[Freya-dæg] All-Request August Pt. 1: Plan 9 From Outer Space

{The Plan 9 From Outer Space movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Introduction

For this, the first part of All-Request August, we're delving into Plan 9 From Outer Space.

This is a film that has become infamous as the epitome of the "so-bad-it's-good" movie. Perhaps the most well-remembered of director/writer/producer/actor/author/editor Ed Wood had to offer, it sits in the hearts of many a movie-goer as the sort of film that hits all the wrong notes, and as a result has a harmony all its own.

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Plot Summary

Two grave-diggers (J. Edward Reynolds and Hugh Thomas Jr.) are attacked by a mysterious woman (Maila Nurmi). Around the same time, two pilots - Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his co-pilot Danny (David De Mering) - encounter a flying saucer during an otherwise routine flight. After this incident the small town that are home to the mysterious cemetery and Jeff Trent is never the same.

Meanwhile, on Space Station 7, aliens Eros (Dudley Manlove) and Tanna (Joanna Lee) meet with their commander (John Beckinbridge) to discuss their current work on the planet earth. The commander is less than pleased with their progress, but Eros promises results.

After the aliens return to the same small town they had visited earlier, more bodies return to life, and locals and government forces are equally alarmed. As the mysterious connection between the cemetery and the aliens is revealed and their plot made clear, will the efforts of a pilot, a detective, and a colonel be enough to foil Plan 9 From Outer Space?

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The Good

{Bela Lugosi in some of his spliced-in capering.}

Plan 9 From Outer Space's reputation preceeds it. This alone is one of the good things about this movie. The fact that it's quite memorable despite it's absolute ridiculousness in all of its aspects speaks to its charm.

Perhaps it's most charming aspect is the movie's pacing. Instead of feeling like a waste of time, Plan 9 does a great job of keeping your interest; either because you find pulp science fiction fascinating or you find the movie to be so much of a train wreck that you just can't look away. That the same can't be said for movies like The Last Airbender or Cool World reflects even more poorly on them.

Like many other B science fiction movies of the 50s and 60s, Plan 9's also a movie that's not afraid to deal with absolutely wild scientific ideas.

First among these is the idea that an electrical charge applied to certain parts of the human body can restore it to life, or at least to a zombie-like functioning. By no means is this a new idea as it's been around since at least the 19th century, where it played a role in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Appropriately, the exact method behind the re-animation the aliens in the movie use is explained and described, and such pseudo-scientific explanation is one of this movie's strong points.

In fact, the movie's drive to explain its science also helps to buoy its other outlandish idea: that it's possible to create a sunlight bomb.

The logic that this movie puts forth for it makes this otherwise wildly unlikely idea seem sensible enough.

From basic explosions caused by combustion in grenades and bombs, humanity moved on to create bombs that explode atoms, and then bombs that explode hydrogen (that "actually explode the air itself"), and, so the alien Eros argues, the next step is "Solaranite."

Eros then goes on to explain the danger of this last explosive by way of comparing the sun to a gas can, the earth to a gas-soaked ball, and the rays of sunlight to trails of gasoline. Thus, if you ignite "solaranite" then you set off a chain reaction that blows up the sun, its sunlight, and all things that its sunlight touches. In the heat of the moment, this is all made to sound plausible, though ridiculous.

That sort of meticulousness is quite refreshing, because it shows that though the attention paid to all of the movie's other areas was lacking, at least there was enough paid to one of the most important parts: The underlying principles of the movie's major threat.

Plus, the aliens' fear of humanity's stumbling across a "solaranite" bomb beautifully illustrates the movie's main point about humanity being a danger to itself and all those around it.

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The Bad

{The movie's narrator, Criswell, with some bad news.}

Acting, directing, editing, and screenwriting, all weigh Plan 9 From Outer Space down.

For the most part the main characters are well-acted, with only a few flubs or flat scenes, but all the other actors could be replaced with the contents of a lumber yard and there'd be very little difference.

Though the movie's acting is terribly uneven, the scriptwriting (for the most part) is often awkward. New information springs up out of nowhere, narration is used in the place of dialogue that could develop character as well as plot, and characters often make no transition or excuse for remembering information just a little bit too late.

Continuity is quite possibly the movie's roughest area. It's not unusual throughout it to have scenes instantaneously switch from a faint evening to the darkest depth of night. Around the movie's middle there are also some rough edits that can be seen between scenes.

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Judgment

Plan 9 From Outer Space deserves all of the harsh criticisms that it has received to date, and continues to receive.

The movie makes many screenwriting and technical missteps, has enough bad acting to fuel the most trite of modern action sequels or remakes (The Three Musketeers, anyone?), and its editing and effects could never hope to hold a candle to even the cheapest of studio-backed films today.

But I really enjoy it. I've seen it three times now, and I really enjoy it.

For all of it's flaws, Plan 9 is a great example of the B horror and science fiction movies of its era. Its acting, effects, and writing aren't anything that will receive wide critical acclaim, but it's a fun movie that can entertain, keep your attention, and give you a premise so ridiculous you have to stop and wonder about the breadth of the imagination that created it.

Plus, the movie brings up an idea that is incredibly relevant to our modern, zombie/vampire crazed pop-culture: "it's an interesting thing when you consider... the Earth people, who can think, are so frightened by those who cannot: The dead."

So, Freya, fly low over the widest part of the field of fallen films and fish this one out from the depths, for it, like Manos: The Hands of Fate, is deserving of a place in Movie Valhalla. Though for very different reasons.

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Closing

Next week, check out this blog for more creative writing, an editorial, and Part Two of All-Request August with Alien Apocalypse. Plus, on Tuesday and Thursday watch for Annotated Links #14 and #15.

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