Joe Blevins's Blog, page 17

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?
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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.
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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.
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Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "The Night the Devil Met Igor"

Captain DeZita (center) runs into a young Charles Bronson in "The Night the Devil Met Igor."

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

The story: "The Night the Devil Met Igor" by Brad A. Braddock
Synopsis: It is 1953, and Ed Wood has just finished principal photography on Glen or Glenda. He's on his way to the wrap party, but his leading lady and girlfriend, Dolores Fuller, wants to check on her girlfriend, Pattie. She promises to meet Eddie at the party later in the evening. Also on the Glen or Glenda set that day is the mysterious Captain DeZita, who plays the Devil in the film. DeZita is a conman and pimp with a terrible reputation, so producer George Weiss is wary of him.
Still wearing his costume from the movie, the lecherous DeZita follows Dolores down a dark alley. She is terrified of the strange man and begins running away from him. He pursues her and makes suggestive remarks. He even tears a piece of her angora sweater! Luckily, Dolores makes it to a nearby building. It turns out to be the Paramount Theatre, which is hosting the premiere of the 3D horror movie House of Wax. Among the celebrities on hand are Ronald Reagan and Bela Lugosi. DeZita, mad with lust, continues to pursue Dolores through the crowded theater.
Just as DeZita corners Dolores, he is put in a headlock by actor Charles Buchinsky, who plays the mute Igor in House of Wax. Buchinsky is well aware of DeZita's reputation and forces the creepy old man to apologize. DeZita then scurries away like a rat. Ed Wood finally shows up, having been summoned to the Paramount by the police. Charles gives Ed and Dolores two tickets to House of Wax, and they happily stay to watch the premiere. Charles steps outside and meets Bela Lugosi. The actors exchange notes, and Bela wishes Charles good luck in his career.
In an epilogue, Criswell makes predictions for Ed Wood, Captain DeZita, and the others, These predictions, however, are much more accurate than usual, including the fact that Charles Buchinsky will change his name to Charles Bronson and become a major movie star in the 1970s.
Excerpt:

DeZita was sweating and nervous as he replied, "Charles... Charles Buchinsky. Congratulations on your big break tonight."
Charles slapped DeZita again, this time harder, drawing blood lines across his face. Charles replied, "I play a goddamn mute. You call that a big break? I'm of Eastern European descent, in a day where the government thinks anyone with that background is a communist."
DeZita answered, "You could always change your name from Buchinsky to something like... say, Bronson."

A "major fib" in Ed Wood.Reflections: In writing the screenplay for Ed Wood (1994), Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski largely tried to stick to the truth, at least as much of it as they could glean from Rudolph Grey's oral history Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992). But even that book, with its wealth of quotes from Ed Wood's friends, relatives, and professional associates, was vague about how people met or how certain events in Eddie's career came about. So Scott and Larry cheerfully concocted a few "meet cutes" for the major characters and filled in various missing details in the timeline with their imaginations. 
"Then," as the writers admit in the published version of their script, "to tie everything together, we invented one major fib." 
They're referring to the totally fictional meeting in the film's third act between Ed (Johnny Depp) and his hero Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio) at Musso & Frank's. Orson gives the dejected, down-on-his-luck Ed a pep talk about staying true to his artistic vision, and Ed is inspired to finish Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). To be clear, this incident never happened, and no one ever claimed that it did.
"The Night the Devil Met Igor" does something similar. It takes some real people—Ed Wood, Dolores Fuller, Captain DeZita, Bela Lugosi, and Charles Bronson—and puts them in an almost entirely fictional scenario. A mysterious man who called himself Captain DeZita was in Glen or Glenda (1953), and he was a known conman and pimp, just as this story suggests. But the part about DeZita chasing Dolores Fuller into the premiere of House of Wax and getting beaten up by Charles Bronson is purely fantasy on the part of the author.
Incidentally, although House of Wax actually premiered in New York, it was given a gala showing in Los Angeles at the Paramount, just as this story attests. Bela Lugosi and Ronald Reagan were among the attendees that night, as were Shelley Winters and Danny Thomas. As luck would have it, there is even some vintage newsreel footage of the premiere. Watch this and imagine that the events of "The Night the Devil met Igor" are happening somewhere in the background.
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Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Final Curtain Revisited"

An actor battles a vampire in "Final Curtain Revisited."

