Bill Ash Movies

Ever since the "Topper" movies made ghosts likeable and helpful, films like The Heavenly Kid have taken up the theme with varying degrees of success. In this version of life after death, Bobby (Lewis Smith) is a teen who dies in a drag race as he goes over a cliff. He then enters a curious "mass transit" system that will not take him "uptown" until he returns back to earth and gains a little more virtue. And so Bobby is assigned the thankless task of converting Lenny (Jason Gedrick) into a self-confident individual who can date women without fear (not exactly on a par with bringing peace to the world, but this is a teen movie). There are some twists and turns along the way, though nothing shakes up the status quo or ventures beyond the already imagined. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Teetering between camp, silly, and derivative, this undistinguished horror film by Giulio Paradisi, aka Michael J. Paradise, stars several respectable actors. Mel Ferrer is an Atlanta notable who is mysteriously in communication with some demonic forces. These evil powers want him to father a child by his wife who carries the necessary genes to produce a real live earthling demon. When she refuses to go through yet another labor, the horrific shenanigans start. Glenn Ford is a detective intent on investigating the reason for the mayhem, but he soon meets a ghastly end himself -- though for some viewers, his end may not be as bad as that of the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

With its incoherent plot, jaw-droppingly odd dialogue, inept acting, threadbare production design, and special effects so shoddy that they border on the surreal, Plan 9 From Outer Space has often been called the worst movie ever made. But it's an oddly endearing disaster; boasting genuine enthusiasm and undeniable charm, it is the work of people who loved movies and loved making them, even if they displayed little visible talent. In Plan 9, alien invaders attempt to conquer the world by raising the dead, starting with an old man dressed in a Dracula costume (Bela Lugosi, in a few minutes of left-over footage grafted into this film), his much-younger and well-proportioned wife (Maila "Vampira" Nurmi), and a remarkably overweight police officer (Tor Johnson). Often funny and consistently entertaining (if almost always for the wrong reasons), Plan 9 From Outer Space is an anti-masterpiece if there ever was one, and as Criswell so brilliantly puts it, "Can you PROVE it didn't happen?!?" Its legendary director Edward D. Wood Jr. was played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's 1994 biopic, Ed Wood. One of the DVD releases of Plan 9 From Outer Space includes the documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion, an exhaustive and entertaining look at the making of the film that runs a half-hour longer than the feature to which it pays tribute! ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide