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A Passion For Horror
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Bride of the Monster (1955)
Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr.
The opening credits for Bride of the Monster roll against a backdrop scene of a very spooky looking house on a stormy night. The rain lashes down, the lightning flashes and it looks like it has the making of a very good film. For me looks were deceptive and I didn't enjoy the film that much. If every I had nothing to do on a stormy night and the rain was lashing down outside, though, I might watch it again. The spooky looking house is where Dr Eric Vornoff lives with only his manservant, Lobo, for company. Lobo is supposed to look menacing and perhaps if I were 30 years younger he would look menacing, but to me what Lobo really looks like is a genie that has lost his lamp and had to take up alternative employment as henchman to a mad scientist. Vornoff is an exile from his homeland because his Russian comrades thought that he was a few tokens short for a pop-up toaster when he began to explain his theories about atomic energy and its untapped usefulness when it comes to making a race of superhumans. Now Vornoff travels the world and conducts his experiments in private and he seems to always take up residence in property that is near a lake. His present property is near a lake and there would seem to be a monster living in the lake. After Vornoff had lived near Loch Ness for a while, we are lead to believe, Nessie suddenly started putting in an appearance. I am not sure what the Scottish Tourist Board would make of that one, but I suppose that they can't prove that Nessie wasn't the brainchild of a batty scientist with an unhealthy interest in nuclear physics. The area around Vornoff's home is not perhaps the safest of places for a picnic or a spot of bird watching because (even if you forget about the crocodiles, and the monster doesn't get you) Lobo has the charming habit of kidnapping people and then manhandling them onto the couch in Vornoff's laboratory. Once he has them on his couch Vornoff straps the poor blighters down and puts something that looks vaguely reminiscent of a metal colander onto their heads. He then subjects them to a little unwanted radiation treatment that will either kill them or turn them into superhumans. So far all of Vornoff's experiments have failed. In the guise of a monster hunter, former associate of Vornoff, Professor Strowski has been travelling the world in search of him. After Vornoff's obvious success at places like Loch Ness, Vornoff's homeland want to welcome him back, whether he welcomes the idea or not. Needless to say, Vornoff has no desire to go home and Strowski ends up as monster bait. Meanwhile a nosy female reporter has turned up at the lake and she too ends up in the clutches of the man that would make monsters. Unfortunately for Vornoff though, Lobo gets the hots for little miss read-all-about-it and he turns on his master. I am not going to tell you what happens exactly, but suffice it to say that Vornoff gets a taste of his own medicine, courtesy of Lobo, and becomes a changed man. He becomes a bigger man too, or seems to, until you notice that he is wearing the kind of built up shoes that The Pinball Wizard from Tommy would be proud off.
CAST Bela
Lugosi
... Dr. Eric Vornoff
DVD DETAILS Run time: 68 Minutes Filmed in black and white |
