Plan 9 From Outer Space

Written, produced, and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr., Plan 9 From Outer Space has gone down in history as the worst movie of all time. Is it deserving of this title? Well, that would depend on the viewer, but I will go ahead and review it to give you some insight.

Unlike my previous review, Cool World, the plot of Plan 9 is fairly clear. Aliens have tried to contact Earth in order to stop them from building weapons that could destroy the universe, but when their attempts at communication go ignored, they go on with Plan 9, which is to resurrect recently dead humans. The zombies then attack and kill some people, and eventually the aliens use them to kidnap a pilot, some police officers, the pilot's wife, and a military general to finally talk with them.

I think that this movie gets so much bad press because of what it was supposed to be, and what good marketing could have done to save it. The only part of the movie I didn't like was this part in the middle with the general translating what the aliens said for some other guy...which was unnecessary as the aliens clearly spoke English. Why are you translating a language that you speak? That makes as much sense as stabbing yourself in the eye with a spork. Besides that part, though, the movie was really funny. The problem is it wasn't supposed to be, it was supposed to be a horror movie. If it had been a horror B-movie spoof, history may not have treated this movie so badly.

The production value was a joke, and parts of the story just don't make sense. Apparently, Edward D. Wood, Jr. liked to work on the cheap, which is understandable, but props were always shaking and falling over when they shouldn't. The funniest part of the movie is when a character wants to know why one guy was enclosed in a tomb when his wife was buried in the ground, like that was the part of the movie that was troubling everyone. The shots constantly switched between night and day, and there's a part where a character is hit by a car but you can see his shadow standing straight up even as it happens. It helped to make the movie hilarious. There's also a part where one of the zombies has a key to a house and goes and attacks the woman inside. Him having a key to the house makes sense, it used to be his. However, the fact that she got away but went back home to a house that a zombie had a key to was pretty stupid. I would never return to a house that a zombie had a key to. There's a part where the alien addressing the Earthlings starts off sounding authoritative, but at the end of his speech he breaks down into a hissy fit. It's just plain funny.

Critically, I would only give this movie half a star, it is pretty bad. But to call it the worst is completely unfair. I haven't seen every movie ever, but I've seen worse movies before I was ten years old. In fact, to compare this movie to Cool World, which was my last review, this movie was better if for the fact that it's more memorable and has a plot that makes some sort of sense. But Cool World was visually pleasing because it wasn't cheap on production, so win some lose some. Stay Tuned, which I promise to review one day, still is the worst movie I have ever seen. If you like bad movies, or if you can convince yourself it's a horror B-movie spoof, I would definitely recommend seeing Plan 9. But if you're the boring kind of person who only likes good movies, this movie is definitely not for you.