What's the point, right?
I mean, who here hasn't
seen this movie? Because you, my friend, are missing out. Not only are you missing out on
one of the worst movies ever made (but not the worst), you're also missing out on
experiencing the zenith of writer/producer/director Edward D. Wood Jr. What we have right
here is the very pinnacle of crap movie making. You couldn't make a movie this
delightfully wretched if you tried, but Eddy . . . Eddy did this by accident.
Now that's talent. No, even better, that's anti-talent. Yes. Anti-talent is the only adjective I can think of to accurately describe Ed Wood and this, his masterpiece of unadulterated crap.
Plot? Sure, if you want to call it that. Aliens have come to planet Earth, and are mightily pissed off about the U.S. government cover up involving their flying saucers. You'd think that the army isn't taking these pajama wearing, hubcap flying, interplanetary girly-men seriously. So the aliens decide to invoke Plan 9, "which calls for the resurrection of the death." That'll get their attention. So sayeth The Ruler (John Breckinridge).
Back on Earth, flying saucers (or spray painted hubcaps) begin appearing all over the US. Our hero, airline pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott), sees one out of his cockpit window and even before he can get home, the government jumps all over him to keep things quiet.
By then flying saucers have appeared all over America and the army is having a tough time of keeping everything quiet. Halfway through the movie they give up this premise all together and attack the saucers with stock footage.
Disheartened, aliens Eros
(Dudley Manlove) and Tanna (Joanna Lee) start raising some zombies. First an old man (Dr.
Tom Mason with a cape over his face, filling in for the dearly departed Bela Lugosi) and
his wife (Vampira) are resurrected by the aliens for their nefarious plot. Then police
Inspector Clay (Tor Johnson) is turned to the Dark Side. Together, the terrible triad
begin to . . . walk around stiffly . . . staring straight ahead . . . through a graveyard
. . . with cardboard graves. And it's scary. Or something. Whatever effect Wood was going
for, the shouts of unbelieving laughter I always throw at the TV whenever Tor, Vampira, or
(stop it, you're killing me) Dr. Tom walk on screen was probably not it.
Back to Jack and his wife, Paula (Mona McKinnon), who have the misfortunate of living right next to the cemetery/alien base of zombie operations. They bought the house because Jeff thought it would be nice and quiet. He didn't count on the alien zombies. At least the ever-present fog from the cemetery never drifts near his house.
I could tell you more, but . . . words fail me. It's not that the movie is complex. It isn't. A five-year-old with a crayon could write a better story than this. It would probably make more sense, too. But it wouldn't have Wood's trademarks of convolution. And it certainly wouldn't be as enjoyable.
For one thing, there is Eddy's trademark dialogue, which goes off into the twilight zone of incoherence. Just check out this line from Criswell, the movie's Greek chorus:
Future events such as these will affect you in the future
Or, here's one from the mouth of Jeff:
Modern women. They've been like that all down through the ages.
If that doesn't convince you of this movie's sheer ineptitude, nothing will. Except maybe Eros' line:
Your stupid minds. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
For another, there is Wood's utter lame directing style. Make no mistake; this is a horrid little piece of cinema. The actors are as cardboard as the sets they walk through. Grievous editing mistakes are common place. Night changes to day and back again, sometimes during the middle of a piece of dialogue. Saucer ships wobble on fishing line. Stock footage attacks more often than the zombies do. Plan 9 is so poorly shot that you'll burst a blood vessel trying to string each scene together in your head. Normal definitions of "good" and "bad" have nothing on this flick.
The sheer amount of mistakes is so huge that I just can't list them all here (someone else has done that job for me). Needless to say, they are stupidly obvious. Forrest Gump could see these goofs. One gets the feeling that Wood left them in the picture, not merely for lack of budget (which accounts for the cardboard and drop cloth sets), but because he genuinely didn't see them.
Whatever else may be true about
Edward D. Wood Jr. (the old cross dresser), he did love his craft. He loved it so much
that it drove him blind. Blind to the limitations set by silly little things like money,
or continuity, or coherency. Blind to his own inept writing skills. Blind to the fact that
he was making pure stupidity, and we dearly love him for that blindness. He never got to
be Orson Welles, but at least he'll be forever known as Orson's doppelganger.
Is Plan 9 a good movie? Jesus, no. In terms of quality, this movie sucks sideways. But, you see, the movie is fun to watch in that, "Oh my God, how could anything be this [insert adjective here]," kind of way. It generates its own, unique kind of entertainment value by virtue of it's mind boggling badness.
What we have here is a movie that transcends normal Gone in 60 Seconds kind of badness, and creates the sheer antithesis of all that is good and right with movies as a whole. This is the Anti-movie; something so rare, so destructive and volatile, that we can only thank our lucky stars it was discovered by Ed Wood.
Plan 9 is certainly not the worst movie ever made. It is Bad in almost ever sense of the word, but it's also the fun in a way only it can be, even after all the times I've seen it. This flick has a warm place in the hearts of all true B-movie enthusiasts, and we all love it dearly, because it is such pure shit.
