I typically use this space to talk about movies on which people should not consider wasting their time. “I watch so you don’t have to” is not just a tagline, it’s really the truth for the majority of sludge I end up sitting through. Every once in a while, something I stumble upon will be so egregiously bad that I can recommend it as highly entertaining.
What I can say today is that all previous recommendations have been put to shame by this week’s installment.
When I sat down to watch “Plan 9 from Outer Space” my only knowledge of the movie was from the “Seinfeld” episode where Jerry is excited to go see it in the theater, calling it “the worst movie ever made.”
I must say, it lived up/down to all expectations.
Before I pick apart what makes this movie so ridiculous, I need to make one point crystal clear: I believe EVERYONE should watch this movie. Watch it alone and make sarcastic comments to yourself, watch it with a group for a more varied assemblage of hysterically-critical remarks, just make sure to watch it. I haven’t felt so strongly about any recommendation since I made my friends watch The Magic Bullet food processor infomercial (amazing, by the way).
One of the ways I have been describing the movie to others is that if you and the people around you right now decided to make a full-length, science-fiction movie and it turned out to be “Plan 9,” you would most likely be very disappointed in yourselves.
The movie was made in 1959, so a lack of realistic special effects is obviously expected. But infamous director Ed Wood almost seems to be feeding his own stereotype with every aspect of this film.
From the very beginning, characters deliver dialog so bad that it seems they are making it up as they go along. I might buy that as a theory if it weren’t so obvious that they were just regurgitating memorized lines, or even in some cases blatantly reading from the script in their lap.
A very-creepy narrator starts things off, sitting alone on-camera and talking directly to the viewers in one of those typical 1950s-film-reel voices where you expect him to start spouting the virtues of anything from abstinence to kitchen cleanser.
Instead, he begins to talk about the alien invasion that changed the course of history. The word to best describe his monologue is probably “redundant.” One of his lines is actually: “Future events such as these will affect you in the future.”
That’s either one of the most abstract or dumbest sentences ever written. You decide.
Shortly thereafter, we get into the story as two pilots are in a commercial cockpit (AKA sitting on chairs with virtually no controls) and spot an alien craft. The most distinct feature of this UFO is that it is dangling on a quite-visible string.
The plot of this horrifying tale is that aliens have figured out a way to successfully infiltrate and conquer earth by using the bodies of the recently deceased.
Throughout the storyline, scenes feature such glaring errors, like the same scene switching from day to night to day to dusk to morning. You will probably think it’s a problem with your TV.
It’s not.
There are actors speaking over each other, wardrobe malfunctions, completely unintelligible lines delivered and just about the least realistic romantic conversation ever recorded on film.
While the debate over whether or not it is the “worst movie ever made” can be intriguing, I usually have trouble considering a movie to be terrible if I get enjoyment from it. So “Plan 9” may be the most-poorly-executed movie ever made, but far from the worst.
You can watch “Plan 9” right on your computer, as it can be viewed instantly on Netflix. Do yourself a favor, watch it ASAP. I predict that if this movie is in your future, your future attitude will be greatly affected by that future viewing… in the future.
