Review: Orgy of the Dead (1966)

In the 1960s, nudie movies became quite the rage, with directors like Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman taking standard Hollywood plots and using them as frameworks for showing models, strippers and, on occasion, porn stars in the buff. (This trend has carried forth into the present day, when such soft-core efforts go straight to either cable or DVD.) A few directors even tried their hands at nudie horror films--which brings us to Orgy of the Dead.

While most of the nudie movies from that era have drifted off into obscurity, Orgy of the Dead has become something of a cult favorite, mostly because director Stephen Apostoloff (working under the pseudonym A.C. Stevens) was working from a screenplay by the notorious Edward D. Wood Jr., writer/director of such legendary low-budget bombs as Glen or Glenda? and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

By the time Orgy of the Dead was made, though, Wood's film career had taken a precipetous nosedive. He hadn't directed anything in years, was drinking heavily and supported himself and his wife mostly by writing "erotic fiction" for small presses. Wood did continue working on movies, though, mostly writing screenplays and sometimes directing similar soft-core fare (his last film, Necromania, includes hard-core scenes with porn legend Rene Bond). He also served as assistant director on Orgy. But this movie wasn't enough to boost his career, nor the careers of anybody else involved.

Why? Because it sucks. And not in a good way, either.

The plot is minimal: a writer and his girlfriend wind up in a cemetery, where the lord of the undead (played by Criswell, who wears a cape and has a lot of trouble reading his cue cards because the fog machines are on high) and his breasty associate, Ghoulina (Fawn Silver--do you think that's really her name?), make the couple suffer "the tortures of the damned," which seem to consist of watching exotic dancers come out and strip amongst the tombstones.

These strip acts take up much of the rest of the movie, with Criswell and Silver chiming in with comments on the performances from time to time. There are also a mummy and a werewolf on hand for no clear reason other than to crack lame jokes and make us really miss Lon Chaney Jr.

The strippers are all reasonably cute--I especially liked the leggy redhead, but that's just me--but their acts are ultimately dull and repetitive, and by the time the "twist ending" comes around, interest has long since been lost. There isn't even enough of Wood's standard bad dialogue to keep the viewer awake and appalled. (The screenplay must have been about five pages long.)

So if you're a real devotee of Ed Wood's work and feel that your life would be incomplete without having seen Orgy of the Dead, have at it, by all means. But don't expect anything as incompetent--or, consequently, as interesting--as Wood's more infamous cinematic atrocities.

The greatest sin of Orgy of the Dead is that it's not just bad--it's boring. And that truly makes it a "torture of the damned."