Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959🇺🇸)
Original Title: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959, USA, 79 minutes)
● Director: Edward D. Wood Jr.
● Cast: Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Duke Moore, Tom Keene, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi
Compared to the Fall of the House of Usher I watched the other day, the image quality is not bad at all and is actually easier to watch.
However, a suspicious atmosphere starts to build from the moment the main title overlaps with the credits, making it hard to read...
This film, which is director Ed Wood's masterpiece, at least has a story progression compared to the dregs of distilled nothingness that is Orgy of the Dead and I thought it functions well enough as a school play that claims to be a sci-fi horror farce.
It has a bizarre plot where aliens try to threaten humans on Earth using the power of zombies.
The alien's line, "Humans have stopped acknowledging aliens as they progress. We will use zombies to make you acknowledge our power," symbolizes the goofy mood of this film.
Except for a few people, almost everyone is acting like an amateur, and it's amazing how you can tell they are reading lines even in English (like the pilot's wife).
Not only the lines but the movements themselves are stiff, and even the reactions of surprise look like pre-arranged movements that were practiced only two or three times just before.
Even when corpses are moving or the plot seems like it should have tension, the cuts are sluggish, there are almost no close-ups, and things proceed calmly in one-shots.
You can barely tell that it's a tense scene based on the intensity of the music.
There is a term called "commercial suicide", but if you ask if it's "artistic survival," that part is dead too... or rather, it's like it doesn't even realize it's dead.
It ends in a state of anxiety, like watching Wile E. Coyote keep walking in mid-air, thinking, "Wait? Is this movie going to be okay like this?"
Tim Burton is famously known for his deep admiration for director Ed Wood (I also learned about him thanks to Burton), but in a sense, it would be impossible for him to create a work that surpasses this film.