Movie Notes: Plan 9 From Outer Space

August 8th, 2007

Note: This is an entry in the Second Webomatica Contest: So Bad They’re Good Movies

0 stars
So Bad It’s Good Rating: –8 stars

Starring Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson
Directed by Ed Wood

I’ve seen Plan 9 From Outer Space, directed by Ed Wood, three times now. It never gets any better. It is beyond suck, and truly crosses over the line into “must see” territory. Pretty much everything about it is horribly stupor inducing, and often laughable.

Here’s a list of the most notable offenses:

• Terrible cast: Vampira. Tor Johnson. Bela Lugosi. But none of the big names have any dialogue. The rest you’ve never heard of but they speak much too often.
• Terrible plot: A gut-wrenching combination of horror, sci-fi, detective, and war movies. Every cliche from each genre is employed.
• Terrible characters: Absolutely none of the characters are notable in any way.
• Terrible dialogue. Every character phones in the exact same, terribly written dialogue, as if written by one clueless filmmaker. Start with the the Criswell introduction that precedes the film, boring beyond the pale, which ends with the classic line, “Can your heart stand the shocking facts — of grave robbers from outer space?” The rest of the film contains more of the same head-scratching language.
• Terrible continuity errors: Seams of filmmaking are on constant display:
  • Little effort is made to conceal stock footage.
  • Sets don’t match: the most egregious error is in the Bela Lugosi scenes, which look improvised — he’s goofing around in a Dracula costume. All of his scenes look like they were made before the film was thought through completely.
  • The “old man” Bela Lugosi dies early on and when his “undead” character appears as Dracula in the later scenes with other characters, he’s played by another actor. In hopes that you won’t realize it’s someone else, the new guy covers his face with the cape.
  • It seems doubts about the film’s consistency were anticipated by Wood and are weakly addressed through the film itself. The result is truly laughable dialogue where characters attempt to explain things, which only makes things worse. Example: at the funeral the “old man” two funeral attendees wonder why was he buried in a crypt when his wife was buried in the ground (the first funeral was filmed outdoors and the crypt scene is filmed in an indoor set). One character mumbles that it’s something to do with family tradition, or superstition of some sort. Better to leave this question alone, but Wood fills our ears with pointless dialogue, answering questions nobody is asking.
• Terrible everything else: I haven’t even mentioned the bad acting, music, special effects, costumes, set design, or basically anything else having to do with film making. It’s all sub-par here.

Anyhow, here’s my list of highlights / lowlights that are must sees of Plan 9 From Outer Space:

• The first sighting of the UFO. The plane cockpit is obviously a set, as noted by the plastic drape over the entrance and controls that are essentially semicircles on poles. They see something: A UFO. It’s a tin plate on a string. Holey Mackerel! (4:15)
• Bela Lugosi death scene: After his wife’s funeral, the “old man” emerges from his house which is now “a tomb” and the sky a “covering for her dead body.” Why doesn’t he speak? He’s then run over by a car off screen. (6:53)
• Invasion and war on the aliens: This is all constructed from stock footage and amateurish special effects. Note the actual footage of Colonel Edwards standing alone in front of a sheet, in a feeble attempt to blend in with the borrowed footage. Contains the brilliant line: “They attacked a town. A town of people. People who died.” (17:19)
• Meet the aliens: These Flash Gordon rejects greet each other by crossing arms — strange invaders with alien ways. They explain Plan 9: “A very complex plan of resurrection of the dead.” (22:00)
• The aliens’ message to Earth: Two generals take in the serious threat of alien invasion. “This is Eros, a space soldier from a planet in your galaxy… you didn’t actually think you were the only intelligent life in the universe… how can any race be so stupid?” (43:40)
• Tor Johnson attacks an alien: The electro gun is jammed! Choking! That was too close! I love the female alien’s sickly reaction. (48:36)
• Dracula attacks a policeman. Why doesn’t anybody run? Is acting in a film that boring? Check out the woman’s hilarious, knuckle-biting reaction shot and Wood’s ham-fisted inability to build tension. Gun shots are fired. Dracula deploys a double-shoulder-shop. A strange noise kills Dracula. The cape is pulled back from the corpse to reveal — ultimate suckitude. Cue scary music and my laughter. 53:46.
• Earthlings confront the aliens: The reason for the invasion: “Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!” The alien explains the retarded theory of the “solanite bomb”: a way to explode the actual particles of sunlight. It makes no sense, but the alien retorts, “Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!” (1:04.00)
• The climax: The last few minutes starting at (1:12:27) are better, mostly because two cops finally get a clue and use brute force against one of the undead. All hell breaks loose with some fist fights, fires, and boredom-chasing explosions. One more continuity error cover-up occurs as the lady wonders what happened to Vampira. But Criswell returns to save the day, and he is welcomed as it means the film will soon be over.

Plan 9 From Outer Space is a genuinely terrible movie. It’s so bad it could never be remade — there is absolutely nothing worth reimagining. I’m starting to love it, in a strange way.

This whole dreck of a flick is on Google Video: check it out if you dare.

IMDB: Plan 9 From Outer Space
Wikipedia: Plan 9 From Outer Space
Rotten Tomatoes: Plan 9 From Outer Space 59%