Starring:

Bela Lugosi
Lyle Talbot
Vampira
Dudley Manlove

Dir: Edward D. Wood Jr.

Often regarded as the worst movie ever made, Ed Wood Jr.’s “Plan 9 From Outer Space” is also believed to be one of the best bad movies.

From the beginning of this movie, you know it’s going to be brilliantly bad. The movie’s narrator is Criswell – an actual psychic who was famous for making inaccurate predictions. Here he is, telling us about a story that is yet to take place about “grave robbers from outer space”. Excellent.

The movie is renowned for its low production values. It is seminal in terms of 1950s low budget sci-fi clichés. Hubcaps on strings? You better believe it. There are scenes with two shadows cast behind the actors – one from the natural light wherever they were filming, and one from the lights which were set up to eliminate all shadows (obviously something done in vain). The continuity is all over the place too – night becomes day and back again within seconds, jump cuts galore – “Plan 9″ is truly a technical travesty.

Continuity isn’t helped much by the fact that Bela Lugosi died before filming was completed, but instead of re-shooting the few minutes of footage he had of him with a replacement, director Ed Wood famously used a stand-in to complete shooting with. Wood wouldn’t let the fact that the stand-in looked nothing like Lugosi be a hinderance, he just got the stand-in to cover his face with a cape. The end result is a character who changes height and appearance throughout the movie.

Everybody delivers their lines in at least a comprehensible fashion. Which might not be such a good thing considering the fact that the dialogue is so deliciously terrible.

Paula Trent: …A flying saucer? You mean the kind from up there?
Jeff Trent: Yeah, either that or its counterpart.

Lieutenant John Harper: But one thing’s sure. Inspector Clay is dead, murdered, and somebody’s responsible.

Lieutenant John Harper: Modern women.
Colonel Tom Edwards: They’ve been like that all down through the ages.

Wood was an obsessive filmmaker to the point of autism. It really comes across in “Plan 9″. The reason the dialogue is so terrible is because of the thought that he put into things. If he realized a plot flaw on the day of filming, he would obviously change the script to cover it up, he just wasn’t very good at making it natural. That’s why the dialogue stinks.

The actors have a fair crack at things at times. Though it’s hard to ignore the fact that their skills are very much a product of their time. But if you watch any movie from the 1950s, you would expect acting like you get in “Plan 9″. You’d also expect anybody in a uniform to wear their hat at a jaunty angle.

Special mention must go to Tor Johnson, whose foreign-accented, wrestler-turned-actor, big man jibberish must have been used as inspiration by André the Giant for his own performance in “The Princess Bride“.

This film is, technically, utterly dreadful. It goes against everything anyone would learn at film school. But as a piece of entertainment it’s fantastic. Overlook the technical flaws, and what you have is an excellent story which is paced brilliantly. Wood’s sloppy, one-take direction is incredibly unsettling. An audience doesn’t get a chance to rest or get used to things because the continuity errors keep changing things around.

It’s superb. Whether the uncomfortable direction is deliberate or not is irrelevant, because what you’re left with is a great story and an atmosphere in all scenes that never leaves you feeling comfortable. What more do you want from a horror movie?

This film is utterly fantastic and should be in everybody’s DVD collection. Beg, steal or borrow, just get your eyes on it now.

Tags: Bad Movie, Bad Movie Review, Bad Movies, Bela Lugosi, Criswell, Dudley Manlove, Ed Wood, Ed Wood Jr., Lyle Talbot, Plan 9, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Vampira, Worst Movie

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Bad Acting, Low Budget, Reviews, Stupid Plots, Zombies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.