[1] The film features some reoccurring cast members and characters from Wood's 1955 Bride of the Monster, including Tor Johnson reprising his role of Lobo and Paul Marco again playing the character of Kelton the cop, while the Amazing Criswell plays himself in the frame story of the film.
[2] In a police station of East Los Angeles, California, Inspector Robbins waits for Detective Bradford at his office.
A flashback scene establishes that the elderly Edwards couple had a terrifying encounter with the White Ghost by this house.
Kelton has previously dealt with the supernatural in the events depicted in Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
[3][4] She is concerned by the presence of the Black Ghost which is not part of their hoax, though the cynical Acula dismisses her fears — he does not believe in the supernatural.
Among them is Criswell, who is the only one that can speak, who explains to Karl that the supposedly "fake" psychic does have genuine powers and his necromantic efforts actually work.
[2] Rob Craig suggests that the film could be in part based on an earlier work, Sucker Money (1933), produced by Willis Kent.
In the earlier film, Swami Yomurda (Mischa Auer) and his minions stage an elaborate scheme to extort money from gullible victims.
[2] Craig himself, however, notes that Night of the Ghouls cannot be conceived as a straightforward remake, since Wood used the same template to tell a quite different story from the 1930s melodrama.
[4] Craig considers the film to have elements common in absurdist fiction, and also to have much of the pessimism and nihilism of a typical Samuel Beckett play.
[2] The fates of Karl and Sheila are clearly meant to serve as a form of poetic justice, and the finale can also be seen as a triumph of Death over the mortals trying to exploit it.
[2] The final words of Criswell also serve to remind viewers of the truth, that everyone dies and that Death is destined to triumph over Life.
There are frequent references to the mad scientist (Bela Lugosi) and Lobo (Tor Johnson), the latter of whom returns, his face now half-destroyed from the fire.
[2] David Hogan considered the spookiest scenes to be the ones featuring either Hansen or Jeannie Stevens, playing the film's ghostly femmes fatales.
In 1992, Margaret Mason was one of the people interviewed for the Ed Wood documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan Nine Companion.
The sound effects and floating trumpet would not be out of place in a 19th-century séance, though the electronically altered voice of the deceased is a far more modern element.
His exploration of Dr. Acula's house was borrowed from Wood's short film Final Curtain and voice-over narration was added to integrate it into the story.
As a result, there was no room for Harvey B. Dunn, who played Captain Tom Robbins in Bride of the Monster, to reprise his earlier role.