Ed Wood movies are bad. This is an indisputable fact recognized by his fans and detractors, that is both the reason why people want to watch his movies and the reason they're worth watching at all. Ed Wood movies are the very definition of camp, a style of humor that involves laughing at the incompetence of the movie itself more so than anything intentionally developed within the plot.
The thing is, though, camp is fun due to being goofy and weird, but what really makes camp work is the outrageous things that filmmakers will sometimes do, things that make the audience state out loud, "WHAT were they thinking?!" Maybe that exclamation can come up a few times in this film. After all, the characters were more unbelievable than Gigli and the dialog was worse than From Justin to Kelly. But...
The problem with Ed Wood's Jail Bait is, though it's just as technically incompetent, terribly realized, and flatly stated as all his other works, it's also incredibly, obnoxiously, and drudgingly dull. Somehow, somewhere, Wood was able to conjure up a decent lighting technician and cinematographer. He was able to get a score that, though poorly done in its own way, at least knew which chords to strike to create suspense. And he even got a few people who TRIED to act! But in Jail Bait, all of it is for naught as literally the minutes tick by with hardly a single moment of inspiration or campy outrageousness to keep our interest--Jail Bait manages the sin of being bad, but it doesn't make up for it because it's boring! After about an hour of pointlessness and the worst styles of flat acting, finally a moment of pay off arrives during the "unveiling", so to speak. During this one moment, Ed Wood finally seems to learn something about reserve and the ability to build anticipation with off-screen space. For one tiny, little, understated moment, it seems like this movie might just have something redeemable in it.
And then it doesn't. The swan song that is the character's demise is the swan song of the movie, one of the most incompetent renderings of justice ever put onto celluloid. But that would be fine, if it were hi-lar-ious crazy. Instead, the true problem is that Ed Wood's denouement is even more boring than the rest of the proceedings. Sad, sad, sad.
--PolarisDiB
The thing is, though, camp is fun due to being goofy and weird, but what really makes camp work is the outrageous things that filmmakers will sometimes do, things that make the audience state out loud, "WHAT were they thinking?!" Maybe that exclamation can come up a few times in this film. After all, the characters were more unbelievable than Gigli and the dialog was worse than From Justin to Kelly. But...
The problem with Ed Wood's Jail Bait is, though it's just as technically incompetent, terribly realized, and flatly stated as all his other works, it's also incredibly, obnoxiously, and drudgingly dull. Somehow, somewhere, Wood was able to conjure up a decent lighting technician and cinematographer. He was able to get a score that, though poorly done in its own way, at least knew which chords to strike to create suspense. And he even got a few people who TRIED to act! But in Jail Bait, all of it is for naught as literally the minutes tick by with hardly a single moment of inspiration or campy outrageousness to keep our interest--Jail Bait manages the sin of being bad, but it doesn't make up for it because it's boring! After about an hour of pointlessness and the worst styles of flat acting, finally a moment of pay off arrives during the "unveiling", so to speak. During this one moment, Ed Wood finally seems to learn something about reserve and the ability to build anticipation with off-screen space. For one tiny, little, understated moment, it seems like this movie might just have something redeemable in it.
And then it doesn't. The swan song that is the character's demise is the swan song of the movie, one of the most incompetent renderings of justice ever put onto celluloid. But that would be fine, if it were hi-lar-ious crazy. Instead, the true problem is that Ed Wood's denouement is even more boring than the rest of the proceedings. Sad, sad, sad.
--PolarisDiB