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

The story: "Final Curtain Revisited" by Douglas Gibson
Synopsis: A brief prologue explains that Final Curtain (1957) was an unsold TV pilot written and directed by Ed Wood. In this short film, a character identified only as the Actor wanders around the dark, spooky Dome Theatre at night after having played a vampire onstage there earlier in the evening. He becomes increasingly paranoid and is mysteriously drawn to something on the second floor. The object beckoning him turns out to be a coffin. Resigned to his fate, the actor climbs inside.
Valda Hansen as the Banshee.The sequel picks up several years later. The Actor still dwells in the Dome Theatre, long after the events of the first story. He lies in his coffin in a storage room on the second floor, invisible to the (living) actors and crew members who work in the building each day. Every few years, the Actor is resurrected so that he can steer someone toward a peaceful afterlife and spare them great agony. No one can see or hear him, but he can directly influence people's behavior nevertheless.
The Actor's eternal nemesis is the Vampire, an alluring female who dwells in a room down the hall. She, too, is unable to leave the Dome. One night, the Actor rises from his coffin and finds that the Vampire is tearing apart the body of a recently-deceased theater critic. Unfortunately, he cannot do anything to prevent this. The Actor strolls around the theater, even visiting his old dressing room. He also sees the Banshee, a young blonde woman who had pretended to be a ghost when she was alive. In death, she is a restless soul who is cursed to wander the earth forever.

Eventually, the Actor realizes why he has been awakened from his years-long sleep. He needs to save the soul of a stagehand who is on the threshold of death. This young man, though not evil, had yearned for fame and glory but had been denied these things during his life. Now, this doomed man seems inextricably drawn to the Vampire. Knowing he is breaking the rules, the Actor enters the room of the Vampire and protects the stagehand from her. The Vampire slashes the Actor’s throat. The stagehand dies peacefully, and the badly-injured Actor collapses on a mattress, unable to reach his own coffin.
Excerpt: 

The hall produced chaotic sounds that presumed Grand Guignol-like horrors. Snarling, choking sounds, like a wolf man descending on a young lovely. More howls of agony, followed by poundings on the wall. Perhaps a maniac driving nails into his torture victim? The Actor strained to repress these feelings, thoughts. Were they repressed memories of past awakenings, or just his still-lively imagination? How many souls existed there?

Reflections: M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999) turns 25 this year, so I’ll assume that anyone who wants to see this film has already done so by now. Besides, its twist ending must be one of the worst-kept "secrets" in movie history. I've long felt that this extremely successful film (which Ed Wood would have loved, incidentally) could have been the pilot for a fascinating weekly television series. 
Willis and Osment in The Sixth Sense.To recap, The Sixth Sense concerns Malcolm (Bruce Willis), a psychologist who slowly comes to realize that he is deceased, and Cole, a troubled young boy with a rare ability to see and talk to ghosts. Together, they are able to bring solace to tormented souls who have unfinished business on earth. They only do a little of this in the movie, coming to the aid of a female child ghost named Kyra (Mischa Barton) who has been poisoned by her mother, but I figured they could keep doing it week after week. After all, there must be plenty of unhappy ghosts out there who need Malcolm and Cole's help.
"Final Curtain Revisited" has some of the flavor of the Sixth Sense TV show I was envisioning. It takes Duke Moore's character from Final Curtain and turns him into a kind of Mr. Fix-It of the afterlife. By the rules of this fictional universe, though, the Actor has to remain at the Dome Theatre, so his services aren't needed very often. In the story, even he doesn't know why it's the stagehand's turn to die. It just is.
Maybe if the Actor branched out beyond the walls of the Dome Theatre, he could assist other souls in want. The Banshee in this short story seems to have free reign, at least to some extent, but she does not take advantage of this opportunity. She exists only to suffer. The author compares her to Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol (1843), but at least Marley does one productive thing with his afterlife.
Frankly, it never would have occurred to me to expand on the story of Final Curtain, nor to tie it into the story of Night of the Ghouls (1959) and the unreleased The Night the Banshee Cried (1957). But author Douglas Gibson has done a nice job of recreating the spooky atmosphere of the original film. He does not replicate Ed Wood's writing style because I believe doing so would be impossible. Wood takes great leaps into the absurd and implausible, and he is not cautious in his use of language. In comparison, Gibson's writing is more restrained and even tasteful. If there's such a thing as a polite take on Ed Wood, this is it.
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Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Ed Wood and the Mystery Tower Sitter"

"Ed Wood and the Mystery Tower Sitter" mixes fact with fiction.

