There’s much to dislike about the Medved Brothers, Michael and Harry – their sneering attitudes towards ultra low-budget films in their books The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time (1978) and The Golden Turkey Awards (1980) and Michael’s attack on the perceived effects of Hollywood movies in Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and The War on Traditional Values (1992) among them. But we also have to thank them for the revival of Plan 9 from Outer Space, Edward D. Wood’s forgotten ‘masterpiece’ which they hailed as the worst movie ever made, a claim that has been slavishly repeated ever since.
Truth it, it isn’t the worst film ever made – very far from it. Certainly by any conventional standards it’s dreadful – everything you’ve heard about it is true: the acting is terrible, the dialogue is frequently unintentionally hilarious, the direction all over the place, the effects atrocious… And yet, it we accept that the only crime a film can commit is to be boring, Plan 9 from Outer Space is as innocent as a new born lamb. There are so many more films – including ones lauded by critics and worshipped by fans – that are less entertaining and more tedious than Plan 9, which succeeds in engaging the viewer over and over again.
Before the Medveds, Wood was just an adjunct to a footnote in the appendix of the great history of cinema. Barely anyone remembered him and far too many had simply never heard of his at all. And yet before long his films were being hastily released on video, documentaries were being made about him and Tim Burton even made the biopic Ed Wood (1994) about him. He’s really not deserving of such attention but Plan 9 is not a film to be so easily dismissed.
Made with a budget so minuscule it wouldn’t cover the photocopying costs on most post-Millennial films and featuring a cast of Hollywood oddballs and marginals, Plan 9 spins the bizarre tale of the world’s most unlikely alien invasion – rather camp ETs revive the recently dead, among them TV horror host Vampira, the hulking Tor Johnson and chiropractor Tom Mason who skulks around with a cloak over his face failing to convince anyone that he’s Bela Lugosi who actually died before filming began and who appears here in footage from Tomb of the Vampire, a film Wood was planning but had to abandon when his star expired.
Not much else really happens – wobbly flying saucers on visible pieces of wire bob and quiver over unconvincing miniatures, the cast commendably keep straight faces while mouthing the terrible dialogue and everyone runs about a lot not really achieving anything. It’s an incoherent mess but once you start watching it’s impossible to give up on it – from the opening monologue by notoriously muddled “psychic” Criswell (his claims in his newspaper columns included a death ray from space striking Denver, an outbreak of mass cannibalism, Mae West being elected President of the USA and the end of the world on 18 August 1999) through to the fabulously daft exploding flying saucer effect that brings the film to a close, Plan 9 is utterly compelling – its technically so inept that you just keep watching to see what madness is going to transpire next.
Given that, there are a few things to genuinely admire in Plan 9 – William C. Thompson’s photography is actually quite good (shame what he was recording was so shoddy) and there’s one genuinely impressive and atmospheric shot of the re-animated Tor Johnson rising from his grave. Even the fact that gravestones fall over, actors fumble lines and day-for-night shots remain stubbornly day can’t take away from these very minor achievements.
But all of this championing of the indefensible is probably a waste of time – you’ll have no doubt seen Plan 9 by now, possibly many, many times and you’ll either have fallen for is appalling charms or you won’t. If you haven’t seen it, do so at the soonest possible opportunity – if you’ve developed as a film buff on a diet of Kurosawa, Goddard, Lean and Truffaut you’ll find it hard going at first, but just develop a new model for judging the worth of a film and you’ll fall for it quickly enough.
Worst film ever made? Not a bit of it. Given the choice between Wood’s riot of incomprehensible dialogue, botched special effects and mismatched stock footage or an overblown franchise blockbuster, I know where my loyalties lie.
The EOFFTV Review 
The funny thing is that when the Medveds wrote the 50 Worst Films of All Time (a book that includes The Omen, Last Year at Marienbad and Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn), they hadn’t heard of Wood and he isn’t mentioned in the book.
But their reader’s poll of Worst Film resulted in Plan 9 being crowned that glory in the subsequent Golden Turkey Awards (with runner up prize going to Exorcist II), and the Medveds gave Wood the title of Worst Director as though they’d always know about him!
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