A Reel 60: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

“…Future events such as these will affect you in the future!”

This month marks the 60^thanniversary of Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. 

Often referred to as the worst movie ever made, PLAN 9 was the passion project of struggling actor and director Ed Wood, who had a reputation for making low-budget films quickly and cheaply. It was a film that combined two of his favorite genres; horror and science fiction, with a storyline of extraterrestrials who want to stop humanity from creating a doomsday weapon that could destroy the universe. The alien’s plan to stop this was to resurrect the Earth’s dead, and hope that the crisis would force humanity to listen them, or else be destroyed the aliens. 

The plotline was nutballs, but that was only the beginning. Wood secured funding for his film from the Baptist Church of Beverly Hills in their attempt to break into the motion picture business. Wood convinced church leaders to finance his film, and then use the “guaranteed” profits from its success to fund the church’s idea for a film about a famous evangelical Christian minister. Wood’s original title was GRAVE ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE, which the church objected to (go figure), and had it changed to PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. They also demanded that Wood and his crew be baptized, which they were at a Jewish swimming pool. 

With the corpses in the film becoming zombies, it was only fitting that the biggest name in the film would turn in a performance from the grave. Iconic horror star Bela Lugosi of DRACULA fame had passed away in 1956, just after shooting a few test reels with Wood for a planned comeback. After Lugosi died, Wood built PLAN 9 around the footage, which amounted to no more than five minutes. Wood would cast his wife’s chiropractor to play Lugosi’s part, a body-double, even though he looked nothing like him. 

The rest of the cast would be rounded out by a virtual island of misfit toys. Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi, also known as the 1950’s campy Vampira would be cast, along with Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, and Jeron Criswell King, also known as Criswell…an entertainment personality known for making inaccurate predictions. Other cast members included Gregory Walcott and Mona McKinnon. 

Wood’s reputation for filming quickly was in full play during production for PLAN 9. Up to 20 scenes were shot in one day with only one take, and sets and props were done on the cheap. All this led to PLAN 9 looking and sounding exactly like it was: cobbled together. Interiors and exteriors didn’t match, and the film cuts from day to night scenes with no logic. With Lugosi dead and Vampira refusing to say Wood’s dialogue, much of the vital lines went to Tor Johnson, whose English was so bad, sounded like a garbled mess. Criswell provided an opening and closing monologue that contradicted itself and made no sense. 

Wood’s movie had a private preview in 1956 with its original title, but it did not see a full theatrical release until nearly three years later with its re-titled PLAN 9. It enjoyed a run as parts of double-features before landing on television where it really found its audience…not only as a cult favorite but with repeat viewings, more and more mistakes were found and marveled at. These mistakes included visible microphones and more continuity mistakes; such as an airline pilot describing an alien spaceship as “cigar-shaped”, but when it appears it’s a saucer. 

PLAN 9 played in TV obscurity for years, but then in 1980 authors Harry Medved and Michael Medved dubbed it the worst film ever made, and Wood and his film were posthumously given two Golden Turkey Awards for Worst Director Ever and Worst Film. PLAN 9 today has a strong cult following, and is the subject of documentaries and midnight showings. In 1994, Tim Burton’s loving biopic ED WOOD would win two Oscars. 

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An ongoing question from all students and fans of cinema is if PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE really is the worst film ever made. It is indeed, pretty terrible even by 1950’s standards. The bad acting, incomprehensible dialogue, and continuity mistakes alone make its unfortunate title earned. But PLAN 9 manages to have a legacy that’s noteworthy. It was a zombie movie decades before zombies became popular, and the mash-up of science fiction and horror predated ALIEN, which did the same blending, by over 20 years. Wood put a lot of the things he loved into the film, which was an approach that would be embraced by filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith decades later. PLAN 9 was a trailblazer, but it was a terrible one. 

“And now some of us laugh at outer space. God help us…in the future.”