Film Review: Plan 9 from Outer Space
[image error] This is it! The most popular Atomic Age cult film of the twentieth century. Winner of two Golden Turkey Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Director of All Time, the immortal Edward D. Wood, Jr.! It’s all here, the not-so-special effects, aliens in skating skirts zooming around in string-powered flying saucers to implement the ninth plan of Earth’s conquest (the first eight failed) with an army of zombies (well, three actually), Vampira, Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi in his legendary “postmortem” performance (with Ed’s chiropractor standing in for Bela after his death). This truly original movie, Ed Wood’s “Citizen Kane,” is a hymn to all those who have ever tried to create something intelligent and meaningful, only to fail miserably every step of the way.
Starring: Gregory Walcott, Tom Keene, Mona McKinnon, Duke Moore, Carl Anthony
Directed by: Edward D. Wood Jr., Mark Patrick Carducci
Runtime: 78 minutes
Studio: Image Entertainment
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Review: Plan 9 From Outer Space
I loved Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994), which depicted part of the career of Edward D. Wood Jr., regarded as the worst movie director in history! Wood’s most famous film is one I had never seen until now – Plan 9 From Outer Space.
The films focuses on UFOs that come to California and begin reviving corpses from their graves. A young woman is the first to be revived and proceeds to kill the gravediggers. Pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) then encounters UFOs while on a routine flight and begins to link their presence to the strange occurrences in the local graveyard. The police are also on the case but what are the UFOs up to and why are they reviving the corpses?
Plan 9 From Outer Space does not disappoint in its reputation as the worst film ever made. I certainly don’t agree with this tag but many aspects of the film are undeniably bad. Footage of the late Bela Lugosi from an abandoned project were put into the film where he looks like his famous Dracula character. Unfortunately, as the elderly husband of the young woman first resurrected, there wasn’t enough footage of Lugosi for the film. Wood therefore had his wife’s chiropractor star in the film, holding a cape over the bottom half of his face to try and deceive us into believing this is Lugosi. So, one moment Lugosi is happily going about as one of the undead, face clearly visible, the next he has his cape up! The actor standing in for Lugosi looks nothing like him either! The young woman who dies at the start is played by Vampira but she has no dialogue throughout the film and doesn’t even make a sound!
Wood also cast Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson as Inspector Daniel Clay and his dialogue is far from eloquent. Johnson makes a less than convincing zombie as well and watching him, Vampira and Lugosi killing people is highly amusing. If you watch carefully you might even see the gravestones moving as people walk by. Other highlights are the pilot’s very suspicious looking steering mechanisms for their plane, one is said to have his script visible in his lap as well! Then there are those effects. The UFOs which Jeff Trent describes as cigar shaped rather than saucer shaped will do nothing to astonish you visually or in any other capacity for that matter.
Normally, I would give a film like Plan 9 From Outer Space a big thumbs down but such is its reputation in the cult world for badness you can’t help but give it some plaudits. It’s almost like watching Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, so painfully bad that it is good. Wood’s career never flourished and he died in his fifties with a collection of horrendously bad films behind him. Though Wood was dubbed the worst director ever, his work has now reached a loyal audience and propelled him to a modest status as something of a hero. It’s ironic he didn’t live long enough to witness this appreciation.
Plan 9 From Outer Space deserves credit as a piece of movie history. It is undeniably bad but watching it you will just be amused rather than feel angry or cheated. Worst film in history? No. Not by a long, long way.
Verdict: 3/5
(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)
Film Review: Plan 9 from Outer Space | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave
