For generations, Ed Wood has been known as “the worst director of all time.” This sympathetic critical study repositions the director of Plan 9 from Outer Space as a maverick independent whose work challenges the boundary between “bad” and “good.”

In 1978, Edward D. Wood, Jr. died aged fifty-four, days after being evicted from his home. Two years later, he was rescued from obscurity when he was voted “Worst Director of All Time.” By the time Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood was released in 1994, Wood’s low-budget films, including Plan 9 from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, and Bride of the Monster, had become entrenched as “so bad they’re good” anti-classics. That was then. In the years since, the rediscovery of lost and neglected films has enriched Wood’s legacy, while new generations of viewers have grown more sympathetic to his eccentric style and offbeat take on gender and sexuality.

Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA is a critical study that takes Wood seriously, positioning him as a true independent whose work complicates the barrier between “bad” and “good.” Will Sloan follows Wood’s career on the margins of Hollywood, from his cult films with Bela Lugosi to his eventual fate in pornography, locating the artistic personality that unites his subterranean oeuvre.

Sloan situates Wood’s films in their cultural context, showing how he infused old styles and genres with his contemporary concerns; how his freewheeling approach to film grammar blurred the line between the grindhouse and the avant-garde; how his bringing together of faded stars, novelty celebrities, and showbiz amateurs created evocative Hollywood dreamscapes; and how his art explored cross-dressing and gender fluidity when these subjects were taboo. It also charts Wood’s place in the “bad movie” cult, from The Golden Turkey Awards to Mystery Science Theater 3000 and beyond.

Marking the centennial of Wood’s birth, Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA assesses the full scope of Wood’s career, considering how radical ideas grow on the fringes and interrogating the ideology of “bad.” This is a timely intervention in the politics of taste, and a fond salute to an independent spirit whose films tell us so much about our world.