1. Bride Of The Monster (1955)
Anyone familiar with Ed Wood's movies knows he filled out the plot by seemingly compiling every cliche under the sun. Originally titled Bride of the Atom, the film aimed to cash in on the nuclear-age sci-fi trend (cliche) of the mid 1950's. As with all Ed Wood films, the results are...breathtaking? The plot follows Dr. Eric Vornoff and his monstrous assistant Lobo through his attempts to create an army of atomic supermen vis-a-vis his experiments with nuclear energy. I hope we're all familiar with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the cliched relationship between a stock mad-scientist and his disfigured laboratory assistant doesn't need highlighting, but incase it does... Don't worry. Ed Wood didn't forget to include the old, secluded mansion that serves as his lair and laboratory. The twist here is that it's guarded by a giant octopus, the film's monster. So therefore it must be surrounded by a moat. Right? Because otherwise people could just walk around the...oh, forget it. After a string of suspicious deaths (stop me if you've heard this before...), Journalist (of course) Janet Lawton goes to investigate (why wouldn't she?) and gets captured by Dr. Vornoff. Of course. Troubled by her disappearance, her boyfriend, police lieutenant, and real life son of the producer (the cliches even boil over into the casting!) begins the search for her while she suffers at the hands of Vornoff in his lab. Eventually Lobo becomes enthralled by Lawton (Beauty and the Beast) and sets her free. The lab, dressed with every trite object in the sci-fi book, is eventually burned to the ground in the cliche fire, and after the predictable under-water climax, the film ends with prototypical big explosion. And of course I can't stress "big" enough...Like, mushroom cloud big.