PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

Yeah, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. I know, I know … it’s a wretched piece of film by anyone’s standards, and this is supposed to be a website dedicated to “classic” horror and science fiction movies. I’m not here to sway you into believing it’s a better movie than it is, and I’ve got no authoritative insight into the movie’s troubled history, either.

This is a confession.

Despite my better instincts, I love PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. There are few films I’ve seen more than Edward D. Wood’s magnum opus, even though logic demands the hours I’ve wasted with this movie were probably better spent doing anything else. My love for PLAN 9 is my least malignant character flaw, so there’s been no sense of urgency to be rid of it. If we were talking about a methamphetamine addiction, there would be physical and social pressures on me to change my ways. A meth habit might even be preferable, because junkies are sometimes forced into social interaction with people of similar interests. For better or worse, a drug habit is a very real, very physical experience, while my love for PLAN 9 usually leaves me naval gazing in a darkened room.

But that’s not to discount the transcendental nature of watching a terrible movie. And by "terrible movie," I don’t mean the slick, expensive commercial products made by guys like Michael Bay. Those kinds of films get put through so many corporate filters that it’s impossible for them to hit theaters without some semblance of competent storytelling, and it's hard to think of them as "film" as much as feature-length commercials for tie-in products. They might suck, but the competence and craftsmanship on display are undeniably impressive.

The same can’t be said for an Ed Wood film. As much as I love the Tim Burton’s film about "the world’s worst filmmaker,” it’s almost entirely a work of fiction. Wood might have wanted to make movies, but he wasn’t some wide-eyed ANDY HARDY character innocently pursuing his dream. Wood was a hustler that naturally gravitated to a level of filmmaking that tolerated his misguided sense of aesthetics. His distributors didn’t care about the quality of his films as long as they came in on budget and were edited to a manageable running time. They were B-movie filler and existed only to fool ticket buyers into thinking they were getting more for their money.

Because he was left more-or-less unattended, Wood’s movies feel like Id run wild (at least, as wild as budgets and prudish standards of the times would allow.) Wood’s movies are the product of a juvenile imagination, but this imagination charges his stories with the kind of energy that makes up for the nonsense he tried to pass off as “scripts.” Say what you want about Wood’s movies, but they’re not boring.

More to the point, his movies are terrible in a way that’s impossible to replicate. Any filmmaker is capable of making a great movie. The people who directed POINT BREAK, NATURAL BORN KILLERS and EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE have all made legitimately great movies at some point in their careers, and have even won Academy awards for their work. Making movies is hard, but talent will occasionally prevail.

But nobody can fake the kind of anti-genius of Ed Wood, though.  It’s a natural gift that is probably inversely aggravated by how much talent and money you throw at it. Give Ed Wood $100 million budget and you’ll STILL get something that feels like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. The on-set chemistry that produces gloriously bad movies simply can’t be faked. When filmmakers have tried (DEATH PROOF, THE LOST SKELETON OF CADABRA, etc.) they have a phony, saccharine flavor to them.

All of this would be harmless fun if not for PLAN 9's disgraceful pedigree. I think most of us would laugh comfortably at the film if not for the presence of BELA LUGOSI.  Wood's decision to exploit Lugosi's corpse one final time is a cautionary tale of Hollywood's unforgiving nature. