The Sinister Urge (1960)

Truly Dreadful Film

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Dialog in Ed Wood movies are often among the worst you'll ever hear in any movie. It's tone cringing and hilariously bad at times. Especially also hilarious how Ed Wood tried to put in humor into this movie. Wood perhaps wasn't the worst director of all time but he might very well be the worst writer of all time. This movie its story is also really confusing to follow, since it just doesn't make much sense. It's a movie with many sub-plots, rather than one clear main plot and the movie focuses too much on too many different characters, rather than it has one clear and likable main character. The movie misses a Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson or Vampira.But I have to hand Ed Wood one thing. Some of his movies handle for its time some sensitive and daring themes. He previously for instance did this before with his movie "Glenn or Glenda", which was about transvestites and more or less also with his movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space" which had some social criticism in it. "The Sinister Urge" concentrates on the world of pornography. Of course not a subject that would often be handled 'seriously' in '60's movies. Ironicaly enough Wood himself would land into the world of soft-core porn movie making after this film as a director, writer and (unfortunatly also) actor. It's especially since this movie tries to show how 'evil' pornography is. It even turns people into serial killers. Especially the dialog explaining how evil it all is, is extremely moralistic and completely totally horrible. I actually also would suspect that the portrayal of the porn industry is far from the truth and how it was at the time. So it's also really doubtful that Ed Wood actually did some research for his movie.Continuety is a big problem and the editing often doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Character positions and even car models change suddenly in between different cuts. It's also quite hilarious that the movie at times recycles some of its sequence and of course Wood also uses some archive footage again, this time even from some of his previous movies, of which some got never completed. This movie might very well feature the worst editing out of all Ed Wood movie's.Ed Wood was basically also really an horrible actors director. The acting is extremely wooden and the actors obviously at times don't know how to act or move, probably because they themselves had a hard time understanding the script or what Wood wanted from them.Of course the budget was also obviously low again for Mr. Wood. This means that the movie is mostly being shot at location and inside small studios, with cardboard sets and hardly any dressing to it, expect for a desk, a phone and a map of the world. Ed Wood always had a hard time finding financiers for his movies. This movie was perhaps the last straw for him and the reason why he for a while quite film-making after this in, in order to pursuit a writing career, before venturing himself into the world of soft-core porn movie-making.Edward D. Wood Jr's last 'serious' film-making attempt is consistent with the movies he did prior to this movie. So Mr. Wood ends in style with "The Sinister Urge".2/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

its true, this film is one of the worst i have seen yet that Ed Wood did. i will never get that hour and 11min back. once again there was the on going repetition of police, baddies, women in distress, cross dressing and insightful wisdom from our elders. however, the stock fotage was minimal so big up. i am beginning to realise that once you've seen one Ed Wood film, you have as good as seen the rest. it makes me wonder why people who knock his films continue to hunt down new ones. it makes me wonder why i still watch them. i think Ed Wood was a man who lived, made films, lived his life happily and then died probably happy despite being an alcohlic and penniless. to be honest i don't think he cares anymore, why should we?

Some people believe that Ed Wood knew exactly what he was doing: that he *intended* to make "bad" movies in order to make people laugh. There are plenty of good reasons not to buy into that theory, and THE SINISTER URGE is Exhibit A.PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA, and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are endearing in their goofy lunacy. This one, though just as bad as the rest of Wood's oeuvre, is mostly just plodding and dull.Not that there isn't entertainment to be had here, at least for the bad movie connoisseur: my personal favorite is the obvious use of pre-existing (and completely unrelated) footage, shoehorned in on the waste-not want-not principle and "justified" through the use of atrocious dubbing and risible expository dialogue (which takes place *after* the inserted scene, making it even more ludicrous). But that's not the sort of thing calculated to make a mainstream audience roar with laughter.I can imagine someone trying to make a movie like PLAN 9. I can't imagine anyone trying to make a movie like this.

What a night. The stuff of which legends are made.In 1995 in beautiful downtown Toronto, when Tim Burton's mighty biopic ED WOOD went into second-run, one of our rep cinemas had a never-to-be-forgotten quadruple bill of films by everyone's favourite cross-dressing auteur. JAIL BAIT, BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS preceded this, the final programme of the evening, and perhaps Ed Wood's final masterpiece (well, for his "legit" non-porn movies anyway). From the expected pimply nerdy geeks to one dignified old gentleman who said that they SHOULD have given Mr. Wood a star in front of Grauman's, this, the least seen of all of Wood's pictures from his "classical" period, was a real crowd pleaser.THE SINISTER URGE is a must for anyone with even a passing interest in the films of this precious Gonzo genius, or, like myself, who have a strange attraction to works made by people who eke out an existence way way way in the back alleys of Tinseltown. This riotous "expose" is classic Edward D.: long scenes which don't go anywhere (including an extract from his uncompleted JD epic- HELLBORN), priceless dialogue which waxes profundity about everything and nothing, and a strange attempt at morality while also delivering whatever exploitation elements that unsuspecting people paid to see. My favourite bits include: 1) the long scene where the two hardworking cops out to bust the porn ring must explain to an anonymous taxpayer who comes to the station, and tell him exactly why they are spending his hard-earned tax dollars on such a seemingly trivial matter; this scene wouldn't even pass the green light in a pre-production meeting for an educational film, however with typically Woodian panache, the taxpayer leaves afterwards shaking his head in amazement over the great public service these man are performing. Once again, within his ridiculous subplots, Wood slyly inserts bits where you realize how subversive his scenarios really are. The ever-critical writer-director is simultaneously praising and damning these intrepid cops for a seemingly superfluous service-- remember, only two years later the US government spent a huge wad of the taxpayers' money to decipher the lyrics to "Louie Louie" because the song was considered to be corrupting the minds of impressionable youngsters.2) the director's cameo appearance; since one of the main subplots concerns some knife-wielding loony who attacks women in the park (apparently looking at semi-clad girls in magazines drove him to his social deviance), the two cops talk about sending an undercover male officer in drag to the park and foil the psychotic pervert (right here, the audience knowingly began to applaud), and in the next scene, there is Mr. Wood in a dress and mop wig trying to ferret out the guy in the park. A cameo appearance to save some money instead of hiring another bit player? In most likelihood, a good excuse for the eccentric auteur to insert his personal baggage-- a Brechtian cry for identity.3) a bizarre climax, featuring a decapitated head in someone's bushes!Man, they sure don't make them like this anymore. Seeing THE SINISTER URGE is like a breath of fresh air. As much as PLAN 9, GLEN OR GLENDA and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER are important works of this pioneering independent filmmaker, the stories about their creation, and their dialogue is cited so often that perhaps they no longer seem new. It is great to see this, and also JAIL BAIT, and appreciate the charms that even his under-hyped works have.