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

The story: "Ed Wood and the Mystery Tower Sitter" by Gregory William Mank

Synopsis: It is October 1957, and Los Angeles television station KTLA is staging a unique publicity stunt to advertise its Nightmare Theatre program and the premiere broadcast of James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) starring Boris Karloff. Each night, a mysterious masked man hired by the station climbs up the famous KTLA broadcast tower and sits from dusk until midnight, while fans below gather and speculate about his identity. This has been going on for 21 days. Some think that the sitter may be Karloff himself, but this is unlikely, as Karloff is quite aged and too distinguished for such a stunt.
Actor Glenn Strange.Young director Edward D. Wood, Jr. is among the gawkers at KTLA. One night, he brings a woman with him: a college student named Madeline whom Eddie has paid $35 to dress as Vampira. Madeline is quite snobbish and holds Eddie in utter contempt; she also sees phallic and sexual imagery in nearly everything, especially horror movies. The KTLA security guards shoo the onlookers away after midnight, but Eddie lingers a while to strike up a conversation with the sitter. He has correctly guessed that the masked man is actually actor Glenn Strange. Eddie wants Strange to double for the late Bela Lugosi in a film to be called Graverobbers from Outer Space. Strange is cordial but turns Eddie down, deeming himself unworthy.
Undefeated, Eddie goes to a Hollywood bar where showbiz types—many of them washed-up—habitually gather. There, he spots horror star Lon Chaney, Jr. Eddie boldly approaches Chaney and starts his pitch all over again.
Excerpt:

A rowdy crowd gathered this Saturday night on the grounds of KTLA, consumed with Frankenstein fever. Nature itself seemingly smiled on the revels—a huge moon, three nights from being full, had ascended above the tower, glowing approvingly over this Hollywood Gothic sideshow.

Reflections: At the beginning of Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1982), wannabe comedian Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) waits impatiently outside the Manhattan TV studio where a nightly talk show called The Jerry Langford Show is being taped. He is apparently hoping to catch a glimpse of Langford (Jerry Lewis) himself or one of Langford's celebrity guests. Numerous diehard fans gather at Langford's stage door each night, and they all know Rupert by name. He is obviously a regular at such gatherings. This is our first clue that something is seriously amiss with Rupert. What kind of man waits outside a talk show studio every night, clutching an autograph book? Later, when the delusional Pupkin concocts an audacious scheme to kidnap and replace Langford, we find our suspicions were more than justified.
There is something distinctly Pupkinesque about Ed Wood as he is depicted in "Ed Wood and the Mystery Tower Sitter." Perhaps he has no ill intentions for Glenn Strange or Lon Chaney, Jr., but his actions in this story seem uncomfortably desperate and pushy. He invites himself into other people's lives with little regard for such concepts as privacy or personal space. Eddie's argumentative relationship with Madeline even mirrors the uneasy, quarrelsome relationship between Rupert Pupkin and his accomplice Sasha (Sandra Bernhard) in The King of Comedy. Perhaps, if no classic horror star will agree to be in Graverobbers from Outer Space, Eddie will have to kidnap one.
Incidentally, the author points out that the KTLA "mystery tower sitter" publicity stunt was quite real, though Eddie was not involved and did not meet Lon Chaney, Jr. either. It is still interesting how the author of this story managed to take a colorful but obscure anecdote from showbiz history and weave it into the legend of Ed Wood.

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Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes: "Ridin' the Sunset Trail with the Plan 9 Kid"

Last man standing: Conrad Brooks was one of the last-surviving members of Ed Wood's inner circle.

