'Now, let's see those legs.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
'Ah, it happens every week.'
The Sinister Urge was directed by Edward D. Wood jr.
'Who needs good film in this business anyway.'
but this isn't about aliens, monsters or Bela Lugosi, it's about...
'Smut!'
Which is disappointing but it's still Wood, so we still get posters of his films on the wall.
'Those were made by a friend of mine, you will find the movies I make entirely different.'
Visible microphones...
'Alright, send him in.'
and dialogue that veers between ponderous...
'Maybe she grew up during that moment of truth, as she died.'
and painfully hip.
'Don't try it Daddio'
Sometimes so hip that it has long since ceased to have any meaning.
'You and the broad "something unintelligible" and leave me with the crumbs.'
This scene of a teen brawl was shot for a different film.
Adapted for this one by cutting in shots of actor Dino Fantini watching.
While this one of some girls roughing up an ice cream vendor, who is apparently mixed up in organised crime...
'I'm gonna push that ice cream right down his throat.'
feels like it's from another film, but apparently isn't.
'How about that?'
Put all this together, and you've got Wood.
'Oh, funny, funny'
The film opens with the murder of a woman.
'Operator!'
She seems fine, we'll leave her there.
But this isn't the first such killing.
'Same MO, killed the same way, same everything.'
'With one great difference.'
'What's that?'
'Her name will be different.'
All the victims have been actresses for a local porn outfit.
'The dirty picture racket can be directly connected to a good percentage of the major crimes in this city'
'Just how?'
And the film is a moral crusade against the damage done by these films
'Show me a crime and I'll show you a picture that could have caused it'
and in no way an excuse for low budget nudity.
This 2nd murder highlights a serious plot chasm that's starting to open up,
concerning where the murders happen.
'Same place, the park'
Not just the same park, the same spot, and the next killing happens there too.
How quiet does a park have to be for no one to notice this?
'Say this park's filling up fast'
With corpses possibly, but the only other people to come here, besides killers and porn actresses,
is the film unit itself.
'OK cut it, comeon back girls.'
Which does raise the question of why the girls come here on their day off
'I wouldn't put a woman in that position, that killer is a mad man.'
And the larger question; is there a reason the cops haven't staked the place out,
beyond needing to make the film longer?
'Ah, he's right, this thing is dragging out'
Finally...
'We'll put a sweater and a skirt on a policeman'
Got him! Call for back up!
Yeah, there's no back up.
They sent along one man in drag to bring in a serial killer.
'I'm not sure I like that idea'
It turns out, murderer Dirk actually works for the outfit and the first killings were ordered by big boss Gloria.
'Now what about Shirley'
'Dirk's already carried out your orders'
But now Dirk has started to go rogue.
'You know what happens when he gets hold of a certain kind of pictures'
Let me just clarify; you hired, to work in your dirty film business,
a man who becomes uncontrollably violent when he sees naked ladies?
'Nothing can go wrong'
This makes the police look practically competent by comparison.
'Well I'm glad to see you realise that gentlemen'
The most basic thing wrong with the sinister urge, is that it fails in its premise.
'I wouldn't want them to know what a failure I've been'
We hear about young people watching this filth but the only young people we see are in the brawl,
and they don't play much of a role what with being in a different film.
'Let's finish it Danny'
Dirk is certainly spurred on by the pornographic images,
even taking them along as a reference point for his killings.
Yep, that's what I'm gonna do.
But I'm pretty sure he had some issues going in.
'You know what happens to Dirk when he looks at pictures like this'
Making this less a shocking expose of the dangers of the porn industry,
and more a shocking expose of its poor hiring practices.
'He's just crazy enough'
The Sinister Urge would be Ed Wood's last legitimate film,
ironically after this he almost exclusively made dirty movies.
'I look at this slush and I try to remember, at one time I made good movies'
He never really did, but I still find that a very sad line.
'pornography, a nasty word for a dirty business.'
Thanks for watching, for new bad movies every Tuesday, subscribe here.
A surprising number of B-movie villains are let down by their hiring policy,
what films can you think of where the ending would be very different if just employed a better henchman.
Let us know in the comments below.