Ed Wood didn’t direct The Bride and the Beast; he “only” wrote it. One really can’t tell the difference, as the film is stamped with the Plan 9 auteur’s brand of incompetence all around.

The bride of the title is Laura (Charlotte Austin, Gorilla at Large), newly married to Dan (Lance Fuller, This Island Earth). However, her hubby is not the beast … but he does keep it caged in his basement! And by “it,” we mean his gorilla. (Yes, gorilla.) It is named Spanky. (Yes, Spanky.)

Captured as a baby, the now fully grown Spanky is due to be shipped to the zoo in a week’s time. Wasting no precious moments, the big ape goes so agog at the sight of lovely Laura, he bends the bars of his cage! The fascination is mutual, as Laura — sleeping in her twin bed, separate from Dan — dreams of having her nightgown ripped off by Spanky. Even awake, she can’t quite contain her obsession, which stems — as hypnosis reveals — from the suppressed fact that she used to be gorilla herself in a previous life.

Ah, but of course! The way it’s written, it makes perfect sense … if your name were Ed Wood. The way it plays out onscreen, guided by The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand serial producer Adrian Weiss in his only feature gig as director, it makes zero sense, which is the only reason The Bride and the Beast didn’t disappear into mere memories. The pic is Woodsian through and through, as exemplified by:
• obvious day-for-night shots, made all the more jarring by a storm that’s supposed to be taking place;
• a variety of mismatched stock footage for the second half’s jungle scenes, some of which are negatively exposed;
• the man-vs.-tiger wrestling match, in which the cat clearly is a stuffed animal; and
• suspect science, including Dan’s outright untruth that the tarantula is “as deadly as the lion’s fang and the elephant’s foot.”

We also can’t discount the howler of an ending, which finds newlywed Dan suddenly back to bachelorhood as Laura rejoins the apes as their rightful queen. To think of the activities that await her and Spanky in private is … is … well, it’s an image I don’t want seared in my brain. Moviegoers who paid good money in 1958 to catch The Bride and the Beast in theaters must have found it a safari on the regret level of Cecil the Lion. —Rod Lott

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Look, up in the sky! It’s a turd! It’s a shame! It’s Supersonic Man!

And it’s a must-watch for those who enjoy a foreign-born larceny of an American blockbuster, with this bane-from-Spain import courtesy of Pod People progenitor Juan Piquer Simón. His Supersonic Man wouldn’t exist without 1978’s Superman, the iconic sci-fi fantasy that made us believe a man could fly. By contrast, Supersonic Man reinstills all doubt. ¡Viva España!

To save the planet Earth, aliens send one of their own, in the “almost invincible” human form of Paul (Antonio Cantafora, Demons 2), a reporter with a pornstache and a nifty watch. Whenever Paul presses it — the watch, just to clarify — and speaks the magical phrase, “May the force of the galaxies go with you,” two things happen:
1. Shazam!-style, he instantly turns into the superhero named Supersonic (no “Man,” thank you), noticeably buffer and vibrantly costumed, including a blue tint on what little of his face remains exposed.
2. Viewers realize Simón was not content cashing in on Superman, so he went for Star Wars, too.

Supersonic’s Lex Luthor is Dr. Gulik (Cameron Mitchell, Night Train to Terror), a madman who wants nothing more than to get his evil hands on a formula that will transform lasers into death rays. As it just so happens, Professor Morgan (José María Caffarel of Simón’s Jules Verne adaptation, The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth) is close to completing said formula, so Gulik commands his minions in color-coded jumpsuits and one boxy, slow-moving robot to kidnap the friendly scientist and hold him ransom for the Dr. Evil-esque sum of $5,000!

Meanwhile, this turn of events puts Morgan’s single and sexually available daughter, Patricia (Diana Polakov, The People Who Own the Dark), in danger, so Paul inserts himself into the picture in order to protect her. Initially, she resists, because she doesn’t talk to strangers. “Stranger? I’m Paul!” he responds, as if that says everything. “I’m no stranger!” He’s also the one and only Supersonic, so Patricia unknowingly gets the best of both worlds: free dinner at a French restaurant, and being saved from a head-on collision with a steamroller.

When Paul becomes his alter ego (portrayed by José Luis Ayestarán, star of a couple of unofficial Tarzan pics), Supersonic Man naturally stands at its shoddiest and most stirring. Although the likes of corrosive gases and hot lava prove no match, he is felled by a pool cue to the noggin. When Supersonic is put through a ringer of challenges as he attempts infiltration of his archenemy’s lair, Dr. Gulik manically claps and laughs like the half-senile idiot he fully resembles. You very well may do the same — if not then, perhaps during the chase scene involving a Volkswagen Bug, the appearance of a killer shark for no good reason, a recurring gag with an alcoholic bum, any of many green-screen depictions of flight or … hell, the film’s entirety. For sheer entertainment, it beats the $225-million Man of Steel any day. —Rod Lott

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In the professorial environment of higher ed, the ol’ chestnut is “publish or perish.” It’s not meant to be taken literally. In defense of Dr. Peter Houseman, he doesn’t set out to take it that way.

