*Note: I know that while Ed Wood is not technically a horror or monster film, it is a film about a man who made monster films (and bad ones at that) so I think that this fits in with the spirit of Monster Fest just fine*
When people think of Tim Burton movies, for some reason or another, Ed Wood is usually not one that comes up. Usually it’s films such as Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Batman, Big Fish and The Nightmare Before Christmas (a film he did not even direct). This is a shame because Ed Wood is not only one of Tim Burton’s best films but also is just a great movie in general.
Based on the very strange movie career of struggling, cross-dressing schlock director Edward D. Wood, Jr., Ed Wood manages to create very surreal atmosphere that almost does not feel right at times. It feels like it is all taking place in one of Wood’s B-movies, only it is about him rather than grave-robbing aliens from outer space. The film follows Wood through the period of time where he made his three most "popular" pictures: Glen or Glenda, The Bride of the Monster, and the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space (which has been ridiculed as the worst movie of all-time for a while now).
Unlike Wood’s movies, it contains some great acting from an amazing cast that features the likes of Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette and many more. Depp portrays Wood as a very caring and passionate individual who really tried his best to make some personal films. Of course, that’s not what resulted but, the point is, his heart was in the right place. Martin Landau is amazing as Bela Lugosi, who befriends Wood and appeared in three of his films at a time in his life when he was suffering from a terrible addiction to morphine. Landau was so good as Lugosi that he actually won an Oscar for the role (as did make-up artist Rick Baker for the make-up job he did to create Lugosi).
For me, the strongest section of the film deals with the heart-felt friendship between Wood and Lugosi. Wood does his best to help out Lugosi, who is all washed up and strung out by this point in his career. As the two send more time between each other, a deep and unusual friendship forms. The scene where Wood thanks Lugosi after a long night shoot that took place in a dirty lake with a giant, fake octopus (that was missing it’s motor to make it move) is always the one that gets to me (I’ve mentioned this before). This scene really manages to spell out the deep respect and care these two have for each other and its really touching despite being a very simple scene. A lot of this has to do with the great performances by Depp and Landau.
Despite having a strong emotional impact, Ed Wood is also a really funny film. Scenes that depict Wood making his films are almost always hilarious. Actors knock over cardboard tombstones on graveyard sets and Wood doesn’t even attempt to shoot a second take. “The audience will never notice that,” he would state. Years later, we know that that just isn’t true (a few years after his death, Wood was named “the worst director of all-time,” a title that has gained him a huge cult following today). For me, the funniest scenes deal with Bela Lugosi acting in Glen or Glenda. The scene where he delivers the infamous “Pull the strings!” line almost had me on the floor the first time I saw it. That and the scene of him wrestling the fake, motionless octopus in the lake was also pretty hilarious… if not a little sad at the same time (especially when you see him shoot up with morphine right before hand). A lot more humor is found in the film’s various quirky scenes that feel too strange to be true but for one reason or another, you manage to find acceptable.
Ed Wood is one of those movies that has a lot of things going for it. It has some great atmospheric and caring direction by Tim Burton (who obviously cares very much about his source material), a great B-movie score by Howard Shore (Danny Elfman did not do the score for this one because he and Burton were on the outs at this point in time), wonderful acting from Depp, Landau and the rest of the cast, lots of emotion, and a great deal of humor. Despite the abundance of humor and the quirky tone, Burton manages to create somewhat of a tragedy due to the fact that Wood truly believed that he was creating good films. Filmmaking was something that he really cared about and had a passion for… but he just didn’t have a talented bone in his body. Because of this, he failed and has only become the subject of ridicule and mockery over the past forty or so years. However, his life sure did make for a wonderful film. At least, after everything that happened to him and all that came out of his filmmaking career, Burton was able to make a film that showed him to be a caring, incredibly optimistic and well-intentioned human being that did his best to make a good movie.
8/10
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