Ed Wood: not such a bad director...

[ToyMan]

i spent three hours watching "bride of the monster", "night of the ghouls", and "plan 9 from outerspace" back-to-back-to-back this weekend, and i have to say; ed wood really wasn't that bad of a director.

sure, his actors came off like they'd just read the lines moments earlier, his sets were s**t (especially the police sets in "ghouls"), and his ethics were questionable, but i've seen far worse...

ladies and gentlemen, ed wood has been placed on a throne that belongs to...

RAY DENNIS STECKLER

...and no, i'm not saying that steckler's films are "bad in a good way". they're just... bad.

to give you an idea of how bad i think he is, i once rented "the chooper" (no, not "the chopper"...) and when i dubbed it, i left the joe bob briggs commentary running.

where ed wood gives us hokey characters in silly situations, steckler gives us him and his english-challenged friends in s**tty musical numbers. where herschell gordon lewis gives us unabashed gore scene after gore scene featuring sloppily painted mannequin parts, steckler gives us a man in a black leotard and ski mask with a machete. where coffin joe gives us characters who attempt to spit in the face of religious convention by eating meat on a forbidden day, steckler gives us a 15 minute foot chase on the beach.

seriously, stay away from steckler, kids. there's no coming back.

[akiratubo]

Bride of the Monster wasn't such a bad movie at all.

[The Burgomaster]

As bad as Wood's movies are, they are generally fun to watch.  At least he knew how to keep people interested.

[Vermin Boy]

I have to admit a genuine fondness for Ray Dennis Steckler's films. This is mostly thanks to Rat Pfink A Boo Boo, which I consider to be one of the most enjoyably insane films ever made, but I love the others I've seen, too. They've all got a cheerfully cheap vibe to them, like Steckler knows how low budget they are, but he's having too much fun to care. Sure, his movies are BAD, by most people's standards, but honestly, that's a distinction I stopped making a long, long time ago. :)

I do agree, though, that Wood's films are far too entertaining to make him the world's worst director. For my money, that'd go to Coleman Francis, whose three directorial credits are The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Skydivers, and Red Zone Cuba. Dreary, shoddy stuff.

Also, have you ever seen Steckler's Thrill Killers? It was a long time ago that I saw it, and I'm pretty sure it was pretty late, but I recall a few genuinely well-shot, suspenseful scenes in that one.

[dean]

Yeah, I've also always thought there were a lot worse directors out there [or still out there].

Perhaps the distinction is in Ed Wood being the best 'bad' director?  Though that's probably not the case for me either.

Anyways, he's made some fun movies, and I really enjoyed Burton's Ed Wood so I'm not really fussed about the whole thing: I'm just thankful Ed Wood was around to begin with.

[The Burgomaster]

I also enjoy Steckler's movies (but please don't tell anyone I said that!)

I have several on DVD:

* RAT PFINK AND BOO BOO
* THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES . . .
* THE LEMON GROVE KIDS MEET THE MONSTERS
* THE THRILL KILLERS

It's fun to see what he could do on shoestring budgets.

[trekgeezer]

The thing that distinguishes Ed Wood is the fact that despite his films being derided, he was so damned enthusiastic about film making. Plus not many guys look that good in an Angora sweater.

[ToyMan]

i've always described ed as "the best-known worst director ever", because we all know that there are some terribly s**tty directors out there, but no one made movies about their careers...

[LH-C]

trek_geezer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The thing that distinguishes Ed Wood is the fact
> that despite his films being derided, he was so
> damned enthusiastic about film making.

Yeah. Although, because of people like him, I wonder, even though I love movies a lot, that if I made one, that it would suck.

[LilCerberus]

ToyMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i've always described ed as "the best-known worst
> director ever", because we all know that there are
> some terribly s**tty directors out there, but no
> one made movies about their careers...


I would have to agree with this, as well as Trek_Geezer's comment about Wood's  enthusiasm.

Personally, I''ve always believed that Wood's eccentricities, and his openess about them at the time, were the tabloid fodder that provided the badly needed publicity over the short term, but also a major deterent to serious investors over the long term.

Not that money would've made Plan 9 a great movie, but rather a sense that if the airplane pilots actually had yolks instead of painted 2x4s, it probably would have been more forgetable than rediculous.

After sitting through Lary Buchanan's "It's Alive", David L Hewitt's "The Wizard of Mars", and many other baddities by directors that I daresay make Timothy Hines look good, I would have to say that the earlier works of Ed Wood were at least able hold my attention.

I think it's perhaps because Ed Wood's ineptitude comes across with noticable absurdity, whereas the ineptitude of those that followed was simply inept.

[plan9superfan]

Ed Wood? Ray Dennis Steckler?

AMATEURS


When it comes to s**tty filmmaking, or just s**tty storytelling, NO ONE beats Joss Whedon.

[Vermin Boy]

plan9superfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ed Wood? Ray Dennis Steckler?
>
> AMATEURS
>

Isn't that kinda the entire point of this thread?

[Ozzymandias]

Here is a name we are overlooking: Andy Milligan. Ed Wood had that Frank Cappra/John Ford opptimism, but Milligan had that Tennesse Willaims/Edward Albee bickering and sleeziness that makes his stuff so hard to watch.

[peter johnson]

Jeez . . .
Y'know, that's the kind of fans we have here at badmovies . . .
People who'll champion a fellow who couldn't write a word of good dialogue if you held a gun to his head.  A man who thought terror could come from -- dare we say it? -- the female rape of a man!!
Seriously, Wille "One-Shot" Beaudine, or Phil Tucker, or Ray Dennis Steckler could've been "bad", but I still champion Ed as the worst of the worst -- Seriously, Steckler never had as a "feature" a movie consisting of nothing but topless women dancing in a cemetary.
I won't deny Woods' entertainment value, but let's not get carried away here . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[plan9superfan]

Didn't Tim Burton already establish that Ed Wood is not sucha bad director after all?

And besides, how can he be any worse than Joel Schumacher?