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

The story: "Ridin' the Sunset Trail with the Plan 9 Kid" by George "E-Gor" Chastain
Synopsis: Artist and film fanatic George "E-Gor" Chastain shares his memories of actor Conrad Brooks (1931-2017), whom he first met at a Famous Monsters of Filmland convention in 1989. By that time, Conrad was a regular on the convention circuit, signing autographs, selling memorabilia, and meeting fans whenever he could. Chastain and Brooks found they had a great deal in common, including a love of classic Westerns, and the two remained friends until Brooks' death in 2017.
Though most famous for appearing in the 1950s films of Ed Wood, including Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Conrad Brooks had dozens of screen credits as an actor and became a low-budget director in his own right during the 1990s and 2000s. According to Chastain, Brooks loved to reminisce about the actors he'd worked with, and he had colorful anecdotes about Jack Warden, Timothy Carey, Lawrence Tierney, and Joseph Wiseman. Chastain was happy to create promotional posters and buttons free of charge for Brooks.
In 2004, Brooks moved to a trailer in West Virginia, but he and Chastain stayed in touch through frequent phone calls. In his final years, Brooks became somewhat isolated and had neither cable nor internet access, but Chastain kept him in the loop regarding which celebrities had died and which classic movies were airing on TCM. He frequently mailed DVDs to Conrad's trailer so that the actor would never be without the old movies he loved.
Excerpt: 

All my life I've been searching for evidence of a more vibrant, stimulating world than the one I was born into, and I've found it on rare occasions, in the memories of older people (or deceased writers) talking about the long-gone world of their youth. It's strange that I could be so nostalgic for the world THEY lived in—but it's been a great comfort to me to imagine it existed, and still exists, if only in their memories. I'll always be grateful to Conrad Brooks and my many other inner-childhood heroes, mentors and good friends for sharing so much with me for so long.

Reflections: George Chastain's "Ridin' the Sunset Trail with the Plan 9 Kid" is the kind of fond, uncritical reminiscence you'd expect to hear at a testimonial dinner or a memorial service. Indeed, it reads like an extended eulogy for Conrad Brooks. If you were expecting a complicated, warts-and-all portrayal of the late actor-director, you won't find it here. This is strictly a wholesome, affectionate tribute from a fan. It was difficult to synopsize this piece, since it's not really even structured like a story. There's no "plot" here, per se, just a lot of random memories strung together in the order that they occurred to the author.
Monster kid George "E-Gor" ChastainConrad Brooks is the nominal subject of this article, but "Ridin' the Sunset Trail" functions as a mini-autobiography of George Chastain as well. We learn about George's childhood as a Navy brat, his early love of movies and other media, and the long-lasting friendships he forged with other movie fanatics. Over the decades, when he wasn't attending to his own aging parents, Chastain attended a lot of conventions and expos, met many of his heroes, co-edited a fanzine, posted to online forums regularly (especially The Classic Horror Film Board ), and started a website devoted to TV horror hosts. 
While reading "Ridin' the Sunset Trail," I was reminded of Lem Dobbs' unproduced screenplay Edward Ford (1978), based on the life of actor (and Ed Wood associate) David Ward. That script is also about the strange, insular world of cinephiles who obsess over ancient Hollywood trivia and idolize Z-list actors the rest of the world has forgotten. One wonders what would have happened if David Ward and George Chastain ever met and started exchanging fun facts about the old, cheap Westerns and horror movies they loved. Their conversation might never have ended. I mean, here are just some of the many topics that Chastain discusses with great enthusiasm in this article:the ultimate fate of Peter Lorre, Jr., an actor who falsely claimed to be Peter Lorre's sonTor Johnson's numerous appearances on Western television showsthe legacy of Florida horror host Charlie "M.T. Graves" Baxterthe attendees of Bela Lugosi's funeral and whether or not they made tasteless jokes about Bela at the timeBela's stunt double(s) in Bride of the Monster (1955)Conrad Brooks' appearances in two Bowery Boys movies and a Vincent Price moviethe plot of Roy Rogers' The Trail of Robin Hood (1950), which brought together numerous cowboy starscowboy actor Ken Maynard's thwarted singing careerAlthough Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams is ostensibly an Ed Wood book, Eddie is merely a supporting player in "Ridin' the Sunset Trail." We get some description of Range Revenge (1948), the primitive, never-finished film that Ed and Conrad made when both were just starting out in Hollywood. Chastain also discusses Wood's working relationship with writer-producer Alex Gordon, through whom he met Bela Lugosi. 
Mostly, though, this article discusses Eddie through his connection to the world of B-grade Westerns. Both Eddie and Conrad, for instance, visited cowboy star Ken Maynard during his waning years. In his various films and unsold TV pilots, Eddie employed such Western actors as Bud Osborne, Johnny Carpenter, Kenne Duncan, Lyle Talbot, and Tom Keene. This was Ed's way of staying in touch with the cowboy films he had so loved as a child in Poughkeepsie. You'd really never guess any of this from Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), in which we only hear of Eddie's love of horror and sci-fi. Westerns were extremely important to Conrad Brooks, too, and Chastain laments the fact that neither Eddie nor Connie made their living from this genre.
"Ridin' the Sunset Trail" is a strange way to begin Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams, since it's not really representative of the rest of the book. Nevertheless, it was instructive for me to read this article because it's a deep (deep) dive into the world of fan magazines and sci-fi conventions. Those things haven't really been a part of my life at all, but they played an important role in building and nurturing the cult of Ed Wood. 
Harry and Michael Medved often get the credit for making a posthumous star out of Wood with The Golden Turkey Awards (1980), but Chastain points out that Eddie and his movies were being publicized in the pages of Famous Monsters many years before the Medveds came along. In a way, then, "Ridin' the Sunset Trail" brings us back to the true origins of Woodology. Call it Roots.
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Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 199: Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams (2024)

