Night of the Ghouls

Dir: Ed Wood

1959

***

Made only a few years after its predecessor Bride of the Monster, Night of the Ghouls wasn’t actually released until 1984 – nearly twenty-five years after it was made, after most of the key players had died. Night of the Ghouls is a very loose sequel in that it shares a few of the characters from the first film and its events happen after the those of the first film. The basic plot involves the police investigating another haunted house that is said to serve as headquarters for a confidence trickster called Dr. Acula (get it?) who pretends to be able to contact the dead, and charges naive customers large amounts of money to allow them to speak to their deceased loved ones. The opening scene features a montage of seemingly unrelated events, which seem to feature Wood's view of the post-war era and its social problems including juvenile delinquency, street fighting, and driving under the influence. In one scene a car is seen driving off a cliff and crashing with the sequence ending with the bloody corpse of the drunk driver staring blankly at the camera. It’s an odd sort of ‘You get what’s coming to you’ vibe that acts as a warning, albeit a misplaced one. The film then reverts to well-trodden 1950s b-movie territory as we see a young couple getting amorous with each other in a car parked in the woods. The guy gets a bit too hands on and both are killed by a ghost as the girl tries to get away from him. It is explained that the house from the first film has been rebuilt and Dr. Acula is making a killing from clients thanks to the history of the place. However, little does he know, but his powers might not be as false as he first thought. The film is full of bad jokes but is redeemed somewhat by its charm. The Ghost scenes were quite funny, what with the floating lamps and the odd sound effects but why were there two skeletons sitting at the table during the séance remains a hilarious mystery. It was a bit disappointing when we finally do see the 'Ghouls' of the film’s title, only to find they're a bunch of middle age men in suits but what doesn’t frighten you makes you roll about laughing. In a brief epilogue which also closes the frame story, the narrator – who had come out of his coffin to tell us the tale - returns to his grave, suggesting that it is time for both the old dead and the new to return to rest, reminding the viewer that he/she too can soon join them in death. Certainly not one of Wood’s best but definitely one of his funnier films.I loved that officer Kelton returned and it was great to see Tor Johnson as Lobo once more – I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been for fans of the original to see the sequel for the first time after twenty-five years of waiting. Ed Wood finished the principal photography and rough cut of the film by late 1957, but could not financially afford paying for the post-production work. In 1958, the film laboratory opted to keep the negative film footage until the bill could be paid, and it remained unpaid for nearly three decades. By the 1980s film historians either considered Night of the Ghouls a lost film or suspected that the film never existed in completed form, since there was no evidence it was ever released theatrically nor ever shown on television. Another great piece of quirky film history by the great director.