Ed Wood is a director who needs no introduction, but despite being the schlock visionary of such “films” as Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, Wood’s later years were plagued with financial difficulties, alcoholism and depression which dampened his creativity, forcing him to mostly get by on writing porno novels. In 1971, Wood would direct his first hardcore pornographic feature Necromania after a string of softcore sexploitation films like Orgy of the Dead and Take It Out in Trade. Necromania is the story of Danny and Shirley, a married couple dealing with sexual frustration who seeks out an occult necromancer in sex magic at an old mansion and winds up in a parade of ghoulish debaucheries. Early on the film establishes itself as a true Ed Wood joint with extremely wooden acting and classic Wood-ian dialog. Once people start getting down to business though, the movie frankly gets a little dull at times. Wood doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about shooting porn and it shows. His washed out, static framing is about as unerotic as you can get (although to be honest, is anyone going into an Ed Wood movie expecting to be aroused?). While the whole movie does have a Munsters-esque kitschy macabre vibe, the titular Necro-tacular antics of the title really don’t come into play until toward the end where we get some shady dealings happening with what is purportedly the Amazing Criswell’s coffin. Shitty and absurd in equal measure, Wood fans will still find lots to marinade in with this one.

During the same general time period in which Necromania was made, Wood also shot a cheap home invasion softcore romp called The Only House in Town. The plot, what little there is, has some deranged hippies breaking into a woman’s house who ratted them out to the cops. They then proceed to gang rape her then have a bunch of swinging orgies in her home because… um… why not? This one somehow comes across even cheaper than Necromania (which apparently had a whopping $7,000 budget and was shot in two days). This is basically Wood on auto-pilot with most of the film taken up with ugly, uninspiring sex scenes. Only the most die-hard of Wood fans will get a kick out of this one.

The next year, in 1972, Wood would release the hardcore film The Young Marrieds. This one involves a newlywed couple who decides to get into swinging, starting with dry humping a hitchhiker and fairly innocuous blowjobs but escalating into S&M and swinger party orgies. Ed Wood’s penchant for stilted, half-assed dialogue is in full force here with the actors seemingly being left mostly to their own devices to come up with terrible improvisations. I also think you can hear Wood himself shouting directions during the orgy scenes. Cult/exploitation fans may recognize the wife here, Alice Friedland, who showed up in a bunch of sexploitation movies back in the early ’70s like Trader Hornee and The Psycho Lover. Otherwise though, this once-thought-lost film is pretty weak sauce as far as scratching that good ol’ Ed Wood itch.

In what is possibly the most openly entertaining film for classic Ed Wood fans, Severin has included the bonus film Shotgun Wedding from 1962 which Wood wrote but didn’t direct. This is Wood basically throwing every hicksploitation trope he can think up into a blender and then deep frying it. We’ve got feuding families, a grandpa knocking up a lady less than half his age, an underage sexpot trying to sleep with one of the old guy’s sons and a random side plot involving scamming a circus, all set supposedly in the hillbilly hoedown backcountry of the Ozarks somewhere. This one probably feels closest in vibe to the Ed Wood crime potboiler Jail Bait, so if you dug that one’s overwrought cheeseball dialogue but want it slapped around with a banjo for a little while, Shotgun Wedding is going to hit that sweet spot.

The video quality on these is pretty mixed with Shotgun Wedding looking the cleanest. Taken from the original negative, it actually has quite nice color balance and saturation levels with little damage to be seen. The other three look to varying degrees a little beat up with Necromania being perhaps the most damaged. Despite that, they all look significantly better than they ever have previous to this release and the transfers themselves were handled very well. The audio quality on these films is highly variable based on the source. Wood is known for his poor sound mixes at times, and these films certainly reflect that with some dialogue coming across muffled or distorted at times.

The first disc with Necromania (included in both its softcore and hardcore versions) and The Only House in Town contains audio commentaries on both films, with Ed Wood Summit host Greg Javer on both tracks with author Paul Apel (who wrote a book called I Watched Football Early the Day I Died about a lost-and-found Ed Wood screenplay) joining him on Necromania (the softcore version) and Spicy Goldman of the exploitation cinema blog Capri Show World on The Only House in Town. Both tracks are chocked full of interesting information about Ed Wood and the films and are heartily recommended. The second disc containing The Young Marrieds features another commentary hosted by Greg Javer, accompanied by porn collector Dimitri Otis and is also full of useful info. Javer knows how to keep things moving and glean info from his guest hosts on these commentaries quite well. The disc also includes a collection of 9 vintage sex loops directed by Ed Wood. If you’ve ever seen these sorts of short 10-minute or less loops, you pretty much know what to expect. Little to no plot that exists basically as an excuse to show lots of flesh. Still a neat bit of ephemera to be included. The third disc which includes Shotgun Wedding has some of my favorite extras on the set including the Ed Wood episode of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (I’d love to get a full series release of this show but there are probably rights issues with all the clips used) and a discussion on Wood between comedians Dana Gould and Bobcat Goldthwait. I really dug that one because their love of Wood was so infectious, each one trying to top the other on their fandom with Gould showing off his original Plan 9 saucer he acquired and Bobcat showing off his massive Ed Wood tattoo. The disc also includes an interview with author Carl Abrahamsson on Ed Wood as well as an interview with director Fred Olen Ray on an abandoned film he had once planned to make with Wood.

Ed Wood is often referred to as the worst director of all time. But what people who make that claim fail to understand is that Wood is far from the worst. While he often dealt with bottom-of-the-barrel props and actors, his films still had a very auteurist vision of what Wood wanted out of them. Between his uniquely quirky, terrible dialogue and his “let’s make a movie!” ethos to get it done at all costs, I’d personally rather watch a bakers dozen of low-grade Wood films that have a ring of sincerity to them than another random soulless and forgettable Hollywood CGI blockbuster. While these films were mostly made toward the end of Wood’s career while he succumbed to failing health and alcoholism, bits and pieces of Wood’s zest for filmmaking still poke through from time to time, making for a rewarding viewing experience for Wood fans who want one last look at the product of a beloved director at work.