Bela Lugosi’s Worst Movies: When the Horror Legend Hit Rock Bottom

Bela Lugosi’s later career was a sad combination of bad luck, typecasting, financial trouble and personal struggles. The man who had terrified audiences as Count Dracula eventually found himself taking almost any role that would put a few dollars in his pocket. That led him to Poverty Row, a loose network of small, independent Hollywood companies that produced low-budget B movies, serials and shorts from roughly the 1920s through the 1950s. Unlike the major studios, these companies worked quickly and cheaply, but for Lugosi they offered something increasingly difficult to find in Hollywood: work.

Lugosi’s finances deteriorated as his career declined. His Hungarian accent and identification with Dracula made it difficult to escape horror roles, while years of chronic pain and increasing dependence on prescription drugs added to his problems. By the 1940s and 1950s, he was increasingly working in low-budget productions.

Then there was Frankenstein. Lugosi was initially cast as the Monster, but the production changed hands and Boris Karloff ultimately got the role. Contemporary accounts said Lugosi objected to the heavy makeup and the character’s lack of dialogue, although the exact circumstances surrounding his departure remain disputed. Karloff’s performance became one of horror’s defining moments, creating one of the great what-ifs of Lugosi’s career.

By the 1940s and 1950s, Lugosi was a long way from his glory days. Some of the movies he made were so wonderfully terrible that they’ve become more famous than films that were actually good.

Here are six of the most horrific movies in Lugosi’s filmography, from bizarre misfires to full-blown cinematic train wrecks.

1. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

If there is a Mount Rushmore of bad movies, Plan 9 from Outer Space has already claimed a spot. Lugosi died in 1956, years before the movie was released. Ed Wood had previously shot footage of Lugosi and incorporated it into the film, with chiropractor Tom Mason reportedly serving as his stand-in for additional material.

The result is cardboard-looking sets, wobbling flying saucers, awkward dialogue and enough continuity mistakes to keep generations of bad-movie fans entertained. Lugosi barely appears, but seeing those final scraps of the actor who once owned the screen as Dracula gives the movie an unexpectedly sad quality.

2. Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

The title pretty much tells you what you’re getting into. Lugosi finds himself in a bargain-basement comedy involving nightclub performers, a gorilla and a pair of performers modeled on the popularity of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

It wasn’t exactly the material you’d expect from the man who played Dracula, but by this point Lugosi needed the work.

3. Glen or Glenda (1953)

This was Lugosi’s first official collaboration with Ed Wood, and “unusual” doesn’t begin to describe it. Wood tackles cross-dressing and gender identity, while Lugosi appears as the Scientist, surrounded by skulls and delivering strange philosophical warnings.

At times, the movie feels less like a conventional film and more like Ed Wood had a camera and absolutely no intention of letting reality get in the way.

4. The Ape Man (1943)

Lugosi plays Dr. James Brewster, a scientist who transforms himself into an ape-like creature and begins killing people in an attempt to reverse the process. The solution involves obtaining human spinal fluid, which is about as cheerful as it sounds.

It’s pure low-budget horror, with dim sets, questionable effects and a premise that gets more ridiculous the longer you think about it. Lugosi, however, still brings the presence that made him such a formidable screen actor.

5. Bride of the Monster (1955)

Ed Wood brings Lugosi back as mad scientist Dr. Eric Vornoff, who dreams of creating an army of atomic supermen. Naturally, this requires a laboratory, a swamp, unfortunate victims and a giant octopus.

The octopus was a mechanical prop obtained from Republic Pictures, but its mechanism was missing or broken, so the production improvised with wires attached to the tentacles. The result is one of the movie’s most memorable moments. More importantly, this was Lugosi’s last speaking film role, and he reportedly delivered his lengthy speech from memory rather than using cue cards.

6. Murder by Television (1935)

Long before Ed Wood, Lugosi was appearing in inexpensive productions that didn’t always give him much to work with. Murder by Television revolves around the murder of a scientist who has developed a method for transmitting television signals instantaneously around the world.

The premise sounds more exciting than the movie actually is. The pacing is painfully slow, and there are stretches where you might wonder whether the television set itself has fallen asleep.

And that’s what makes this part of Lugosi’s career so fascinating. As bad as some of these movies are, you can still see a glimmer of the professionalism that made him a star. He knew how to command a scene and bring dignity to material that often didn’t deserve it.

But sometimes you stop laughing and feel sorry for him. Lugosi was being exploited while his career, finances and health were already in serious trouble. Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood captures some of that sentiment, showing the sad reality beneath the jokes about cheap sets, terrible movies and an aging actor who still wanted to work.

Lugosi didn’t stop being Bela Lugosi. Hollywood simply stopped giving him movies worthy of Bela Lugosi.