Warm Angora Wishes is an anthology inspired by the works of Ed Wood.
Boy, the Ed Wood books just keep coming, huh? 
There was a time when Rudolph Grey pretty much had the market cornered with Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). Apart from the crude but heartfelt 33-page chapbook Edward D. Wood, Jr.: A Man and His Films (1981) by Randy Simon and Harold Benjamin, Grey's quirky oral history was the first major volume dedicated to the director of Glen or Glenda (1953) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). There had been numerous magazine and newspaper articles about Eddie, plus coverage of Eddie's movies in books like The Golden Turkey Awards (1980) and Cult Movies (1981), but nothing like this!
The latest Wood book.In addition to including quotes from many of Wood's professional and personal associates, Nightmare covered Eddie's life from beginning to end—from his childhood in Poughkeepsie in the 1920s and '30s to his ultimate descent into alcoholism and pornography in the 1960s and '70s. Previous to this book, articles about Ed Wood tended to focus on his 1950s heyday and the creation of his most famous films. Rudolph Grey showed there was a lot more to the story... and it wasn't all angora sweaters and plywood tombstones. 
Nightmare of Ecstasy hit the market just before the internet gained mainstream popularity. I'd say that, more than any other factor, the 'net has accounted for the deluge of Wood books that we've seen in recent years. For one thing, information is a lot easier to find and share, giving fans access to films, books, and vintage articles that they wouldn't have had previously. Ed Wood fanatics, like so many people with extremely niche interests, also have instant access to each other nowadays, allowing them to compare notes, share information, and collaborate in ways that would have been impossible in decades past. Think back to the pre-internet days when fans really only had things like conventions and newsletters to keep in touch.
In 2024, we have another brand-new Wood-inspired book to dissect: Ed Wood's Warm Angora Wishes and Rubber Octopus Dreams. I think the clunky name is a reference to Robin Leach's catchphrase from the 1980s syndicated series Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams!" In any event, that title is a mouthful, so I think I'll just refer to the book as Warm Angora Wishes from now on. 
But what is this thing, exactly? Edited by prolific monster author Kurt McCoy and published by Arcane Shadows Press , Warm Angora Wishes is chiefly an anthology of short fiction inspired by the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr. I say "chiefly" because the first—and longest—piece in the book is nonfiction and only tangentially about Ed. Mostly, though, the book contains stories that draw directly from Eddie's film work, largely Plan 9 and Glenda, plus Night of the Ghouls (1959), Bride of the Monster (1955), and a few others. In a way, Warm Angora Wishes feels like an attempt to create an Extended Ed Wood Cinematic Universe, connecting the films from Eddie's Golden Age so that they form a larger narrative.
In examining the contents of this book, I have concluded that there is no way to summarize or review Warm Angora Wishes in one blog post. So I have made the cataclysmic decision to cover this book the same way I have covered the Ed Wood anthologies in the past: one story at a time. So that's the way it's going to be. Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be making my way through this volume chapter by chapter and posting my reflections here. If you so choose, you may join me on this journey.
P.S. Here is how the book describes itself on its own back cover. This may convince you to read my upcoming reviews or to keep your distance from them. Either way, I thought it was only sporting to include it.
Bringing to life new webs of fiction.
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Podcast Tuesday: "Futurelli"

