The Brewhaha on..."Plan 9 from Outer Space"

“Greetings, my friends.  We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.  And remember, my friends.  Future events such as these will affect you in the future.  […]  My friends, can your hearts withstand the shocking facts about grave robbers from outer space!”
-Criswell’s opening titles

“We haven’t always fired at them.  For a time we tried to contact them by radio, but no response.  Then they attacked a town.  A small town, I’ll admit, but nevertheless a town of people.  People who died.”
-The general, informing us that people die when they are killed

“Looks like we beat them off again, sir.”
-I’d expect this from aliens, but from a freaking U.S. sergeant?

“You stupid humans!  STUPID, STUPID!!!”
-Rorschach the alien overlord, basically summing up this movie

“The Stark County Treasurer’s Office is a mess!  It is in dire need of structure and guidance!!!”
-Phil Davison, basically summing up this movie

It’s very rare I see a movie so hilarious that it actually starts to physically anger me.  I wanted to lift my 30” TV and chuck it out of my third story window with my bare hands, this is how bad the movie is.

“Plan 9 From Outer Space,” in the same vein as the previously-reviewed “Manos:  The Hands of Fate,” has gone down in cinematic history as one of the worst films of all time.  This is despite the fact that “Plan 9” was created by someone with actual filmmaking experience, and actually appeared to have something of a budget (albeit a meager and very poorly-expensed budget, most likely all spent on Béla Lugosi).

We can start with simple things.  Like the writing.  Which is featured in the movie quotes above, and pretty much speaks for itself.  It’s easy enough to accept stuff like the abysmal staging, setwork, editing, and even acting, because those are the sorts of things that take some real, concrete work, but it’s inconceivable that a sane human being wrote this and expected his cast to follow this script at all.

The opening narration, given to us by a would-be Nostradamus who keeps getting the past and the future mixed up (in the same scene, no less!), basically establishes that this movie has a fairly loose grip on things like logic, or how time works.  His introduction to this warped movie, and his voice-overs throughout, are so hammy that it starts to taste like Christmas all over again.

Then we move into the actual plot, which by all accounts should at least be interesting, if not downright amazing in the hands of competent filmmakers.  People are coming back to life as a result of the advanced technology of aliens, who are seeking to make contact with humans.  It’s zombies (and one relatively hot vampire) created by aliens…

Why?  I dunno.  I think the aliens just felt like it.

Plan 9, as presented in the film, seems to consist of a trio of zombies.  As mentioned above, we have the relatively hot “vampire”-looking chick, as give to us by…“Vampira”?  (Oh, Wikipedia, I thought I could rely on you for stuff like this.)  The late (as of filming) Béla Lugosi and some other guy each double up in the role of Vampira’s deceased better half through the not-so-careful use of edits, and the most not-so-careful use of a cape since Spawn.

Rounding out their trio is Tor Johnson.  Tor Johnson was easy to remember because he gets quite the memorable (first) death scene, and that name kept coming up in the Rifftrax version.  He was also easy to remember by virtue of the sheer number of physical scenes he ended up in.  Just to be clear, though, Tor Johnson is not someone who is built for physical scenes, and is absolutely impossible to take seriously as a result (though his “love tap of death” during the film’s climax, and his overall "deer in headlights" expression, probably don’t help matters much).

Of course, Plan 9 is nothing without its planners, a trio of aliens who end up appearing throughout much of the movie.  All I can really say is that nobody plays an alien like that anymore.  Ever since Sigourney Weaver decided to go all commando on those chest-bursting creatures, you never see aliens that cheesy and bald and out-of-shape anymore.  Specifically, you never see redshirt-sporting aliens from the dreaded “space nipple” moon who can get taken out by Tor Johnson drifting lazily in their general direction.  (Worf might count…)

As my good friend Phil Davison would say, this movie is about as bad as it gets.  The chief conflict is driven by the aliens’ need to prevent humans from discussing a substance which, when detonated, threatens to render sunlight itself explosive and thus destroy the universe.  At first, they try making contact.  When that doesn’t work, they decide to resurrect the dead, claiming that they can finally get our attention that way.  Because the flying saucers hovering over our major cities surely wouldn’t do the job.

Beyond these basic plot problems, the mistakes and shortcomings in this film are numerous and well-documented, from the notorious boom mic featured in the cockpit scenes, to the film’s utter confusion as to whether it’s supposed to be night or day, to the gravestones actually wobbling during the cemetery scenes.  In other words, as far as bad filmmaking goes, Plan 9 is a freaking gold mine.

The Rifftrax version features three of MST3K’s and Rifftrax’s finest in a Nashville theater giving a running commentary on the film.  (And Tor Johnson.  And Béla Lugosi).  If you want to see it for free, you can find it here, or failing that, it will be put up somewhere on the IMDb page.

Note:  The Brewsky is an enthusiastic contributor and movie reviewer who enters people's homes at night to plunder their bedrooms.  But you too can beat him off by joining the Army, the finest military in the world.