This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Rumours abound about what may go on at a creepy mansion just out of town. The house is owned by Dr. Eric Vornoff who is conducting experiments to turn people into super-beings through the use of atomic power. Reporter Janet Lawton decides to look into what is going there and its possible connection to men that have disappeared in the area. Bride of the Monster is another ridiculous Ed Wood film that hardly makes any sense both in terms of story but also in terms of it's title as a whole plus the whole octopus thing was annoying admit it. (0/10)

The pairing of Edward D. Wood Jr. & Bela Lugosi is perfect, from reviving his career with Ed and proving he could still act as well as he used too. His perfermance as Dr. Vornoff is maniachally and sadistically wonderful, from feeding people to a huge Octopus and his cruel treatment of Lobo (Tor Johnson). He also comes across as the perfect Mad scientist.Although the sets are poorly made, it certainly gives off a very eerie setting.Despite having no lines Tor Johnson delivers a wonderful portrayal as the "Atomic-Superman" Lobo."Bride of The Monster" is definetely one of Wood's signature films, and is definetely worth a watch.

Ed Wood had, has, and will continue to have one of the most lousy reputations out there as far as filmmaking is concerned. This highly incompetent film and science fiction enthusiast managed to manufacture some of the biggest schlock piles that made Roger Corman's early "motion pictures" seem like worth while efforts. Both written and directed by Wood "Bride of the Monster" presents us with poor, ill, elderly Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist who plans to create an army of atomic super-humans based upon his somewhat successful zombie-like prototype (Tor Johnson) so he can rule the world. With the law, discount Torchy Blane, and another scientist chasing him around Lugosi's shadow of his former self begins to dispose of these unwanted pests by having a giant octopus that's clearly just a rubber puppet devour them.It's difficult to get a laugh out of any of it considering how visibly miserable and confused the actors appear. Lugosi especially as he mumbles his ridiculously tedious dialogue, Johnson comes off less frightening than what was obviously intended, everyone else float around somewhere between overly over the top and too low-key to be even remotely worthy of mentioning.Far from being ironically enjoyable this movie is nothing more than an awfully depressing experience mixed with extremely tiny bits and pieces where there's a swift glimpse of whatever bizarre vision Wood originally had. As a man of vision Wood perhaps immersed himself in it so deeply which morphed his perception of the actual dismal reality taking place that is my theory anyway.

A film whose making was immortalized in Tim Burton's comedy Ed Wood (1994), Bride of the Monster is actually much worse than Burton makes it out to be. Watching the (fictionalized) film, it looked better than Glen or Glenda or Plan 9, particularly with the way Martin Landau delivered his lines with such force and really did make that octopus look alive. He gave real Bela Lugosi a run for his money. In this film, that octopus is obviously fake and incapable of movement. When someone lands on it and it's just dead, the only thing you can think of is how cheap this film must be. An attempt is also made to splice together footage of a living octopus and an actor being dragged into the water, but Wood did not make them mesh. Later, Lugosi becomes a monster himself, but you can hardly realize it because he looks simply the same.Beyond the failure of the special effects, Bride of the Monster is characterized by the same awful dialogue and acting seen in Wood's other work. Even Lugosi is lacking in the acting department- and how waving his hand puts people to sleep, I do not know. So sad his career ended with films like this. The story is an attempt at science fiction that is totally devoid of science or substance. Any enjoyment people take in this film is strictly ironic- meaning, "so bad it's good." But I think it's debatable if it can even be considered that.