Ed Wood himself had absolutely nothing to do with “Ed Wood’s Devil Girls.” It’s just a very interesting Wood-obsessed experiment. Imagine the tendencies of Wood’s style of filmmaking, just multiplied and warped a million times over and filtered through a totally spazzed out method of cinematography. Brilliant concept. Excellent execution. Frenetic oddity. That about sums it up.
Sheriff Buck Rhodes has his hands full. Juvenile delinquents and maddening drugs are ripping up the streets. With the help of his sidekick, Officer Cline, and the Reverend, Rhodes begins investigating the recent death (by explosion) of a teacher. Little does he know that it’s the work of a tough, drug-riddled girl gang — the Devil Girls! The girls get involved with a big drug deal, kill their boyfriends, and start to double cross each other. All the while, Criswell chimes in with nonsensical monologues and tons of non-related stock footage. Oh yeah, and Lobo shows up to use a little of the ol’ strong arm for good measure as well.
Director Andre Perkowski took the basic plot of Ed Wood’s 1969 novel, Devil Girls, added his own Woodsian touches (both story-wise and visually), and ended up with a successful nonlinear film collage that was shot in Chicago. It’s funny, hypnotizing, nicely photographed, and most importantly, very schizophrenic — characters appear and reappear out of nowhere, the Reverend is always located in a different setting than the character he’s conversing with, and stock footage is abused like it’s going out of style. Shot on Hi-8 video and 16mm, this movie oozes with charms.
If you’re obsessed with Ed Wood, you’ll probably love this film. If not, it’s still worth seeing as an underground oddity. Devil Girls has a little bit of everything. The film tends to wear itself thin a bit towards the end, but I couldn’t help having a great time while viewing. You’d be hard pressed to find anything else quite like it anywhere.
