absolutely dreadful, with way too much to do in a ‘comedy’ turn as the bumbling, scaredy policeman Patrolman Kelton. Marco was the subject of another Criswell prediction. In the early 1950s, Criswell predicted on US national TV that Marco would go far in the motion picture business, and, no doubt to help the prediction come true, introduced him to Ed Wood. But Marco didn’t go very far. He depended on Wood for work, and more or less retired as an actor as Wood’s movies shifted towards pornography.

Police Captain Robbins of Homicide is also a returning character, though here played by Johnny Carpenter and by Harvey B Dunn in Bride of the Monster.

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.

The film was shot between April 1958 and May 1958. It had a preview screening in 1959 at the Vista Theatre in Hollywood but Wood felt it needed further editing, though he was unable to make the changes since he could not afford to pay the lab to develop the film and ownership remained in the lab’s control.

It was not till 1983, with both Wood and Criswell dead, that Kansas City film fan/ entrepreneur Wade Williams located the film, paid the 24-year-old lab bill, claimed full ownership of the film, and gave it its first home video release on VHS in 1984. So the movie was finally released and the VHS release was the film’s world premiere, straight to video!

It is followed by The Sinister Urge (1960).

The cast are Kenne Duncan as Dr Karl Acula, Duke Moore as Lieutenant Dan Bradford, Tor Johnson as Lobo, Valda Hansen as Sheila the White Ghost, Johnny Carpenter (credited as John Carpenter) as Captain Robbins, Paul Marco as Patrolman Kelton, Don Nagel as Sgt Crandall, Bud Osborne as Mr Darmoor, Jeannie Stevens as The Black Ghost/ Mannequin, Harvey B Dunn as Henry Edwards, Margaret Mason as Martha Edwards, Criswell as himself, and Tom Mason as undead man in coffin.

Ed Wood and Conrad Brook also appear in stock footage from Wood’s unfinished Hellborn as Men in Fight sequence.

Tom Mason, who doubled for Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space, appears as one of the undead, while his wife Margaret Mason plays Martha Edwards, the woman in the car frightened by the White Ghost.

Johnny Carpenter plays Captain Robbins, a police officer who gets involved in the investigation of the strange occurrences at Dr Acula’s haunted house, trying to uncover the truth behind the phony spiritualist’s activities and the supernatural events.

Johnny Carpenter (sometimes credited as John Carpenter) was born on June 25, 1914 in Dardanelle, Arkansas. He was known for The Lawless Rider (1954), Outlaw Treasure (1955) and Son of the Renegade (1953). He died on February 27, 2003 in Burbank, California.

Night of the Ghouls is directed by Ed Wood, runs 69 minutes, is written by Ed Wood, is produced by Ed Wood, Tom Mason and Anthony Cardoza, and is shot in black and white by William C Thompson.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,287

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