Recensioni de* critic*

While there’s an argument to be made for all of Wood’s movies being technically incompetent, Plan 9 from Outer Space is too charming to be considered a failure... It’s pure Woodian insanity with ideas in abundance... Wood’s vision called for an epic, but his lack of resources resulted in a micro-budget mess that’s utterly fascinating.

Even at a time of primitive cinematic techniques, Plan 9’s on-screen special effects are hilarious. A UFO dangling in the sky has been variously said to be either a car hubcap or a paper plate. Actors read from scripts on their lap; sound microphones wobble in and out of shot... All of that could perhaps be put down to period charm were it not for the fact that the plot itself appears to be the product of insanity.

While there is some unintentional humour to be had from the way Wood desperately incorporates his shots of Lugosi (and a fake body double) into a mess of stock footage, amateur acting, crude special effects (hub-caps as flying saucers) and wobbly sets, it's a tediously depressing experience.

Wood is notorious for his 1952 transvestite saga "Glen or Glenda?" (aka "I Changed My Sex"), but for my money this 1959 effort is twice as strange and appealing in its undisguised incompetence... there's no denying that his blunders are unusually creative and oddly expressive.

What distinguishes "Plan 9" from the other contenders for worst film of all time is the movie’s brazen sense of confidence, as well as the gap between that confidence and what is actually up on the screen... "Plan 9" exhibits a sense of pride that’s so pure and joyous it makes watching the movie, if not blissful, an invigorating cinematic experience.

Like the philosopher who was so busy gazing at the stars that he tripped into a well, Ed Wood stared so fixedly at his own grandiose designs that he stumbled upon the stuff of filmmaking. This extravagant example of his sublime absurdity, from 1956, links a trio of zombies to an alien invasion intended to prevent nuclear war and other man-made disasters. The flimsy sets, flagrant acting, perfunctory staging, and hectic montage of stock footage convey a frenzied vision of cosmic catastrophe.

The film’s reputation as the “Worst Movie Of All Time” may be an exaggeration, but not a wild one. Much of the film is indeed awful. The sets are laughably cheap, interiors and exteriors don’t match, and Wood often cuts between day and night shots indiscriminately... But there are some ways in which Plan 9 was clearly ahead of its time. It was a zombie movie a decade before George Romero popularized the creatures in Night Of The Living Dead, and it was a conspiracy-theory movie... more than five years before the Kennedy assassination.

None of [Wood's] numerous, all unabashedly low-budget pictures have done more for the ["so bad it's so good"] form than 1959’s "Plan 9 from Outer Space," a breathless, nearly budgetless tale in which Wood throws together aliens, zombies, looming nuclear annihilation, and Bela Lugosi.

"Plan 9 from Outer Space" is something of a sacred text. It’s become nothing less than a rite of passage for anyone even remotely interested in science fiction, horror, or B-movie lore... It wouldn’t have “worked” and certainly wouldn’t have endured if Wood hadn’t believed that this was some sort of monument to high art, and it’s this earnestness which has turned "Plan 9" into one of the quintessential American cult films.

"Plan 9 From Outer Space" is widely considered to be the very worst film ever made, and when you watch it, you'll see why. But it's also one of the funniest, and one of the most lovable. It's a wonderful testament to the idea that anyone can make movies, even if they have absolutely no talent at all.

Crowned 'The Worst Film Ever Made' at New York's Worst Film Festival in 1980, this deserves its niche in history for featuring the last screen performance of Bela Lugosi, as a ghoul resurrected by space visitors for use against scientists destroying the world with their nuclear tests... It all ends with famous psychic Criswell asking the audience, 'Can you prove it didn't happen? God help us in the future'. Prophetic.

The worst sin of these cheapies is that they are excruciatingly dull, but Plan 9 is a rare low-budget turkey which manages to be consistently entertaining... Even if you're fed up to the back teeth with bad movie faddists, this is worth seeing.