Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Solarbenite?

How could anyone not love this thing? After all, it has Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Chriswell and a cast of extraterrestrial queens. To top it off it was produced by the 'worst' director of all time, Ed Wood.

Of course it's terrible. If approached anything like cinematic quality it would have been bad. As it is, however, it's terrific, especially if you've knocked down three or four beers in advance. The sets are cheesy, the special effects a joke, the acting ridiculous and the jokes over the top. Aliens, the chief of whom is a total swish, are angry at earth people for not recognizing that they are real. They also believe that earthlings--despite the fact that we are incredibly stupid, juvenile idiots--are about to develop technologies that will destroy the Universe. Therefore, in an equal measure of pique and fear, they must destroy the human race. Not that they haven't tried it before..eight times before, to be exact...and have failed every time. Now they spring their ultimate plan--Plan 9--which is doomed to failure, also.

So how is it that earthlings might destroy the Universe. Read this carefully Al Gore. We are on the verge of discovering Solarbenite, which will ignite the sun's rays, set up a chain reaction, blow up the sun and then every planet in the Universe. Too complicated for you? Well, the aliens explain it in terms that the idiot earthlings can uncerstand. "Imagine a gas can and a ball. Pour the gas from the can in a line to the ball. Put a match to the ball. The ball is the earth and ignites burning back to the can, which is the sun. The sun explodes, blowing up all the planets and then, in a catastrophic chain reaction, every planet in the Universe." What a terrific alternative energy source. Why did it take Ed Woods to figure it out?

Anyway, the flying saucer extraterrestrials set out to destroy the human race by reanimating dead bodies buried in one particular graveyard. Vampira and Bela Lugosi, both recently deceased, are resurrected along with the murdered Chief of Police. These zombies then stumble around in the dark clumsily trying to murder people. Well, it all might have worked out just fine had not several of our earthling heroes not stumbled into a flying saucer than looks a lot like somebody's house. There's a fight, the saucer catches fire and, after our heroes make a quick departure, blows up while escaping into outer space. Therefore, and fortunately for the earth, Plan 9 is foiled. No doubt, however, there will be Plans 10 and 11 but unfortunately without Bela Lugosi. He died while filming this masterpiece, necessitating his replacement with a 'stunt' double.

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico August 19, 2008

Not as hilariously awful as I was told

After hearing different people tell me Plan 9 was the most unequivocally awful film they ever saw, I finally bought a copy and watched it, and it wasn't nearly as awful as some of the other badfilm I've seen (badfilm = corny, cliched dialog + cheesy props & effects + the film takes itself seriously). If you watch the interviews which come right after the film, it becomes less awful when you realize Ed Wood made a halfway decent film with what little he had to work with. The Blair Witch kids did as much forty years later, but nobody laughed at THEM. Plan 9 does have a workable plot, and it's a shame Ed Wood suffered such an ignominious demise.

Plan 9 is not a movie for viewers hoping to find a film peppered with side-splitting gaffes. May 9, 2008

Let us punish the guilty, let us reward the innocent!

I love this movie. I keep watching it over and over. It's really not a bad movie at all. "The Goonies" was a bad movie, not this. It's just delightfully offbeat. Tor Johnson is a gem in his zombie contact lenses, Vampira is a cinch waisted stunner, killing by merely shaking her hands. And then there's Bela Lugosi, who was already dead when this movie was released playing a man risen from the dead...shear poetry. The best line comes from the pilots wife...."You'll be up there, and the graveyards out there, but I'll be in there."-Perfect May 8, 2008

outer space movie review

I purchased the item for my husband, he likes movies like that he enjoys it so I would say that it was a good movie and it was in excellent condition and arrived in a timely manner. April 26, 2008

The movie you hate to love

This is a great copy to have of the "worst film ever made." The colorized version is surprisingly good and it includes the BW version as well (for the purists). The "qualities" of the film are, of course, legendary. I suppose everyone has their own favorite moments, but for me it is the use of bathroom shower curtains in lieu of a door in the cockpit of the airplane. Frankly, the production values are so outrageously cheap that it almost plays like a spoof of bad films. Except, God love him, Ed Wood was serious about this one. Personally, the film is a keeper for me because it includes Criswell (childhood memories of "Criswell Predicts") and Vampira (again, nostalgia from Los Angeles TV in the '50s). But most of all, because it is Bela Lugosi's last film. It is hard to imagine life without a film like "Plan 9 From Outer Space." I couldn't, in good conscience, give this 5 stars, but for nostalgia, rollicking laughs that were not intended, and for the sincerity and love of film-making by a clueless director, it certainly merits 4. April 13, 2008

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