PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) - Is it really the worst movie ever made ?

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Ed Wood

STARRING  - Gregory Walcott as Jeff Trent, Mona Mckinnon as Paula Trent, Tor Johnson as Inspector Clay, Dudley Manlove as Eros, Joanne Lee as Tanna, Maila Nurmi aka Vampira as Dead wife/Vampire girl, Bela Lugosi as Old man/Ghoul (Tom Mason as Lugosi's stand-in), The Amazing Criswell as Narrator/Himself.

PLOT - In a small town on the outskirts of Hollywood, an old man attends his young wife's funeral - He is beside himself with grief.

Meanwhile, directly overhead, airline pilot Jeff Trent's plane is buzzed by a UFO - nearly causing him to crash. The flying saucer lands in the cemetery below.

That night the gravediggers who are filling in the young wife's grave are brutally murdered by the reanimated corpse of the dead woman. The old man knows nothing of this, lost in his grief he wanders out into the road and is struck by a passing car that kills him instantly.

The old man is buried, his mourners find the corpses of the two gravediggers and very soon the old man too rises from his grave. Inspector Clay - a tough grizzled cop goes to investigate but he too quickly succumbs to the walking dead. There are now three ghouls stalking the dark old cemetery and to make matters worse a swarm of flying saucers are seen hovering menacingly over Hollywood.

On board the mothership - the Alien's commander - Eros - orders that Plan 9 be initiated - soon the people of Earth will be overrun by the reanimated corpses of thier own dead.

The corpse of the old man breaks into Jeff Trent's home and takes his wife - Paula. Trent vows to rescue her from the clutches of the alien invaders no matter what it takes.

Can Jeff save his wife and stop the aliens, or will Planet Earth fall under the throng of the zombified undead ? Also - what is the Solaranite bomb and how does it figure into the alien invaders plans for our seemingly doomed, frightened planet ?

DIALOUGE - Criswell - "Greetings my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends - future events such as these will effect you in the future..."

Lt. Harper - "One thing's for sure - Inspector Clay is dead - MURDURED - and somebody's responsible !!!"

Jeff - "So what if we develop this Solaronite bomb ? We'd be even a stronger nation than now." Eros  - " 'Stronger !' You see ? You see ? Your stupid minds ! Stupid ! STUPID !!!"

PERFORMANCES  - Plan 9 from Outer Space features the final screen appearance of horror legend Bela Lugosi, although it can't really be classed as a 'performance' as such. Poor old Bela died half way through filming and only appears in a handfull of scenes - mourning at his wife's grave, leaving his house to get hit by a car (off camera) and striding around a graveyard in his old Dracula cape - he has no dialogue and his total screen time is probably only around three minutes in all. Infamously, for the rest of the film Bela has a stand-in - Ed Wood's personal Chiropractor - Tom Mason. This wouldn't be such a problem except that Mason appears to be about a foot taller than Lugosi was and about fifteen to twenty years younger. How does he get past this lack of any physical resembelence to the desceased actor ? He obscures his face by covering it up with Bela's Dracula cape. It's one way of doing it I suppose...

Bela...

Not Bela...

Simple.

There are other equally bizzare performances in this film. Tor Johnson - a Swedish wrestler plays Inspector Clay and what a strange performance it is. English obviously wasn't Johnson's native accent - so why the hell did Wood get Johnson to attempt to do an American accent ? He's virtually unintelligible - Johnson growls every one of his lines, it sounds like somebody who's extremely pissed gargling with a moutfull of marbles when he speaks. It really is difficult to make out what he's supposed to be saying.

However, once Johnson joins the ranks of the walking dead - and is no longer required to speak - things improve dramatically - he makes for a very visually memorable zombie with his hulking form, blank staring white eyes and bald head that its no wonder he became a horror icon in his own right and is still remembered to this day.

Equally memorable and iconic is Nurmi/Vampira as Lugosi's dead zombified wife. She doesn't do much except lurk around the cemetery, holding her arms out in front of her body and occasionally attacking people, but - as with Johnson - it's her looks and sheer physical presence which make her so memorable. The fashion choices of female goths and rock chicks the world over began - right here - with Vampira.

The wonderfully named Dudley Manlove is also memorable as Eros - the alien invader's tactical commander. He struts around the screen wearing what looks to be a modified ladies satin blouse, speechifying about the plans for the invasion. He plays the character in quite a dignified manner until he loses his cool and has childlike tantrums. He's a lot of fun to watch.

Also amusing and bizzare is The Amazing Criswell who narrates the movie. Criswell was a stage performing psychic who's predictions where notoriously wildly inaccurate - he once claimed that life on Earth would end in the year 1999 when mankind would devolve into a race of cannibals and we'd all end up eating each other. His predictions in this movie are equally shonky, his opening monologue explains how this story is set in the future when it's clearly supposed to be the then contemporary present day. I like that Criswell's narration gives the film a vibe reminiscent of the E.C. comics of the time - where the Crypt Keeper and other characters would regale the readers with tales of terror. Criswell would go on to fulfill the same role in many more of Ed Wood's movies.

SFX - Obviously with this films notoriously low budget the effects are going to be very limited. The flying saucers are essentially plastic toys that are dangled in front of the camera on clearly visible strings. When they battle the US military, Wood uses stock footage of armed troops and planes engaging in conflict.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - On the "sex" front, I suppose Vampira's low cut cleavage would be considered daring for the 1950's but it's nothing shocking by today's standards. Neither is the violence - the onscreen killings by the Zombies usually consist of Tor Johnson smashing his hands down onto his victims shoulders in a kind of double handed karate chop, somehow this seems to kill people instantly rather than merely giving them mildly bruised shoulders...

RATING  - There has been much written over the years about how this film is "the worst movie ever made" or "ironically" sneered at for being "so bad it's good", but I'd sooner sit down and watch this than any number of "criticality acclaimed" or so-called "worthy" films. The fact is - its just very entertaining. It moves at a fairly good pace - many films of the time where very slow paced - the acting, whilst variable, is interesting and engaging. The film just has so much personality and every time I watch it I notice something different which I hadn't noticed before. Its a film that just keeps on giving.

Furthermore, it actually has a viable message about the dangers of mankind's unfortunate propensity to dabble with technological advances which we maybe shouldn't be dabbling in. It's something Wood clearly felt strongly about and this comes across onscreen via the character of Eros.

The main reason this film gets all the flack it does is because Wood was ambitious beyond his means and his vision was hampered by a lack of financial resources. But the point is - he tried and by and large mostly succeeded. He got his film made against all odds and people the world over are still talking about it to this very day. Its flawed for sure but its a film with a lot of heart and soul behind it and its enormously entertaining and endearing. I love it.

This is probably going to annoy some people but I'm giving it 5 faux Bela's out of 5 - I'd much sooner watch this than shit like the Hugh Jackman version of Van Helsing again - even though it has a fraction of the budget. (Note - in case you're wondering - I WILL NOT be reviewing Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing on here because that would entail me having to watch the bloody thing again. I think thats "the worst movie ever made" and it's not even "so bad its good", it's just a load of old shite).