SCREAMING CHICKEN

Orgy of the Dead
by Ed Wood

Dates and Venue Thursday, 19 October 2006 @ 9 pm;Friday & Saturday, 20-21 October @8 & 10:30 pm| WISE Hall (1882 Adanac St., Vancouver)

Reviewer Ed Farolan

Award winning Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society follows up a successful Fringe festival run (Sex, Violence and Nursery Rhymes) with their annual rendition of Ed Wood's classic cult film Orgy of the Dead . This is Screaming Chicken's biggest production of the year featuring a large cast of Vancouver's top Burlesque performers (Little Woo, Darla Devine, Camero Luvroc, Mya Mayhem, Jazmina Bizarre, Candy Curves, Melody Mangler, Violet Femme, Whiskey Rose and Connie Lingus) basking in their undead glory of special effects horror makeup. This show promised to be a big spectacle, but it wasn't as big as I expected. Audience members were warned that the front rows "will get gory", but I didn't see so much as the spurting of some red paint that didn't even reach the front row.

Audience members were also encouraged to participate by buying drinks (preferably alcoholic) and sipping every time "the emperor grabs his crotch, the princess claps her hands, the wolfman howls, and Shirley screams." However, there wasn't much audience participation except for a few who were either planted or one or two who had one too many.

I would say, however, that this was an entertaining show, a prelude, so to speak, to Halloween, when all the ghouls and monsters will roam the world.

Orgy of the Dead was originally produced as a film in 1965 and was based on Wood's fantasy/horror novel of the same title. Edward Davis Wood Jr. (1924-78) was considered in the 1980s as the worst filmmaker of his time . In 1994, Tim Burton directed a full-length film about him with Johnny Depp playing Wood. Because of this, he was rediscovered and became more famous than he ever was when he was alive

We still see some of his old horror films on TV such as Bride of the Monster starring Bela Lugosi.

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