Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires: The Curse of Ed Wood!

A shot-on-video horror/soft porn atrocity like Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires: The Curse of Ed Wood! normally wouldn't be worth dignifying with a review, but considering how shamelessly it rides the not-exactly-prestigious corpse of Mr. Wood, it at least offers a valuable reminder that Ed was not as bad a director as some people claim. Say this much for the guy: in Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster and others, we always know who the characters are and what motivates them; each scene progresses logically to the next; the shots are in focus and music matches the on-screen action; and some of his movies even have clumsy, but sincere, attempts at social commentary (Glen or Glenda advocates tolerance for sexual diversity; in Plan 9, the aliens warn against nuclear proliferation). As a framing device, Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires features one "Mr. Creepo" wandering through a cemetery trying to evoke Ed Wood's spirit, but writer/director Tim Swartz is less interested in paying homage to the eccentricities of Wood's oeuvre than in pilfering his name, as if the winking association with a legendarily bad filmmaker could make any flaws seem intentional. Swartz and company could learn a thing or two from Ed: the incoherent plot involves a lesbian being rescued from vampires by her ex-girlfriend and a character called "Muffy the Vampire Slayer" (the comedy is all sub-Paul Marco). This is mostly an excuse for the various ladies (all of them well above legal age) to engage in awkward, overlong, poorly-lit BDSM and simulated sex, made worse by the cruddy cinematography and a horrendous DVD transfer that squishes the full-frame image into a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The special effects, acting, dialogue, editing, costumes, set design and sound quality are abysmal, and Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires achieves the impressive feat of being the worst product to ever bear Ed Wood's name. Yes, that includes The Love Feast.