Review of "Orgy of the Dead" (1965)

Orgy of the Dead (1965)

ThE WoRST MoVIE OF All TiME !!!

I wonder which one of the Golden Girls this is? Blanche?

I had survived a whole string of bad, pointless movies up to this point. Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer pain of this movie. The pain was carefully administered by Bulgarian born director Stephen Apostolof (who seems to be a veteran of bad sexploitation movies). It was written by none other than our good friend Ed Wood Jr. Anyone who has ever seen an Ed Wood movie can vouch for the dialog in this movie. It is vintage Ed Wood. The script must have been about 10 pages long. If the dialog was ad-libbed as they shot the film, it would have been a thousand times better than what was written. The good thing about Ed Wood is that he usually kept his movies short (45-60 minutes long). Stephen on the other hand is a master torturer (something he must have learned in his native Bulgaria, working in a Communist prison). The plot (what a joke - nonexistent plot) is simple.

The epic meeting between Criswell and Elivra.

The Emperor (played by perennial Ed Wood star Criswell - who also never learned to memorize his lines) is in the cemetery getting his monthly dose of undead topless cabaret, sponsored by a Monika Lewinsky look-a-like ghoul. During all this, our protagonists, Bob & Shirely are driving around (at night in some shots, during the day in others) looking for a cemetery such that Bob can get ideas about the new story he is writing. After a convenient car crash (happens to be right at the cemetery they were looking for), our protagonists get thrown out of the car and wake up on the ground without so much as a stain on them. They happen to find the "orgy" where Criswell and Monika are sitting around. Exciting isn't it? That is the first 10-15 minutes of the movie. From this point forth the pain commences. For the next 70 minutes or so, we are presented with the dance of the dead girls. There are about 10 girls that come out in various costumes (from the golden girl, to Indian girl, to the zombie girl, to cat girl,etc..etc). They come out dressed in their costume, and miraculously as the camera pans to Criswell and Monika and then pans back, they are topless and dancing. Normally, this should be rather interesting, but its not. I think maybe when I was 8 years old I would have found this titillating. There is no reason to any of it. I have seen porn that has better acting and is more interesting to watch than this movie. I would say if the dancing was any good that would be something, but the dancing is mediocre at best. Not only that but the music doesn't match what they are dancing to. At one point I swear the zombie girl is doing the macarena. As the director states in the interview featurette on the DVD, the music they actually danced to was not the music we hear. Someone actually composed the crappy soundtrack we hear. This movie is a disaster.

The second right before the Mummy was to "keep it real" with the Wolf Man. BANG. ZOOM.

After the first hour, I found myself fast forwarding at 2x speed to get to the dialog. Did I mention the Mummy and Wolfman make an appearance in this movie as well ? Did I also mention that the Mummy talks and Wolfman's howl sounds like Shirley screaming ? Well it is all painfully true. The ending is a relief, even though there is a Robot Monster type ending. This is not the end. Everyone should watch the 19 minute interview with the director, to get a better perspective about the man responsible for so much pain. A.C Stephens, as he is also known, talks about everything under the sun (never saw an Ed Wood movie because he heard they were terrible). He tends to laugh at himself (he seems to think quite highly of himself) and calls the topless situation - mammary glands. And then Doomsday arrives when he mentions his idea of making Orgy of the Dead 2, which is going to explain in more detail the characters, and it takes place in the year 2800 or so. GOOD GOD !!! Anyway, this movie should at no point be watched solo. The pain must be shared through at least 2 people, fully loaded on Jack Daniels (at least). This movie could actually be quite instructive as I believe it should be shown in every freshman film school class, to prevent things like this from being made. After all this, go out and see it. Your life may depend on it.

Turdenstein approaches:

The rest of the screen shots are here.