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13 Horrors of Ed DarkWood Edward DarkWood Jr. is perhaps one of the most interesting, and disturbing, personalities to ever hit the Hollywood scene. Much of his life and story has been clouded by rumors, urban legends, and outright horror stories. In fact, tracking any real biography about DarkWood quickly becomes a practice of trying to separate fact from fiction. This has caused an aura of legend to slowly build around the rather eccentric director, an aura that is only helped by the fact that several would be biographers have either been reported missing, or committed to Arkham Asylum. Actual facts about Ed DarkWood are hard to pin down. Most people believe he was born on Oct 13th, 1924, in a small cabin in Dark Hollow, a former community in what is now the Shenandoah National Park. But even this fact is open to debate among his cult following, many of whom argue that his birth date was Oct 31st, and he simply inverted the numbers to keep from adding any more fuel to the occult fires already surrounding his past. His father was not as well off as his cousin the infamous Abigail DarkWood, and made a meager living doing odd jobs for farmers around the valley. But jobs began drying up during the hard times of the Great Depression. Around the year 1931 his family made the fateful decision to move west in the search of employment. The DarkWood family soon found that the rumors of jobs out west were greatly exaggerated, and the continued search took the family further and further west. Although the promise of jobs had remained unfulfilled, the move most likely saved the lives of Ed and his family. The entire community of Dark Hollow was wiped out by a strange tragedy only a few years after their leaving. As was the case with so many desperate job seekers of the time, the family ended up in California. Although work was still hard to come by, it could at least be found. The family moved into a Hooverville (a popular name for shantytowns of the period) and etched out a living day to day for some time. According to a surviving interview from Motion Picture Weekly, Ed began to do odd jobs around the time he was 8 years old. At ten he landed a part time job at the Artemis Theatre. It was the first time he got to watch a motion picture, and his life was changed forever. His love of movies kept him at the theatre at all hours, helping out even when he wasn't being paid. Ed did all he could to be around the industry, volunteering to help out for free on different film sites just to pick up what he could of the trade. His constant efforts won him a place in the emerging media, and after a time he was not only hired by Majestic studios, but was able to move up the chain, finally able to live out his dream and have a direct hand in making movies. Here his story takes a turn for the worse. Although he had enough drive and enthusiasm for ten people, he didn't have enough talent for even one. Every movie he touched seemed cursed. Accidents happened on set, actors became ill, props broke, film failed to develop... the list is as long as the patience of the researcher. This might have been overlooked if not for the complete and utter failure of the finished products. Since credits in the early days of film were far from complete, it's hard to know just how many movies he worked on, but many say any major failure of the time could be found to have his hand in it somewhere. By the 1940's Ed DarkWood had been reduced to living in a tiny apartment and working again at a local theatre. He was known to have very few friends. His supporters claim this is because his drive to get back into the movie business left no time for a social life. Most others claim that his strange personality was more the cause. He was said to surround himself with the more occult props from his past movie sets. And some even claimed he enjoyed dressing as witches, monsters, and even the living dead, and could do so with great skill. But the passing of a distant relative would bring yet another turn in his life, and perhaps the most dramatic yet. In 1954 Ed received word that he was the sole surviving relative of Abigail DarkWood, and that as such he had inherited her Manor house and it's contents of antiques. He quickly sold his few belongings to make the move back to Virginia, eager for the chance to sell the property and finally have the money to make his own motion pictures. The time between the move and his first private picture is largely missing. It is believed that he returned to Virginia, moved into the manor, and began selling antiques and artifacts for quick money. Although advertisements can be found in old copies of local papers, no trace of any DarkWood items can be found. Most believe that no one would purchase his family artifacts because of local fears and superstitions. Those determined to believe a more supernatural explanation think that the items were in fact sold, but somehow returned on their own to the walls of the supposedly cursed Manor. Some how or another Ed was able to begin to collect quite a sum of money around this time, however, and would soon be able to create on his own. Sometime during his plundering of the family heirlooms Ed came across something much more precious to him than mere money...a movie camera. It was an old hand held camera in a box marked "camera obscura". Using the camera, along with his newfound wealth, he made his first independent movie "Ghost of the Phantom" in 1956. But the curse still seemed to plague him. The movie failed, badly. The only thing that kept him in the clear was that he used the Manor for his set and locals for actors, keeping the cost to almost nothing. Following same formula, he cranked out failure after failure: " I Married The Spider Queen", 1958 "Mutant Cannibal Mom", 1959 "Psicko of Hotel Hell", 1960 "The Monster Mummy Unbound", 1962 "I Was a Teenage Cheerleader Zombie", 1963 "Asylum of the Frozen Dead", 1964 "It Came from The Cellar", 1965 "The Horror of Doctor Brain", 1966 "Invasion of the Scarecrow Zombies", 1968 "Terror at The Freak Show Circus", 1969 and "Werewolves of Black Bog", 1970 The failures, cost effective though they were, had by now drained his newfound wealth. But it is worth noting that during this decade of filming Ed was surrounded by strange events. During the filming of "Mutant Cannibal Mom" several locals turned up half eaten "as though by wild animals" according to police reports. The filming of "I Married The Spider Queen" saw several incidents of giant spider webs, big enough to trap cows, in fields all about the Manor. The list of strange events goes on and on, but the most notable is perhaps the U.S. Air Force responding to constant reports of UFO's during the filming of "Invasion of the Scarecrow Zombies". Many credit Ed DarkWood with these events, chalking them up to elaborate publicity stunts. But locals and supporters insist that the "Camera Obsura" was a haunted artifact. A camera that actually brought the images it recorded to life, no matter how strange and outlandish those images might be. Ed, now almost 60, threw everything he had into one final all or nothing shot at movie greatness. The film, titled "Yigg" but often called "The Snake God Lives", for once had expensive sets and actual props. The film was never finished. Although clips have leaked out over the years, it seems that something had stalled the production. As with everything else in Ed DarkWood's life, this has spawned countless stories and legends. The most common of theses tell of Ed losing control of his cursed camera, and the creations it had made. Locals insist that on quiet nights you can sneak up to the Manors walls and still hear strange sounds coming from within. Sounds from one or another of his escaped movies. There are those who believe that Ed DarkWood himself, well into his 80's by now, and horribly mutated by the cursed energy of the camera, still roams the Manor walls, tying to finish his last movie, the one that will be his masterpiece... This October we invite you to come into a film festival like no other. Walk into the movies of the mad director; experience the horror up close and personal. Try to see if you can live to the end of the 13th film of Ed DarkWood. |