Plan 9 from Outer Space

Dir: Ed Wood

1959

****

Ed Wood’s infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space is has often been declared as the worst film ever made. It’s not. It belongs in a completely different category altogether, the so-bad-its-good category, where films can never count as being truly awful. I can think of many serious and mainstream films that are far worse. It’s certainly in the top 10 so-bad-its-good films, and while it is probably Ed Wood’s most famous film, I wouldn’t agree that it was his best. The story begins at the funeral of an old man's wife. The fellow mourners are gathered by an open grave, among them her husband (played by Bela Lugosi who was actually dead at the time the film was released). Overhead, an airliner is heading toward California. The pilot and his co-pilot are blinded by a bright light and loud sound. They look outside and see a flying saucer (a Frisbee on a string). The pilots follow the saucer's flight until it lands at the graveyard, where the funeral's gravediggers are killed by a zombie. So far so Wood. At his home, lost in his thoughts of grief, the old man goes outside and (off-screen) steps in front of an oncoming car and is killed. This footage of Lugosi was filmed some time before by Wood and was edited into the film after he had died – so Wood could give him one last film credit. His posthumous appearance would also help with box office sales. The bodies of the dead gravediggers and discovered and Inspector Daniel Clay (played by Wood regular Tor Johnson) and other police officers arrive, but Clay goes off alone to continue his investigation.The pilot from the initial scene, and his wife Paula, who live near the graveyard, hear the sirens and Jeff tells Paula about his saucer encounter, stating that the Army has since sworn him to secrecy. A powerful swooshing noise then knocks everyone to the ground at both the Trent residence and the nearby graveyard as a saucer lands. Police Inspector Clay then encounters the and the reanimated corpse of the old man, and is promptly killed by them. Newspaper headlines continue to report saucer sightings over Hollywood Boulevard, while a trio of saucers flies over Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., the military fires missiles at more saucers, while the Chief of Saucer Operations (which is hilarious) reveals that the government has been covering up saucer attacks for years. He mentions that one small town was annihilated, hinting at a secret history of other encounters. Just when things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, we see the aliens return to their Space Station 7. Commander Eros informs his ruler that he has been unsuccessful in contacting Earth's governments. To force their acknowledgment, Eros recommends implementing "Plan 9", which will resurrect the recently deceased by stimulating their pituitary and pineal glands. Meanwhile Trent the pilot, about to leave on another flight, is concerned for his wife's safety. He urges her to stay with her mother, but she insists on staying home. That night the zombie old man rises from his grave and breaks into their house. He pursues Paula outside and is joined by his zombie wife and the zombie Inspector Clay. Paula barely escapes, but then collapses after her ordeal. All three zombies return to Eros' saucer. Things get increasingly heated when the aliens, coming to the conclusion that humans are immature and silly, decide to wipe out man kind once and for all. They nearly get away with it to but for all of their higher intellect, technology and superior weapons, they are stopped when Trent punches one of them and knocks over their computer. The human race is saved, the aliens bugger off and the dead go back to being dead again. It’s a work of b-movie genius. It’s got everything you could possibly want from a trashy horror sci-fi; a Cemetery, aliens, flying saucers, zombies, abduction, annihilation and a good old punch-up. It was space-race science mixed with gothic horror, you could attach whatever meaning you liked to the film – you’d be wrong – but that was fine. The film is hugely influential and much loved around the world. If you want a really wonderful and comprehensive look at the making of then you should watch Tim Burton’s Ed Wood which is a truly loving tribute. It’s awful but its fun. Spotting the film’s mistakes is actually half the fun. You can quite clearly see the first officer from the first aircraft cockpit scene reading from the script that is clearly visible on his lap and you can see the shadow of the boom microphone more than once. In one particularly funny scene, you can spot one of the actors (Duke Moore) point his gun at himself several times during filming. This wasn’t in the script, the actor decided to test Wood to see if he was actually paying attention to what was going on – he wasn’t – and it made the final cut. It’s a great scene. It’s a film full of great scenes, and cult classics don’t come anymore classic or culty than this.