The Controller (Alan Oppenheimer) menaces Fonzie (Henry Winkler).
It's a losing game trying to predict the future. Science fiction writers and filmmakers have been getting it wrong for decades. The makers of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang apparently tried to hedge their bets. This early '80s Hanna Barbera animated show gives us wildly different visions of what the future will be like. Maybe one of them will come true!
One of the show's main characters, Cupcake (voiced by Didi Conn), hails from the 25th century and is supposed to be a typical, if clumsy, human of that time. She has magic powers, shoots rainbows from her fingertips, and travels around in a flying saucer. I guess, based on her name, that cupcakes still exist a few centuries from now. That's nice to know. But Cupcake doesn't know what horses are, so apparently they're going extinct in the next few centuries. Bummer.
One of the first episodes of the series, "May the Farce be with You," is set in the year 2057, which is just a few decades away! In it, a race of sinister andtroids plan to destroy the earth. Luckily, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) shuts them down just in time. According to The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, we are basically going to be living in a Star Wars (1977) universe by the 2050s. 
And then we come to this week's episode, "Science Friction," set in the year 3057. All the Star Wars stuff is over by this time in history, and we're experiencing the future from The Time Machine (1960) instead. The humans live above ground in constant fear of underground-dwelling mutants called Krolacks. And there's a mean android named the Controller (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer) who's pulling the strings. How do Fonzie and his pals react to all this? Find out by pushing the play button below for the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast . 
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So... whatever happened to serial killers?

Are serial killers a thing of the past?
Remember serial killers? Those sweaty, shifty-eyed men who used to dominate the news cycle? Sure, you do.  They used to be the stuff of nightmares. They were all over TV. Remember TV? Serial killers were huge on there. Movies, too. And books, magazines, and newspapers. You youngsters may not remember, but us older folks will never forget.
For a few decades, serial killers dominated popular culture. We needed something to fill the void after The Beatles broke up, and apparently they were it. You'd see them being taken away in handcuffs after the police discovered their crawlspace full of human torsos. Later, they'd spout some wackadoo gibberish while defending themselves in court. Sometimes, they'd have three names, like John Wayne Gacy or Henry Lee Lucas. 
Enjoy the '90s while they last, pal.We'd be horrified by their crimes, but we'd be compelled, too. They became antiheroes. People wrote them fan letters. In the '90s, you'd occasionally see their intense faces staring at you from magazine covers and T-shirts. Your "edgy" friend might name his terrible band after one of them. There were tasteless jokes and SNL sketches about them.
So what happened to those guys? From roughly the 1970s to the '90s, you could count on a new serial killer every few years. They were an important part of the news cycle. We depended on them, if only for reassurance that we ourselves weren't so bad. "At least I'm not that guy," you could think.

And then... what? We just collectively stopped serial killing? You're asking me to believe that serial killing was just some kooky phase we went through as a society and got over? People got bored with it? Moved on to something else? I can't even remember the last new serial killer to become a media sensation. It's been decades. Where are the Bundys and Dahmers of tomorrow coming from? I ask you.
I refuse to believe that the human race has evolved beyond serial killing. We're not one bit better than we were in the '80s and '90s. If anything, we're worse. Like, a lot worse. We're more violent, delusional, and narcissistic than we ever were. I guess, in the 21st century, we've shifted from serial killing to mass murder. Which, like, sure. It's more efficient. I get it. You can kill a bunch of people at one time and become just as notorious, feared, and hated.

But there was a certain artistry, if you want to call it that,  to serial killing. If you, as a killer, spread your crimes out over a period of months or even years, you could create compelling narrative that wouldn't be possible with just a single afternoon of bloodshed. You could develop a mystique. Hollywood understood this. Think of Norman Bates, Michael Myers, Hannibal Lecter—serial killers all, not a mass murderer in the bunch.
You know who I think ruined it? The BTK guy. First off, his nickname makes you think of Burger King. Secondly, when they finally found him, he looked like an assistant manager at Denny's. Hardly the kind of guy to wind up on a T-shirt. A lot of the mystique was gone. And then, after Oklahoma City, Columbine, and 9/11, serial killers were yesterday's news. They seemed quaint. In recent decades, sex-related crimes have arguably eclipsed murder in the public imagination.
It's obvious that we're still fascinated with serial killers in the 21st Century. There are plenty of movies and TV shows about them being made, but the killers themselves are either fictional or decades-old. Bundy's used up. Gacy's used up. Dahmer is beyond used up. Maybe the age of serial killers is gone forever. It's not that I want them to come back, exactly. But it is strange that they vanished from the scene, isn't it?
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