Guy Lochhead, 16/02/12
American filmmaker iconised for his poor taste, misguided ambition and shoddy workmanship. This cult status came about posthumously, when he was awarded a Golden Turkey award as the worst director of all time in 1980. His golden age was the ’50s; his later films and books were softcore, occasionally sexually violent, smut. The Legend Of Ed Wood is too extensive to go into here, but it’s worth a read. He was a diligent moron who made shit films. The psychology behind the cult is strange, interesting, a little worrying and pretty out of hand. I think this is a bad sort of outsider art – few new ideas, no new perspective, no subversion. Utilising only the rotten core elements of that side of the film industry produces rotten films. The can-do attitude is cool, it’s just a shame it’s manifested in exploitative z-movies, and that he was a lecherous, attention-starved alcoholic ex-army fantasist.