I’ve seen “Santa Clause Conquers The Martians” and I’ve seen “Robot Monster” and although they’re definitely turkeys, nobody makes them as a bad, as bizarre and as hilarious as Ed Wood as his “Plan 9 from Outer Space” is arguably the only film you should see because of its badness (it’s practically a guide on “how not to make a movie”). Equally strange but somehow successful director Tim Burton (“Batman”, “Beetlejuice”) takes this unique look at the master of awful films.

Ed Wood (Johnny Depp “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “The Tourist”) likes to make movies but as we see show business isn’t an easy business. He manages to talk people into giving him money and befriends and recruits star of the 1931 masterpiece “Dracula” Béla Lugosi (Martin Landau). Now he sets out about making some really bad (but really funny) films.

Aside from “Plan 9” (simply because it is just so bad) Ed Wood’s films are definitely not worth your time but you have to admire Ed Wood for the fact he liked making movies because he wanted to tell stories and wasn’t bothered about profit. Johnny Depp plays him brilliantly here. We see a lot of the Lugosi (almost as much of the film is about him as it is Ed Wood) and Landau’s performance is sheer brilliance. The only character I disliked was the one played by Bill Murray (“Ghostbusters”) as I despised the performance.

“Ed Wood” is a truly great film about how people can suffer for their art as portrayed perfectly in the scene where Ed Wood has a conversation with Orson Welles (it’s the best scenes in the movie). There are a lot of similarities between Wood and Burton as both make very zany and ambitious films and Wood tried to bring back Lugosi while Burton tried to have Vincent Price make a comeback but both actors died before they completed their films. This is a magical film and probably the only good thing Ed Wood’s name is attached to.