Very early on I set down my pen and simply had to accept that there were too many errors with this movie for me to transcribe. Ed Wood's classic B-horror film and two time winner of the Golden Turkey for the Worst Film of All Time sets the standard for low-budget, campy film making, but it is a cult favorite and I must say that in spite of its faults--or rather because of them--I have fallen in love with this great big golden turkey.
After eight attempts to intervene with the goings on of humans, a team of aliens descend to Earth to carry out Plan 9, a dastardly scheme to destroy the race of men by bringing the dead back to life to kill the living! Their motive? Humans apparently are on the brink of discovering a new bomb that will literally explode sunlight. Solaranite, discovered centuries ago by other alien races, is thought to be unfit in the hands of the human race because, as the aliens make very clearly, we are violent idiots who would blow up the universe. Apparently one detonation of Solaranite would cause a chain reaction that would eventually destroy every planet in the universe. How the aliens managed to discover this science without destroying the universe themselves is a question left unanswered, but I'm not sure that those in the movie thought of that.
Anyway, they bring the dead back to life in order to kill the living. Two are a married couple played by buxom Vampira, and Bella Lugosi (in his last film role, but still sporting his Dracula cape which was awesome). Later a police inspector (ex-wrestler Tor Johnson ) joins the undead duo, and the three reek havoc on a group of about half a dozen people in California. Why only three were raised from the dead and how these three were to destroy the entire human race with their lumbering walk and inability to use weapons is just another small point raised but not answered.
In the end it comes down to a hand-to-hand combat fight between two aliens aboard the only spacecraft sent to destroy humanity, and a police detective, an commercial aircraft pilot, and an army general, as earthly weapons seem to have little effect on the flying saucers or on the zombies (called "ghouls"). One final question that I want to raise (I have so many, but this one really stuck out simply because such a big deal was out of it) is that about midway through the movie two army generals are discussing the imminent alien encounter. The government has apparently been hiding the existence of aliens from the public for a number of years--they have, in fact, made contact with the aliens via radio. One of the generals explains to the other that when they got the transmission it came through as a bunch of garbled sounds, but with a new technology called a "language computer" they were able to translate any language into their own. That established, during the final confrontation between human and alien aboard the ship the aliens have a very long discussion, in very clear English, about the space race's intentions. Did nobody in the cast notice this? Nobody? My goodness.
Now that I have effectively given away the entirety of the plot I recommend that you go out and watch this movie. It is obvious that it inspired many film makers in later years, and for good reason. This movie is so unintentionally funny it is probably impossible not to like it. It breaks practically every bullet in the movie-making rule book, but it is the utter lack of talent from every single aspect of the whole--from the writing to the acting to the unbelievable editing--that makes this movie so incredibly endearing.
I have a feeling that I might not have been so forgiving to this film had I not previously seen the movie Ed Wood, Tim Burton's best film and my all time favorite Johnny Depp picture, which tells the story of the legendarily bad director's time in Hollywood. Burton obviously had a very soft spot in his heart for Wood's movies as even though he makes fun of the ridiculous and hilariously deluded way in which he made pictures, but does it affectionately and you makes you love the spirited, cross-dressing Ed Wood as much as Burton does. Where this is relevant is that Burton and his actors recreate some of the most memorable scenes in his "best" films and show the process that Wood went through in making them. As God-awful as they are to the most amateur of movie-watchers (and believe you me a five year old could spot the blemishes) Wood went on creating his films as if he were making high art. There are absolutely side-splitting scenes in Ed Wood where he films scenes that any other director would have immediately discarded because a prop fell down or the lighting is inconsistent, but Wood kept them because in his head it made sense that keeping the take fit with his conceptualization of realism. Knowing that he took his film making dead seriously and made movies that were not self-aware in the slightest bit makes them that much more enjoyable simply because you can laugh at them and know that director would not be laughing with you.
I give this movie a 0/4 because it truly is the worst film I think that I have ever seen, but I want to give it 4/4 because I freaking love it.
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