Orgy of the Dead
| Orgy of the Dead | |
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| Directed by | A. C. Stephen |
| Produced by | A. C. Stephen |
| Written by | Ed Wood |
| Starring |
Criswell Fawn Silver Pat Barrington (as Pat Barringer) |
| Music by | Jaime Mendoza-Nava |
| Cinematography | Robert Caramico |
| Edited by | Donald A. Davis |
| Distributed by |
Crown International Pictures Rhino Video (VHS and DVD) |
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Release date
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Running time
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92 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Orgy of the Dead is a 1965 erotic horror film directed by Stephen C. Apostolof under the alias A. C. Stephen. The screenplay was written by cult film director Edward D. Wood Jr.. He adapted the screenplay into a novel.
The film belongs to the genre of nudie cuties, narrative-based films featuring female nudity. It was an evolution of earlier films, which featured striptease and burlesque shows. These predecessors mostly depicted actual stage performances, sometimes attached to a frame story.
The film opens to two muscle-bound men dressed in loincloths approaching a crypt. They open the doors, revealing a coffin. They remove the lid and exit the crypt, then the inhabitant of the coffin (Criswell) sits up to deliver an opening narration. This narration mostly matches the prologue of Night of the Ghouls (1959), with one minor variation and an additional line. The phrase "world between the living and the dead" of the original is changed to "void between...". There is also a new line at the end: "A night with the ghouls, the ghouls reborn, from the innermost depths of the world!" The opening credits feature the image of "an immobile young woman clad in gold". The image was probably inspired by a memorable scene of Goldfinger (1964).
Following the credits, the camera shifts to a lone Chevrolet Corvair driving down a California desert road. Its passengers Bob (William Bates) and Shirley (Pat Barrington) are arguing over the decision to use this night to search for a cemetery. Bob is a horror writer who hopes that the scene of a cemetery at night will bring him inspiration. The conversation ends when Bob accidentally drives the car off the road and over a cliff.
The next scene opens to a nocturnal image of a fog-shrouded cemetery. The lonely figure of the Emperor (Criswell) walks towards a marble altar, sits, and then summons his "Princess of the Night", the Black Ghoul (Fawn Silver), who appears and bows before him. The Emperor warns that if the night's entertainment fails to please him, he will banish the souls of the entertainers to eternal damnation, indicating that he is an all-powerful demonic being.
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Wikipedia