Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

nTitle: Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

nDirector:nEdward Wood Jr.

nCast: BelanLugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson

nReview:

n“You areninterested in the unknown…the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why younare here…” with these ominous words, Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space opens,ninviting us to enter into his imagination, deep into the cheesy recesses of b-movienterritory. Some films are known for being bad; their call to fame is the factnthat they are terrible films, i.e. badly written, acted and produced. This isnthe case with Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. Though of course depending on who you ask; some will hail it asnthe best example of how NOT to make a film, while others will tell you it’snsilly, campy, fun. I finally had the chance to see it after years and years of havingnit on my must watch list; and yeah, it’s a bad film, but it’s not without itsncharm. There are all kinds of mistakes left and right, every five seconds youncan either see a boom mike pop up somewhere, an actor reading the scriptnfrom his lap or the strings can be seen on the miniature flying saucers, butnagain, this is part of what makes Plan 9 from Outer Space such a funnfilm.

nStory revolvesnaround a group of alien invaders who want to destroy the earth because theynfear that the humans will create a doomsday device that can destroy thenentirely galaxy, so in order to prevent this from happening, they put ‘Plan 9’nin motion. Plan 9 consists in resurrecting the dead so they can take over thenearth and annihilate mankind and their destructive inclinations. These aliensnare trying to protect the universe from us, so in a way, these aliens arenbenevolent in nature; just not towards us humans.

nI gotta handnit to Ed Wood, the guy had his heart in the right place. He might not have hadnmillions of dollars to make his movies, but it’s obvious that he had thencreativity and the energy, the drive. He had a creative wealth of ideas. Herenwas a guy who was always writing, directing or producing something. You justnget the feeling that he simply needed more money to put his ideas across in anbetter fashion, but that passion for telling stories was always there. He mightnnot have been much of a filmmaker; but the guy wrote like a mad man! He didn’tnwrite masterpieces either, but the crazy ideas would never stop coming. Inpersonally think he was better as a writer of cheap sci-fi b movies and novels than atndirecting films. He produced and wrote many more films like Orgy of the Dead (1965)nand The Bride of the Beast (1958), he even made some soft core porn! But it wasnPlan 9 from Outer Space which would go down in history as “the worst film evernmade”. To be honest, I think calling Plan 9 worst movie ever is a bit harsh;nthere are far worse contenders for this title out there in movie land.

nI won’t liento you, yeah Plan 9 is badly produced and directed, not a second goes by that you don’t see somenincomprehensible image that has nothing to do with the film, a goof, a boomnmike, a false wall moving, sometimes this kind of thing just makes me bust angut laughing. For example in some scenes, Wood would mix scenes shots duringnthe day in exteriors with scenes shot in a set, with a pitch black background, it’snmoments like these that you begin to question his abilities as a filmmaker. There’snthis other scene where a bunch of people are coming out of a crypt, becausenthey were burying a friend, and it’s the smallest crypt I’ve ever seen! And if it’snnot the stock footage of Russian military tanks (which are supposed to benAmerican) that makes you laugh, then it’s the totally inane dialog. Now here’snwhere the real fun of the movie lies for me; that crazy ‘written in fivenminutes’ dialog! The film opens up with a psychic telling us that “futurenevents will affect us in the future!” and he ends every sentence by calling thenaudience “my friends” about five times in less than a minute….now that’s somenfunny shit right there my friends! Mynfavorite is a dialog between two characters in which one tells the other “Thisnis the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard!” nand the other guy says “And every word of it is true too” and the othernguy replies “That’s the fantastic part of it!” Like I said, the dialog is hilariousnstuff.

nObviously not Bela Lugosi!

nEd Wood wasna huge fan of the old Universal Monster movies, one of his favorites beingnDracula (1931) which is the reason why he ended up using Lugosi in Plan 9. I’mnsure Wood also wanted to have a star on his movie to pull in an audience andnLugosi with his vast experience certainly had that star power. This was BelanLugosis’s final film, he doesn’t do much in it, in fact, he doesn’t even talk. Lugosi’snrole in this film functions like a silent film. He simply weeps for his deadnwife, who by the way according to the film was ‘Vampira’ and then he dies, offncamera, only to be reborn as a zombie wearing the same exact attire he wore fornUniversal’s Dracula! I bet Ed Wood must’ve gotten a special kind of thrill havingnLugosi in his full Dracula regalia on his film. In a strange twist of fate, Inthink there’s some sort of poetic justice that Lugosi dressed up as Dracula fornhis last performance on film. After all, Dracula was his most recognized role. AboutnLugosi’s participation in the film, it’s hilarious how Wood simply shot a bunchnof random stuff with Lugosi, and then somehow found a way to squeeze it intonPlan 9. Even funnier is that when he couldn’t use Lugosi, he would use thisnactor who would cover his face with the Dracula cape, to hide the fact that it wasn’tnLugosi! At the end of the day, the daftness of the production makes it endearingnto watch. You get the feeling that everyone involved knew they were making ancrappy movie, but they did it anyways. Or maybe it was all part of Ed Wood’sndesire to spoof big budget sci-fi films? Maybe he did it all on purpose and thenfilm is exactly what he wanted it to be? Watch the film and judge for yourself,nbut one thing I can assure you, you won’t be bored for a second, it’s a funnynride every step of the way.

nRating: 2nout of 5