Bride of the Monster opens on a dark stormy night, the wind howls as the rain lashes down between strikes of lightening and rumbling thunder. It's Lake Marsh and two men, Mac (Bud Osborne) and Jake (John Warren) are caught unawares by the storm and find themselves stranded. They seek refuge in 'Willow' mansion owned by mad Russian scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). Vornoff warns the men to leave. Before they can Vornoff's idiotic servant Lobo (Tor Johnson) creeps up behind them and sends them running back into the swamp. There Mac and Jake are attacked by Vornoff's monstrous creation that lives there, a giant octopus. Lobo manages to retrieve one of the men and take him back to Vornoff's laboratory where Vornoff sticks a siv with three spark plugs stuck to the top on his head. Vornoff then shines a light in his face, which proves fatal. Vornoff bemoans yet another failed experiment. Captain of homicide Tom Robbins (Harvey B. Dunn) calls Lieutenant Dick Craig (Tony McCoy) into his office to discuss the disappearance of twelve men near Lake Marsh. Lt. Craig says he has nothing to go on when his fiancé who works as a journalist, Janet Lawton (Loretta King) walks into Robbins office. Janet feels the police aren't doing everything they can so she decides to do some investigating of her own, much to the displeasure of Lt. Craig and Captain Robbins. After some research Janet drives out to Lake Marsh but crashes her car in a violent thunder storm and is kidnapped by Lobo. Back at headquarters Captain Robbins and Lt. Craig talk to the leading authority on Prehistoric monsters, Professor Vladimir Strowski (George Becwar) who convinces them that the legends of a monster surrounding the swamps may be true and along with Lt. Craig and his partner Detective Marty Martin (Don Nagel) decides to head out to the swamps to check things out. Vornoff dresses Janet in a white bridal gown (I don't know why) and prepares her to undergo more of his insane experiments which he hopes will create a race of Atomic supermen to conquer the world! Once at the swamp Lt. Craig finds Janet's abandoned car with her nowhere to be seen. Will Lt. Craig be able to solve the mystery and rescue his fiancé Janet before she becomes Vornoff's latest experiment? Or will he end up octopus food?
Written and directed by Edwood D. Wood Jr. I thought this film was nowhere near as bad as it's reputation suggests. In fact I was impressed with it considering all the negative things I had heard. Don't misunderstand me as it certainly isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but as a decent, fun, silly and entertaining 50's monster film I quite liked it. It moves along at a fair pace and at under 70 minutes it doesn't outstay it's welcome, but it did start to drag a little in the middle but it picked up again towards the end. The dialogue, although stupid at times, isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's simple and basic but coherent. Obviously there are 'bad' bits in the film, Vornoff's lab for instance is just a simple set with the stonework and bricks painted onto the walls to give the impression of an old Gothic dungeon. There is the odd continuity error and the special effects for the giant octopus are truly terrible, plus the octopus isn't really in it enough just a somewhat measly three times. The black and white photography by Ted Allan and William C. Thompson is simple but clean and crisp, at least you can see whats going on all the time which is all I was hoping for. Lugosi puts in a decent performance, Johnson is absolutely awful and he can hardly walk straight much less act and Dunn as Robbins is actually quite funny in a couple of scenes particularly when he questions the old woman in the records office. I really don't think this film deserves to be in the bottom 100, I've seen many film much worse than this fairly innocent, fun and at times charming little 50's effort from Edward D. Wodd Jr.! Difficult to recommend for casual viewers, but definitely worth a watch if you like these types of films.
Written and directed by Edwood D. Wood Jr. I thought this film was nowhere near as bad as it's reputation suggests. In fact I was impressed with it considering all the negative things I had heard. Don't misunderstand me as it certainly isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but as a decent, fun, silly and entertaining 50's monster film I quite liked it. It moves along at a fair pace and at under 70 minutes it doesn't outstay it's welcome, but it did start to drag a little in the middle but it picked up again towards the end. The dialogue, although stupid at times, isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's simple and basic but coherent. Obviously there are 'bad' bits in the film, Vornoff's lab for instance is just a simple set with the stonework and bricks painted onto the walls to give the impression of an old Gothic dungeon. There is the odd continuity error and the special effects for the giant octopus are truly terrible, plus the octopus isn't really in it enough just a somewhat measly three times. The black and white photography by Ted Allan and William C. Thompson is simple but clean and crisp, at least you can see whats going on all the time which is all I was hoping for. Lugosi puts in a decent performance, Johnson is absolutely awful and he can hardly walk straight much less act and Dunn as Robbins is actually quite funny in a couple of scenes particularly when he questions the old woman in the records office. I really don't think this film deserves to be in the bottom 100, I've seen many film much worse than this fairly innocent, fun and at times charming little 50's effort from Edward D. Wodd Jr.! Difficult to recommend for casual viewers, but definitely worth a watch if you like these types of films.