Review of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) by Scott H — 02 Oct 2010

This movie is fucking impossible to review without pissing off someone. It's bad but not the worst movie ever, just kind of an average bad but you can't hate it because in its awfulness it manages to be rather entertaining and funny if dry in spots. It's like someone who's a totally despicable person or an asshole that are such a caricature of what a human being should be having a conversation with them is inadvertently hilarious. So as a whole in spite of yourself you actually enjoy conversations with them even if they don't understand why. The plot is bad but I've seen and heard worse from Ed Wood himself, the dialogue is terrible rambling and at times feels like a parody partially due to the fact he wrote everything in a first draft and nearly every performance is so over the top or awful if this ever gets played in an acting class you're in demand a refund but in the end as I've said many times you enjoy it in spite of yourself. But the thing is, is that like anything bad it has moments that are just torturous particularly the verbal exchange between the humans and aliens at the end and go on for ungodly amounts of time. So should you waste your time with this cult gem? Let's take a this is the hardest to write review I've ever faced look...

The movie opens to a news caster, who in true Wood style pontificates nonsensically on the possibility of life on other planets...I think. Anyways narratively we begin in San Fernando California where an old man (Bella Lugosi who I shit you not died very early in production and was replaced by a man holding a cape over the majority of his face hoping no one would notice...yeah) is weeping at the funeral of his younger wife who is being buried (Vampira with the most over the top grimace I've ever seen). As the procession leaves the two gravediggers stay and talk in a conversation that literally makes no sense at all but may have something to do with the body looking creepy. Even though they're burying her Vampira suddenly pops up and the camera zooms in on her comical grimace as the two men give half assed screams of presumably death. Meanwhile up in the sky Pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott hamming it up) and his copilot, while enjoying the largest cock pit of all time see the corniest flying saucers of all time and though they don't resemble a cigar in the slightest Trent insists on that description of them...Alright.

In a scene that always makes me laugh no matter how many times I see it we see the Old Man is hilariously grieving for his wife and decides to walk into oncoming traffic and we hear a scream and assume his dead. We're supposed to assume that despite the fact that when he walks off camera and hear the sound effect his shadow is still clearly visible and unchanged. It is while at the old man's funeral someone finds the already skeletonized grave diggers from before...this was murder, and somebody's responsible! What I love about that line is it sounds dramatic the first time you hear if you don't think about it. Inspector Clay is called in to investigate (Tor Johnson an ex-wrestler and his acting abilities reflect that) but he ends up being killed in a really not scary and awkward way by Vampira and guy with cape pretending to be Bella Lugosi. Meanwhile our pilot probably lives near the cemetery as he and his wife Paula (Mona McKinnon, typical damsel in distress) are hearing all the commotion and he talks about how the government has already sworn him into secrecy about that saucer. The only thing quicker than the government swearing you to secrecy was how fast you broke that promise! Anyways there's a gust of wind or something that's hilariously abrupt and a spaceship conveniently lands near their house unknown to them.

The next day Saucers pop up and clumsily hover all around the world and newspapers manage to get an issue out on it right as its happening! Amazing! Some Army Guy named Edwards (Tom Keene, who I guess was kicked out of the movie industry after this) and he gives a painfully long pondering speech about how the government has always known about saucers and they may have been responsible for many historical disasters which is incredibly ignorant and stupid to add to the boring shittiness. All the ships return to the mothership and the Alien leader the hilariously ill named Eros (Dudley Manlove, who can be taken about as seriously as his name in this) contacts their emperor or something and says he's starting Plan 9 since the first eight failed or something to contact humans...reanimating corpses through the pituitary gland. Let that sink in...Anyways all the saucers return to Earth.

Trent is off on another flight and wishes Paula to stay with her mother for safety but she insists she can fend for herself (SPOILER ALERT: SHE CAN'T). That night though the old man, Vampira and now the corpse of Clay face frozen in the most hilarious fucking expression OF ALL TIME watch the movie just for this chase her slowly into the cemetery where her running by the same area is used like twenty times. So much reused footage you feel bad for Wood he was just so bad at basic filmmaking. Anyways some driver finds her passed out in the road and drives off with her leaving the zombies to amble awkwardly into Eros' spaceship where he shuts them down...but they don't rot. What happens next is anyone's guess, there's scenes in the Pentagon the army guy from earlier is sent to San Fernando and then we see the Police are interviewing Trent and his wife about the aliens. Than Bella Lugosi guy ambles slowly out of the cemetery and this shitty cop doesn't know how to use a gun so just runs from him to the Trent's house where they all finally open fire and fail to deter the onslaught and then for some reason the aliens use a ray gun and decompose him which doesn't seem to fit their motivation. And the group is all really confused for once an emotion the audience can relate with in a scene and head to the cemetery which all joking aside is I guess pretty logical.

Alright so on the ship we see the aliens want to talk to the humans but rather than going out and meeting or confronting the humans they send Clay to kidnap Paula to lure them to the Saucer. And painfully he manages too and they do follow him and then comes the most awkward stretch of dialogue ever I mentioned earlier it's painful. Eros says that the aliens wanted to befriend the humans or something but the humans retaliated violently which gave them a bad rep. The Aliens presumed making a lot of jumps in logic that humans will discover solarbonite weapons that blow up sunlight molecules and will destroy whatever sunlight touches so they have to put down humans for the good of the universe basically and at this point every Science Major's head explodes from anger at the stupidity of this explanation on so many levels. Alright so than an awkward action sequence ensues and it all culminates with Trent fighting Eros which for some inexplicable reason causes the inside of the spaceship to start to explode and somehow Trent gets out and the ship blasts into space and blows up killing the aliens and it's about as cheesy as you can imagine. Giant what the fuck aside I must say it's a very Tony Scott esque way to wrap things up. ENDING BROADCAST FROM GUY WITH BAD HAIR AT BEGINNING.

Alright so what have we learned about Plan 9? It's pretty entertaining as a whole and has moments of comedic hilarity; the direction is terrible as is well everything but it all comes together in a great B Movie combination of awful. Basically if you like spoof movies you'll like this too, if not avoid it you'll miss the appeal entirely.