There’s only one cliché way to describe Plan 9 From Outer Space, it’s so bad it’s actually good, in a funny way though. But how can a film so bad become the cult classic it is today? Well it’s all down to one man, Edward D. Wood JR, a cross dressing oddball and the only winner of the worst director of all time, courtesy of the Golden Turkey Award book. A man so desperate to make a film, that production values become none existent and sheer determination takes over.
Every part of this dud is gold, with every movie you need a script, and with Plan 9 you get a cracker, full of a incoherent ramblings and thin on plot, at times you find yourself laughing at the child like dialogue but then become baffled by the eccentric senseless speeches. It’s hard to wonder what was going through Wood’s mind when he was writing this script, but inconsistency wasn’t one of them. It’s full of golden clangers, a name of a weapon derived from the son changes three times and an up there over there and in there line will make you frown and laugh at the same time.
It’s not only the script that appeals, the special effects, as bad as they are, do to. From toy flying sauces on strings, gravestones falling over, a cock pit made up of a two boxes, plastic controls and a shower curtain, will take you back to your childhood play days.
But the most famous part of Plan 9 is Bela Lugosi, with only a few minutes of footage filmed before his death and three years before this film was actually made, Woods decided to incorporate this into what he called his Citizen Kane. But how did he get around the fact that Bela Lugosi was no longer alive, Ed Wood style off course. In steps Mrs Woods Chiropractor, a man who looks nothing like Bela, wrong height, wrong build, wrong everything and the fact that Ed thought putting a cape over his face in every scene would deter us makes it all that more priceless.
Off course you can forgot the other actors/actresses that no doubt starred in this to pay the bills. Tor Johnson’s struggle to speak English (And climb out of a grave). Vampira, who spends most of the film slowly wondering around with her arms out, and Dudley Manlove acting like a camp game show host are the best highlights.
But what I admire most about Plan 9 is Ed Wood’s unconventional direction and determination to complete his self-proclaimed pride and joy, the fact that he didn’t care scenes go from light to dark more than once in the same scene shows it. And with hardly any budget he actually managed what many aspiring film makers struggle to do, complete a film.
To put it bluntly Plan 9 is crap amateur greatness and with not a continuity director in sight it’s still a joy to watch, off course for all the wrong reasons. It’s not the worst movie of all time, but it is one of those rare un watch able watch able films and if Wood had been alive today to see the cult status it has produced he would no doubt want to make a sequel, even at 85 years old.
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