Plan 9 from Outer Space was voted the worst film of all time. That of course is complete nonsense. At the time numerous B Sci-Fi and horror films were produced and a lot of them weirder (Teenagers from Outer Space) or worse (anything by William Beaudine really) than Ed Wood's films. And if you are looking for the worst films of all time, do not look further than Italian straight to video fare from the 80s. Anyway, Wood is an easy target to make fun of because he took himself and his films seriously whereas Beaudine saw himself as a craftsman who would film the phone book if required to do so. Of course , Plan 9 is ludicrous but as a b movie it works quite well. Wood was actually quite good at producing reasonable low budget special effects (in fact, he was often used as a consultant on other films in the 50s and 60s)and they are okay. Unless you are really looking for it you won't actually see the strings on the flying saucers. I'm not comparing Plan 9 to 2001 A Space Odysee but within the framework of 50s b movies , the effects are actually okay. The same goes for some of the sets like the aircraft cockpit. Yes, it's plywood and a shower curtain with some bits of a fake computer but it works because no one at the time knew what a cockpit actually looked like. The thing is that most b movies at the time wre quite frankly extremely boring and that is something you cannot accuse Plan 9 of. It keeps your interest, is reasonably well crafted and of course it has the typical Ed Wood dialogues which really are hilarious. And that's where Wood taking himself seriously comes into it. He really saw Plan 9 as his Citizen Kane. However, Plan 9 has some iconic scenes like the zombie like Vampira or Tor Johnson rising from the grave. The make up is actually pretty good. I'm not saying this is a great film but i don't really think it qualifies as being so awful that it's great. Within the standards of 50s cheap sci fi movies it's actually okay.
Review of Plan 9 from Outer Space