Played with narcotized indifference by Beyond Darkness’ Gene LeBrock (as Tom Cruise-ian as Peter Facinelli, but with era-apropos feathered hair), Houseman is a Virginia University genetics professor on the verge of creating an anti-aging serum. When the administration threatens to cut his funding if he can’t cough up findings, he skips further studies on monkeys and proceeds directly to introducing modified DNA to his own bloodstream. Using a footlong syringe, he injects the juice through his eyeball, and doesn’t so much as blink or flinch, presumably because he’s a Sexy Faculty Member bursting with testosterone-soaked spermatozoa. Because we’ve seen David Cronenberg’s The Fly, we know things won’t go well.

Directed by George Eastman (screenwriter and star of Joe D’Amato’s Anthropophagus and its Horrible sequel), Metamorphosis doesn’t place The Fly on the Xerox machine as much as it openly copies off its test paper. Subbing for Geena Davis is Catherine Baranov, remarkably adequate for a one-credit actress (and if the Internet Movie Database is to be believed, a waitress at the hotel where the cast and crew slept during the shoot). Look for former Emanuelle Laura Gemser in a bit part as a prostitute overpowered by our truly mad scientist.

While we’re on the subject on all things overwhelming, the synth-driven score (with occasional cowbell) by Pahamian (aka Women’s Prison Massacre composer Luigi Ceccarelli) is so loud, it possesses the power to drown out dialogue. Worthy of praise, however, is the effects work by Maurizio Trani; a frequent collaborator of Lucio Fulci, Trani provides rather impressive makeup for the metamorphosing Houseman as he ventures from mere Hulk eyes to Sleestak face to … well, you’ll just have to see it. And fans of maniacal-medicine movies should. —Rod Lott

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In the future, you can live out your life through a replica while you lie in comfort, manipulating it via mere thought — seeing what it sees, feeling what it feels. Yes, that’s James Cameron’s Avatar. But it’s also Jonathan Mostow’s Surrogates, a Bruce Willis vehicle that’s not another Die Hard sequel.

Based on the excellent 2006 graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, Surrogates imagines that mass-produced robot stand-ins have caught on so well, violent crime has plunged 99 percent. That 1 percent takes a terrifying turn when two surrogates are murdered in an act that also offs their owners, reclining supposedly safely at home.

FBI agents Greer (Willis) and Peters (Radha Mitchell, Silent Hill) are called in to investigate, and to be honest, the trail isn’t exactly cold, given that there’s a crazed anti-surrogate movement headed by a dreadlocked, compound-residing man who calls himself Prophet (Ving Rhames, Piranha 3D).

Despite the core similarity to the aforementioned Avatar, the movie Surrogates really reminds one of is I, Robot, once the murder mystery gets going. Hell, both even feature James Cromwell in virtually the same role! But whereas that Will Smith blockbuster was dreadful in everything but effects, Surrogates musters enough pizazz in a lean, mean 89 minutes — with credits — that it merits a recommendation.

It’s not action on a grand scale, but it sure delivers the goods greater than Mostow’s most high-profile time at bat, with 2003’s disappointing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. His stylistic changes in bringing the book to life are interesting. For example, whereas Venditti and Weldele’s work was almost monochromatic, there isn’t a color on the palette Mostow doesn’t use, and candy-coated at that.

That’s reflective of society’s superficial nature, which — after technology — is the movie’s true target. With that comes the decision to cast surrogates in plastic, Barbie-like features. In the graphic novel, you couldn’t tell the difference between humans and surrogates, but here, it’s obvious at every turn, which dilutes some of the suspense. Still, the fact that there’s at least some there makes the flick fun for an overnight rental. —Rod Lott

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Our world has no shortage of Alien imitators, but to find one from the UK is so rare, it makes Inseminoid something of a novelty. I mean, Italy, sure — God, yes! — but Great Britain? The royal land of tea and crumpets and Masterpiece Theatre? The mind boggles …

… and the opening narration certainly does, wearing us down with minutiae about the Horror Planet (the film’s alternate title) we neither asked for nor need: its past population, average temperature, number of suns — holy geez, save something for the Wikipedia page! Here are the essentials: scientists, alien, death. Done!

If the title of Inseminoid strikes your ears as rather reproductive, it should, because the movie’s squatty creature rapes one of the characters (Judy Geeson, It Happened at Nightmare Inn) specifically for spawning purposes. Director Norman J. Warren (Bloody New Year) frames said alien rising between Geeson’s spread legs, as if it were an OB/GYN finishing an exam. Inseminoid’s ick factor reaches peak revulsion as Geeson is impregnated via what looks like pickled eggs plucked greedily from the local pub’s communal jar and then, with Re-Animator fluid as a lubricant, slid directly into her womb through a Habitrail.

Later, as the body count rises parallel to audience boredom, surviving crew members plant bombs around the cavernous facility to win their otherworldly war; I swear the explosives are red Wiffle balls. With props like that, Warren was in no danger of hitting this project out of the park.

Despite an interesting cast that includes Stephanie Beacham (Schizo) and former Steve Martin spouse Victoria Tennant (1987’s Flowers in the Attic), this upper-crust, low-wattage blend of sci-fi, horror and accents nearly requiring subtitles is never quite what you think or hope it will be. Inseminoid is a seed that finds no purchase. —Rod Lott

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