Screenwriter Ed Kelleher, 61
Posted: Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 11:35 pm
WASHINGTON — Ed Kelleher, an offbeat screenwriter, playwright and film critic who wrote screenplays for horror movies that have become cult classics, died May 14 at Sleepy Hollow Manor, a nursing home in Annandale, Va. He was 61 and had a degenerative brain disease.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Kelleher wrote the screenplays of four horror films so outlandish and amateurish that they have become favorites of aficionados. “Invasion of the Blood Farmers” (1972), “Shriek of the Mutilated” (1974), “Lurkers” and “Prime Evil” (both 1988) had different directors but featured such standard horror-flick fare as blood sacrifice, cannibals, malevolent ghosts and religions turned to evil purposes. In various reviews, the films were called “barely coherent but rarely dull,”full of inept acting, gore and ridiculous dialogue,” “deliriously insane” and “trashy, low-budget, inept filmmaking at its finest.” One critic noted that anyone who looked closely at the Abominable Snowman, a central figure of “Shriek of the Mutilated,” could see that it was wearing shoes. … Read full obituary
