Bride of the Monster (1955) on Netflix
Dr. Eric Vornoff and his mute assistant Lobo capture men for atomic experiments meant to create supermen. Reporter Janet Lawton vows to investigate a house said to be haunted.
- Netflix2.4/5
- IMDb4.2/108,206 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes55%
Trailer
Plot summary
Two hunters caught in a thunderstorm take shelter at Willows House, which is said to be abandoned and haunted. Its owner, the scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff, refuses them entry, and his mute assistant Lobo drives them off. One hunter is seized by a giant octopus Vornoff keeps in a tank, and Lobo captures the other, who becomes a subject in the experiments with atomic energy by which Vornoff means to create supermen. Twelve men have now vanished. Reporter Janet Lawton, whose fiancé is Lieutenant Dick Craig, vows to investigate Lake Marsh. Driving there alone in another storm, she runs off the road into a ravine and is rescued by Lobo, then wakes at Willows House and is put back to sleep by hypnosis.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bride of the Monster (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Actor George Becwar, who played the Russian agent Strowski, complained to the Screen Actors Guild that he was underpaid for one day's work, and the resulting investigation shut down production. Wood had to raise more money from backers and lost another piece of the ownership of the film.
SPOILER
A meat packing plant owner named Donald McCoy supplied the money to finish the film on two conditions: his son Tony would star as the hero, and the finale would include an atomic explosion, as screenwriter Dennis Rodriguez confirmed.- The part of Janet Lawton was reportedly meant for Dolores Fuller, but Loretta King allegedly bribed Ed Wood with promises of funding to take it. Fuller was demoted to the cameo "Margie" and later left Wood and moved to New York to write songs with Elvis Presley.
- After the film played at Hollywood's Paramount theater, Ed Wood asked the manager what he thought of it and got one word back: "Stinks". Wood took scissors and cut the man out of the premiere's 8 X 10 publicity photo, saying he was not there any more.
- Because the octopus prop would not move on its own, actors killed by the monster simply thrashed in shallow water holding the tentacles around themselves to fake its attacks.
- Bride of the Monster was Bela Lugosi's last speaking role in a feature film. His two later appearances were silent: a part in The Black Sleep (1956) and archive footage used in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), since he died before that script existed.
- Bela Lugosi did not play Dr. Vornoff in the scenes demanding physicality, which used the body doubles Eddie Parker and Red Reagan; Parker had also doubled Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Lugosi's fee for the film is estimated at $1,000.
- The attorney Samuel Z. Arkoff profited from the film more than Ed Wood did, and Arkoff's earnings from it helped fund his American International Pictures. Wood had oversold shares in the picture and ended up owning none of it.
