Mixed emotions about the ninth plan

Last week I watched Plan 9 from Outer Space for the first time. I’m not quite sure how I managed to escape the experience for 42 years. I’ve seen scenes from this classic in any number of “worst movie ever made” shows. And of course the behind-the-scenes story is extensively, lovingly re-created in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood biopic. But whole nine yards of the plan eluded me – or I eluded it – until now.

I was surprised at the range of emotions the movie inspired. The most obvious reaction to it is a sense of derisive mirth. It is, after all, one of the worst movies ever made. That’s a hard-earned distinction based on an impressive uniformity of terribleness. The script is as bad as the acting, which in turn is as bad as the editing and direction. Awfulness on this level can’t help but be funny.

But the joke gets old after awhile. I suppose 10 or 15 minutes of this kind of thing would have been hysterical, but after more than an hour of it the incompetence gag wears out its welcome like a late-in-the-show sketch on Saturday Night Live. Indeed, it becomes downright monotonous.

I suspect I’m not alone in my opinion about the short-lived nature of the amusement. I note that most of the quotes and clips I’ve seen elsewhere were taken from the first 20 minutes or so of the picture.

But more than anything else – even more than the hilarity of its awfulness – this is a sad movie. Most obviously, it’s sad that this was the end of Bela Lugosi’s career. The poor guy was legendary for playing Dracula in the Todd Browning production that set the standard for all Draculas to follow. But by this point in his career, all he can do is stumble around a bit. He died before Wood could get anything on film beyond a handful of shots of Lugosi leaving his house, going back into his house, and briefly strolling in a graveyard. Kids, don’t do heroin.

But more than that, it’s Wood’s sincerity that’s the real heart-breaker. He obviously means to make a good movie, yet has no idea how to go about it. He isn’t like the hundreds – no, thanks to digital production, make that thousands – of crap-slingers who blithely churn out the worst kind of garbage without the slightest regard for what they do. He obviously cares. Frankly, that takes most of the sport out of picking on him and his compatriots.

I think Ed Wood has something to teach us about ourselves, the way we’ve become in the 21st century. But that will need to wait until a future entry.