October 10th, 2014: Plan 9 From Outer Space

Cast and Crew: Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Vampira, Dudley Manlove, Lyle Talbot, Criswell

What It’s About: Aliens, concerned with man’s rapid mastering of the atom and his ability to accidentally destroy the universe, manage to run through 8 plans before they get to Plan 9: resurrect human dead and turn them against the living. Can a handful of police and military officers and the pilot (Gregory Walcott) and his wife (Monica McKinnon) who live next door to the cemetery where the aliens are bringing the dead to life stop the aliens and their dastardly plan?

Why Watch it Today?: Today is writer/director/producer/editor Edward Wood Jr.’s birthday. Plan 9 From Outer Space is the best known of Wood’s small oeuvre of films which far overreach both their budgets and Wood’s talent in delightfully so-bad-its-good ways. Plan 9 is one of the best of the bunch, with Wood’s naïve enthusiasm allied to a reasonably paced film that is full of technical errors, corner cutting, and unbelievable dialog delivered with a straight face.