The Pitch:
They call it the among the worst movies ever made for a reason.
I've had too many years of preparation for this. Not
only have I seen Ed Wood, which directly talks about how the movie was
made. I've seen The Room and seen the movie and read the book about how
that movie got made. I've watched movies like Bowfinger and Son of
Rambow about people with such a deep love of movies that they are happy
even to make a bad one. It's been embedded deep in my brain that "Who am I
to laugh at another person's dream?" I try to say as often as I can that I
think it's a miracle that anyone can put together a movie that's even the least
bit competent. Plan 9 From Outer Space tests that rule, but leaves it in
tact.
I didn't hate Plan 9 from Outer Space in the
way I thought I would. I mean, it isn't a good movie. All the bad things people
say about it are true. The performances are as terrible as the writing. The
sets are laughable. The use of stock footage is hilariously inserted. The
attempt to work around Bela Legosi's death is ridiculous. It's very bad.
I spent a lot of this movie thinking about that
scene in Lady Bird when we see her parents watching the performance of
the school musical. It's bad, but the kids are having a blast and are still
figuring things out. You get why people are attending the play and would
applaud the kids' efforts at the end. If you just think of Plan 9 From Outer
Space as bad community theater, it's easy to appreciate the things that do
work in it. A couple people are attempting to give good performances despite
the material. I kind of liked the score. When you weigh Wood's ambition against
his budget, he gets respectably close to making it work.
It's a bad movie, but I'm glad that there were
dummies out there trying to make it good. That said, just watch Ed Wood
or Bowfinger. Those get the same point across without actually needing
to watch a bad movie.
Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend
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