Amazon.com video review:
Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can't quite
live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these
movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you've heard. Plan 9
is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection
of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates ("Future events such as these will affect
you in the future!") as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping
the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious
goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one-
stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: The time shifts whimsically
from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to
rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings.
Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming, but such a small hurdle
could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced
with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have "NOT BELA
LUGOSI" stamped on his forehead. Plan 9 is so sweetly well-
intentioned in both its message and its execution that it's impossible not to
love it. And if you don't, well, as Eros says, "You people of Earth are idiots!"
--Ali Davis
Amazon.com video review:
Is Ed Wood the worst director who ever lived? His films are campy,
clumsy, and hysterically inept, but their enthusiasm and good humor
overcome incoherent scripts and wooden performances with heart, soul, and
an infectious sense of fun. The jaw-dropping
"documentary" Glen or Glenda is a bizarre confessional starring Wood
himself as a misunderstood transvestite and Bela Lugosi as a smirking
godlike narrator. "Pull ze string!" shouts Lugosi as Wood reveals his
angora fetish and love of women's underwear to the world. Lugosi returns
as a mad scientist revenging himself on the world ("Home? I have no home!") in
Bride of the Monster, a howler of a horror picture. Tor Johnson, the
hulking Swedish wrestler turned B-movie icon, made his first Wood appearance as
the lumbering beast Lobo (he almost knocks over the set in one scene!) tamed by
the touch of angora. Finally there's Wood's "masterpiece," the clumsy,
nearly incoherent, and ridiculously cheap Plan 9 from Outer Space. A
tall, skinny, blond chiropractor subs for short, raven-haired Bela Lugosi
(who died after a few days of shooting), cardboard gravestones wobble as
the actors walk by, and night and day randomly come and go within the same
scene. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com Essentials:
Is Ed Wood the worst director who ever lived? His films are campy,
clumsy, and hysterically inept, but their enthusiasm and good humor
overcome incoherent scripts and wooden performances with heart, soul, and
an infectious sense of fun. The jaw-dropping "documentary" Glen or Glenda
is a bizarre confessional starring Wood himself as a misunderstood transvestite
and Bela Lugosi as a smirking godlike narrator. "Pull ze string!" shouts Lugosi
as Wood reveals his angora fetish and love of women's underwear to the world.
Jail Bait is a dime-store crime thriller with inspired moments of grimy
film noir tension emerging from the wooden dialogue and flat, sitcom-looking
"drama," all set to an annoying guitar and piano score borrowed from
Mesa of Lost Women. Lugosi returns as a mad scientist revenging
himself on the world ("Home? I have no home!") in Bride of the
Monster, a howler of a horror picture. Tor Johnson, the hulking Swedish
wrestler turned B-movie icon, made his first Wood appearance as the
lumbering beast Lobo (he almost knocks over the set in one scene!) tamed by the
touch of angora. Finally there's Wood's "masterpiece," the clumsy,
nearly incoherent, ridiculously cheap Plan 9 from Outer Space. A tall,
skinny, blond chiropractor subs for short, raven-haired Bela Lugosi
(who died after a few days of shooting), cardboard gravestones wobble as
the actors walk by, and night and day randomly come and go within the same
scene. The DVD also features the documentary Flying Saucers over
Hollywood, a portrait of Wood and a celebration of Plan 9 that
is actually longer than the film itself! --Sean Axmaker
