Rogue Cinema - Ed Wood's "The Vampire's Tomb" (2007)

Ed Wood's "The Vampire's Tomb" (2007) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Friday, August 01 @ Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

Well, I screwed up. I was supposed to have two reviews for films based on Ed Wood stories from Andre Perkowski this month, but I made a mistake. There's a short on the other disc, and another selection called "rough cut" which I figured was a rough cut of the short, so I just watched the short. I only just now on the day I'm writing these reviews and putting the magazine together for the August issue realized that I should have watched the rough cut, because that's the actual full length movie. So apologies to Andre for that. I'll have to do the Devil Girls review in the September issue.

Just a little note here. Andre Perkowski makes these films based on stories by Ed Wood. They're not word for word re-creations, but they are based on his stories, and I have to say, Andre has painstakingly recreated the look, the cheesy acting, the film style, the editing style and everything else involved to really make these look like films that Ed Wood would have made himself. He even found a guy to play Lobo that actually did quite a good job fitting in the shoes of the legendary Tor Johnson. I think the only thing he's missing is that he's younger than Tor was, but otherwise, he's really got the look and genuinely brings back the feel of Tor's performances.

This particular film follows the exploits of a family who kills one of their own on a quest to claim some family money or something. Honestly, I had trouble following the story. I even watched the first twelve minutes of it twice, and I still had problems following it. From what I gathered, there was some money at stake, and they killed this girl's aunt. She "supposedly" comes back as a vampire, but in the end, it turns out to not be her at all...but if it's not her, then who is it? Oooooh, mystery!

Andre Perkowski did a phenomenal job recreating the look and feel of those old Ed Wood films, and I'm in a good position to judge that since I've seen and own, at least I think, all of the available films of Ed Wood, which also made it easy for me to spot various references to different films that were sort of nodded at, including an amusing scene with a floating trumpet, which referenced a really fun scene in Ed Wood's Night of the Ghouls. Then there was also the inevitable nod to Bela Lugosi and that famous footage of him in the hat and cape that was shot right before his death.

It was really a pleasure to see a film like this from a film maker who not only painstakingly worked to recreate the look and feel of Ed Wood's films, but also from someone who utterly respects those films and the man who brought them to us. Ed Wood was never really appreciated in life, but I think he'd be happy with how his legacy worked itself out in the end. He's a cult figure beyond measure, and I think that somewhere in the afterlife, he's raising a vodka gimlet in toast to Andre and his fine work in continuing that legacy.

I don't believe there's a website, but you can check out the trailers for this and Andre's other films on the Terminal Pictures YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/terminalpictures.