The watch party last Friday featured Bride and the Beast, most famous (among a certain elite demographic) for having been scripted by Ed Wood Jr. If not directed by him, which no doubt helped in making it fairly competent technically. It also, sadly, lacks the rich, convoluted baroqueness of Wood’s usual dialog. However, in terms of weirdness and fetishes it’s right up there. For instance, it features a hero who has a secret gorilla chamber in his house–this is portrayed as completely normal–in which he keeps his caged ape, Spanky. (!!!)
I scored a rather satisfying Nerd Point then I predicted that the heroine would get the sort of life regression session, ala Bridey Murphy, that informed other cheapie horrors of the time like Corman’s The Undead and Edward Cahn’s The She-Creature. It was pretty satisfying when GalaxyJane expressed surprise when I was proven correct. As you can see, the heroine wears Angora through much of the picture, as scripted by Wood. The film spends half it’s time incorporating a killer tiger plotline stolen along with footage from another (much more competent) film–some of which I think was also featured in Jungle Hell–before finally returning to the main film for ten minutes to wrap things up with one of the most questionable endings I’ve ever seen, much less for a film made in the 50s. I wonder what the kiddie matinees of the time made of it. Anyway, it’s on Prime if you want to take a look.
