Title: Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Director:
Edward Wood Jr.
Cast: Bela
Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson
Review:
“You are
interested in the unknown…the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you
are here...” with these ominous words, Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space opens,
inviting us to enter into his imagination, deep into the cheesy recesses of b-movie
territory. Some films are known for being bad; their call to fame is the fact
that they are terrible films, i.e. badly written, acted and produced. This is
the case with Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. Though of course depending on who you ask; some will hail it as
the best example of how NOT to make a film, while others will tell you it’s
silly, campy, fun. I finally had the chance to see it after years and years of having
it on my must watch list; and yeah, it’s a bad film, but it’s not without its
charm. There are all kinds of mistakes left and right, every five seconds you
can either see a boom mike pop up somewhere, an actor reading the script
from his lap or the strings can be seen on the miniature flying saucers, but
again, this is part of what makes Plan 9 from Outer Space such a fun
film.
Story revolves
around a group of alien invaders who want to destroy the earth because they
fear that the humans will create a doomsday device that can destroy the
entirely galaxy, so in order to prevent this from happening, they put ‘Plan 9’
in motion. Plan 9 consists in resurrecting the dead so they can take over the
earth and annihilate mankind and their destructive inclinations. These aliens
are trying to protect the universe from us, so in a way, these aliens are
benevolent in nature; just not towards us humans.
I gotta hand
it to Ed Wood, the guy had his heart in the right place. He might not have had
millions of dollars to make his movies, but it’s obvious that he had the
creativity and the energy, the drive. He had a creative wealth of ideas. Here
was a guy who was always writing, directing or producing something. You just
get the feeling that he simply needed more money to put his ideas across in a
better fashion, but that passion for telling stories was always there. He might
not have been much of a filmmaker; but the guy wrote like a mad man! He didn’t
write masterpieces either, but the crazy ideas would never stop coming. I
personally think he was better as a writer of cheap sci-fi b movies and novels than at
directing films. He produced and wrote many more films like Orgy of the Dead (1965)
and The Bride of the Beast (1958), he even made some soft core porn! But it was
Plan 9 from Outer Space which would go down in history as “the worst film ever
made”. To be honest, I think calling Plan 9 worst movie ever is a bit harsh;
there are far worse contenders for this title out there in movie land.
I won’t lie
to you, yeah Plan 9 is badly produced and directed, not a second goes by that you don’t see some
incomprehensible image that has nothing to do with the film, a goof, a boom
mike, a false wall moving, sometimes this kind of thing just makes me bust a
gut laughing. For example in some scenes, Wood would mix scenes shots during
the day in exteriors with scenes shot in a set, with a pitch black background, it’s
moments like these that you begin to question his abilities as a filmmaker. There’s
this other scene where a bunch of people are coming out of a crypt, because
they were burying a friend, and it’s the smallest crypt I’ve ever seen! And if it’s
not the stock footage of Russian military tanks (which are supposed to be
American) that makes you laugh, then it’s the totally inane dialog. Now here’s
where the real fun of the movie lies for me; that crazy ‘written in five
minutes’ dialog! The film opens up with a psychic telling us that “future
events will affect us in the future!” and he ends every sentence by calling the
audience “my friends” about five times in less than a minute….now that’s some
funny shit right there my friends! My
favorite is a dialog between two characters in which one tells the other “This
is the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard!”
and the other guy says “And every word of it is true too” and the other
guy replies “That’s the fantastic part of it!” Like I said, the dialog is hilarious
stuff.
Obviously not Bela Lugosi!
Ed Wood was
a huge fan of the old Universal Monster movies, one of his favorites being
Dracula (1931) which is the reason why he ended up using Lugosi in Plan 9. I’m
sure Wood also wanted to have a star on his movie to pull in an audience and
Lugosi with his vast experience certainly had that star power. This was Bela
Lugosis’s final film, he doesn’t do much in it, in fact, he doesn’t even talk. Lugosi’s
role in this film functions like a silent film. He simply weeps for his dead
wife, who by the way according to the film was ‘Vampira’ and then he dies, off
camera, only to be reborn as a zombie wearing the same exact attire he wore for
Universal’s Dracula! I bet Ed Wood must’ve gotten a special kind of thrill having
Lugosi in his full Dracula regalia on his film. In a strange twist of fate, I
think there’s some sort of poetic justice that Lugosi dressed up as Dracula for
his last performance on film. After all, Dracula was his most recognized role. About
Lugosi’s participation in the film, it’s hilarious how Wood simply shot a bunch
of random stuff with Lugosi, and then somehow found a way to squeeze it into
Plan 9. Even funnier is that when he couldn’t use Lugosi, he would use this
actor who would cover his face with the Dracula cape, to hide the fact that it wasn’t
Lugosi! At the end of the day, the daftness of the production makes it endearing
to watch. You get the feeling that everyone involved knew they were making a
crappy movie, but they did it anyways. Or maybe it was all part of Ed Wood’s
desire to spoof big budget sci-fi films? Maybe he did it all on purpose and the
film is exactly what he wanted it to be? Watch the film and judge for yourself,
but one thing I can assure you, you won’t be bored for a second, it’s a funny
ride every step of the way.
Rating: 2
out of 5