Bride of the Monster

Last night I was watching the film Bride of the Monster, a 1955 film written and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. The film revolves around a spate of strange deaths and disappearances in a swamp. The local people blame a legendary monster, in fact, the neighbourhood mad scientist (Bela Lugosi, in his last speaking role) is responsible. He is experimenting on passers-by in order to create a race of "Atomic Supermen" to take over the world, and his aided by his hulking, mute assistant Lobo (Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson) and his pet, a giant man-eating octopus which lives in the swamp. of course, it's not long before a young female reporter and her cop boyfriend get involved in the scientist's plans. Needless to say, it is a very bad film. Full of mis-matched stock footage, visibly shakey sets and some of the worst acting ever seen. The most hilarious thing about it is the giant octopus, which was a rubber model apparently stolen from a movie studio. however someone either forgot, or lost, the motor to make the arms move, and so the thing just sits there motionless, with the victims thrashing about with the octopus arms to make it look as if it's killing them. Also the fact that the octopus just looks like a large rubber model in a pond, dosen't quite gel with the stock footage of a real octopus in what is obviously a fishtank. However, it is very funny, and has a real verve to it that a lot of much better movies lack. The making of the film was dramatised in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood.

It was the same as usual at work today. Very quiet and very dull.