Being the self-confessed Wood-ite I am, I cannot rightly put this movie down for it's outrageuously bad special effects, awful setpieces, bad acting, a posthumous role from the (otherwise) magniifcent Béla Lugosi (Dracula,...
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Being the self-confessed Wood-ite I am, I cannot rightly put this movie down for it's outrageuously bad special effects, awful setpieces, bad acting, a posthumous role from the (otherwise) magniifcent Béla Lugosi (Dracula, White Zombie) and overrall lack of everything, Plan 9 has one thing most films don't ... ambition.
Ed Wood's career saw many more downs than they did ups, yet from "Crossroads of Laredo" to "Night of the Ghouls" to "I Woke Up Early The Day I Died", Ed Wood had ambition.
Plan 9 From Outer Space conveys constant swithcing of night and day shots, twigs for trees, an eccentric gay socialite as the alien ruler, a solarnite .. solarbenite ... solarinite ... whatever, as well a (mute) vampiress as a zombie, Dr Tom Mason filling in for the deceased Lugosi after only a couple of minutes of silent footage, a forzen frame in which the "Old Man" is "run down by a car", a Swedish wrestler speaking complicated lines, "advanced" equipment in the aeroplane cockpit and a police lieutenant who's a little too free with his gun. Plan 9 offers many, many laughs and is an insight into the mind of Edward D. Wood Jr.
With Gregory Walcott taking center stage as the "young hero", with Dudley Manlove, Joanna Lee and John "Bunny" Breckinridge in the seats of the aliens and of course Vampira, Criswell and Tor Johnson filling in the other roles (Johnson having appeared in "Bride of the Monster", another Wood film, as Lobo, and it's sequel "Night of the Ghouls", and Criswell also introducing that film).
Plan 9 From Outer Space is the quintessential Wood film, for those to start there colleection. Mine currently spans 11 Wood titles, the first of which was Plan 9 (which also features a companion, 30 minutes longer than the actual film), and without the bone-crushing integrity, mixed with uninetional humour and haunting ... yeah ... haunting music and ... smoke ... this is the movie Wood is most remembered for. "So bad it's good" has crept up very often, and still applies here.