The Sci-Fi Horror Dubbed The Worst Film Ever Made Became A Cult Classic, Stream Now Without Netflix
The Golden Age of Hollywood lasted from 1927 to 1960 and signified the era in which staggering advancements were made in both picture and sound quality. But just because filmmakers lived in this supposed Golden Age, it doesn’t mean that some seriously bad movies weren’t still being produced. Take, for instance, Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Through an incredibly disjointed narrative that gets tied sloppily together midway through its second act, Plan 9 from Outer Space is so unintentionally funny that you need to watch it and celebrate how awful it truly is.
Originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space, Plan 9 from Outer Space presents two seemingly unrelated plots that somehow eventually get smashed together in an attempt to tell one cohesive story.
Starts Off Silly
The first plot point in Plan 9 from Outer Space, as the original working title suggests, involves a series of crimes committed in a graveyard in which two gravediggers are killed by a sullen ghoul portrayed by Maila Nurmi (more affectionately known as Vampira).
When the ghoul’s grieving husband (posthumously portrayed by Bela Lugosi) gets struck by a car, we’re taken back to the graveyard for his funeral, where the mourning spectators discover the two dead gravediggers.
Inspector Clay (Tor Johnson) walks off to investigate the crime scene, and he’s killed by the same ghoul, who’s now accompanied by the reanimated corpse of her recently deceased husband.
Meanwhile, a pilot named Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his co-pilot, Danny (David De Mering), witness flying saucers from their cockpit, which at this point in Plan 9 from Outer Space doesn’t seem related to the graveyard scenes at all.
It’s eventually revealed that the US government has known about the flying saucers for years but has made sure that those who have witnessed them keep quiet about their suspicions.
Jeff, who lives near the graveyard with his wife, Paula, is troubled by the flying saucers, and Paula expresses her own concerns about the strange activity that’s occurring in the graveyard.
More Silliness In Plan 9
Meanwhile (again), we’re introduced to Commander Eros (Dudley Manlove), whose existence (kind of) explains what’s at stake in Plan 9 from Outer Space. After years of trying to peacefully contact the US government, Eros decides to implement “Plan 9,” which involves reanimating recently deceased corpses to get the government’s attention.
Plan 9 hinges on two possible outcomes: getting the government to peacefully cooperate with them, or creating an army of undead ghouls to violently overthrow them.
A Frustrating Film
There are several reasons that Plan 9 from Outer Space is such a frustrating film, and the screenplay is just one of them.
The flying saucers are simply toys on strings, which wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if they weren’t actually a well-known toy at the time of the film’s production. Additionally, Edward D. Wood, who wrote, directed, and produced Plan 9 from Outer Space, made the frustrating decision to forgo the use of costumes and makeup that would make Eros and his alien accomplices look like actual aliens.
A number of Wood’s creative missteps in Plan 9 from Outer Space were attributed to the film’s shoestring budget because he didn’t have the proper financial backing to fully realize his vision.
Knowing that he needed star power to get seats filled in theaters, he used unrelated footage featuring the late Bela Lugosi from another unfinished film. Realizing he painted himself into a corner, Wood hired Tom Mason, who bears no resemblance to Lugosi, to function as his stand-in.
Streaming Plan 9 from Outer Space
Plan 9 from Outer Space has gone down in history as one of the worst movies of all time, and garnered a significant cult following as a result. Presently, this ill-fated exercise in sci-fi horror has a 66 percent critical score against a 45 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, illustrating the fact that modern critical assessments have been more forgiving than contemporaneous ones.
Most reviewers agree, however, that everybody needs to see Plan 9 from Outer Space at least once in their life because it’s so laughably bad that it’s actually a pleasurable experience.
If you’re up for the challenge, you can stream Plan 9 from Outer Space for free on Tubi, Popcornflix, and Pluto TV. With an 80-minute runtime, you really have nothing to lose except a few brain cells.
