War Pig has staked out the schlock sci-fi movie review corner but I hope he won\u2019t mind if I try my hand at the grand daddy of all bad sci fi movies.<\/p>\n
Summarizing the plot of Plan 9 is absurd.\u00a0 Aliens have become alarmed by Earth\u2019s increasingly powerful weapons and try to contact us to warn us of our danger.\u00a0 But allegedly, we refuse to acknowledge they are even there so they proceeded to attack us.\u00a0 But the first eight plans are ineffective so that leads to \u201cPlan 9,\u201d namely, resurrecting the dead.\u00a0 Now the resurrected dead are murdering the citizenry and generally causing trouble.\u00a0 Finally, the police, an army officer and an airline pilot join forces to find the alien space craft and destroy it.<\/p>\n
Yes, the plot is idiotic but that is the least ridiculous aspect of this movie. \u00a0Everything about this movie fairly screams mental illness.\u00a0 The movie begins with an invocation by the Narrator, Criswell.\u00a0 Criswell appears to be a lunatic with his bizarre vocal delivery, oddly jelled hair and bedazzled tuxedo.\u00a0 He tells us this is based on a true story and the guilty will be punished and the innocent rewarded, whatever that means.<\/p>\n
In the next scene we see what looks like amateur footage of a frail looking Bela Lugosi attending a burial.\u00a0 Then he is killed (off camera by a car crash sound effect).\u00a0 This was necessary because this was all the footage of Lugosi they had.\u00a0 He died before the movie was made and the producer\/director\/writer\/editor, Ed Wood used this existing footage to allow Lugosi\u2019s name to be tacked on the film.\u00a0 Now Lugosi and his pre-deceased wife (Vampira) rise from the dead and start attacking the living.\u00a0 But the fact that Lugosi was really dead meant that someone else had to portray \u201cthe Old Man.\u201d\u00a0 Luckily Ed Wood\u2019s wife\u2019s chiropractor, Tom Mason was available.\u00a0 The fact that he was a foot taller, years younger and looked nothing like Lugosi was easily overcome by having Mason stoop over, and hold his Dracula cape in front of his face during all his scenes.<\/p>\n
Vampira is a hoot with her wide-eyed stare, stiff armed zombie shamble and divided cleavage get-up.\u00a0 Eventually when gigantic wrestler Tor Johnson is killed by Vampira and zombified he joins the other two ghouls as they stalk the living and stumble around the set.<\/p>\n
One of my favorite scenes is where the flying saucers make their appearance.\u00a0 Jeff Trent is an airline pilot.\u00a0 He and his copilot are in the cockpit (or actually in a room with a curtain over the door).\u00a0 They\u2019re sitting on folding chairs and instead of the control yoke in front of him, each man has a piece of wood shaped like nothing in particular sticking out of the floor.\u00a0 When they look out the window, we see three flying saucers that are pretty obviously wobbling on strings.<\/p>\n
When the army counter attacks against these alien craft, we get to see a man in a military uniform, standing in a room, looking through binoculars as stock WW II footage of a rocket launcher unloads on something.\u00a0 Now the flying saucers head back to their space station where the aliens provide an update to their leader.\u00a0 And we find out about the earthlings\u2019 bad manners in not acknowledging that the aliens even exist.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t go into all the absurdities that crowd the whole length of this dopey masterpiece of schlock but I\u2019ll cut to the climax.\u00a0 The heroes enter the flying saucer and interrogate the saucer captain Eros and he tells them that the reason that he is killing earthlings is because \u201cyou\u2019re stupid, stupid!\u201d\u00a0 So, he gets in a shouting match with Jeff Trent and eventually a fist fight.\u00a0 And when Trent punches Eros and he bumps into a table with what looks like the guts of a 1930s vacuum tube radio on it, the radio bursts into flames and eventually burns the saucer and causes it to explode.\u00a0 Now we return to Criswell who tells us what we\u2019ve seen is based on fact but follows up by saying, \u201cCan you prove it didn\u2019t happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ed Wood must have known how awful this movie was but you can see that he lavished loving attention on some of the details like the credits.\u00a0 The acting is abysmal when it isn\u2019t non-existent.\u00a0 The special effects are what you\u2019d expect from a grammar school film maker.\u00a0 Basically, this is a freak show.\u00a0 But I have to confess that I can watch this about once every five years and enjoy it.\u00a0 I recommend that every fan of 1950s science fiction movies watch it at least once in his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
War Pig has staked out the schlock sci-fi movie review corner but I hope he won\u2019t mind if I try my hand at the grand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237,4,243],"tags":[428,1957,43,1956,38,44,265],"class_list":["post-7546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-movie-reviews","tag-bela-lugosi","tag-ed-wood","tag-movie-review","tag-plan-9-from-outer-space","tag-review","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n