Plan 9 From Outer Space: Movie Novelization

by Matthew Ewald, Ed Wood

When mysterious crafts emerge from starlight over the sleeply, little hamlet known as Nilbog, wonder turns to horror as the alien presence begins ressurecting the dead in order to systematically wipe out the human race. Now, amongst alien invasion and the dead crawling from out of the grave, the world’s only hope lies with ace-pilot Jeff Trent and a band of rag-tag survivors who must stop these grave robbers from outer space—before it’s the end of all mankind! Based on Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s original 1959 screenplay of his magnum opus, author and actor Matthew Ewald reintroduces the tale of unspeakable horrors from outer space that paralyze the living and resurrect the dead Plan 9 From Outer Space!

321 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2016

About the author

Matthew Ewald has come from a number of movies ranging from theatrical releases to made-for-cable dramas and thrillers, as well as a few A.F.I. Independent Productions. He was fortunate enough to have portrayed Nicholas Bluetooth on the highly popular science fiction/adventure television series, "Galidor," the Galidor franchise an international hit spawning Matthew his own action figure. He portrays a young Cadet James T. Kirk in the award winning internet series "Star Trek: Phase II," for the special "Origins" episode, and starred in John Murlowski’s Sci-fi thriller Terminal Error. Matthew is a member of the HWA (Horror Writers Association), as well as a published author with a number of horror stories already to his credit (three of which he had been asked to adapt into audio productions). Human Nature marks his debut novel. His follow-up novel, Whispers in the Cries, is his latest and a masterpiece of the genre combining frightening ghost story themes before a backdrop of events surrounding the RMS Queen Mary.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man, this book needs an editor (which I'm beginning to realize is a common thing with these Kindle freebies). Not only because an editor would clean up errors like Morris Code for Morse Code and Sweat Pea for Sweet Pea, but also because it just desperately needs to be streamlined. I found myself skimming most of it.
My real problem, though, is that Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of the most fun movies ever made, which is why I love it so much. The author here seems to disagree with me on that; he wants his book to be dark and serious, and that just isn't what I'm looking for from Plan 9. With a lighter, sillier tone, I would forgive the editorial mistakes (hell, I'd celebrate them as being in line with the source material), but we don't get that. The clever goofiness of Wood's dialog is missing, and without it I found this pretty hard to enjoy.

[Sarospice · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's easier to think you could make a better movie than Ed Wood Jr. If you had budget, but it's not so easy to write better concepts than Ed Wood Jr. Given the times he lived, invaders from space raising the dead is a wildly inventive concept. They want to draw attention to how we're treating the universe and Gasp! We don't listen. Sadly, given the premise, this writer can't seem to get out of his own way and bogs down the word count for no story reason. You could focus on Bela, Vampira, Tor.... Give them back stories... Anything! Instead the focus is on the pilot at the end. You see? Stupid! Stupid minds!

[Joe Besserfan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Matthew Ewald deserves an E for effort for trying to make lemonade out of lemons with his novelization of "Plan 9 from Outer Space". To really enjoy this book the reader needs to be familiar (or in my case, overly familiar) with Ed Woods infamous movie. Ewald adds gore and a lot of (intentional) humor to the events in the story. Any problems with the book come from the fact that the source material is very weak. Ed Woods' original script is really bad and any author attempting a novelization had his his work cut out for him and, for the most part, Ewald pulls it off. (Just for the record, I didn't read the Kindle edition. I bought the paperback version.)

[Bob Koester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great literature, but both plays it straight and makes sense of some of the film's less believable aspects in clever ways that are funny in themselves.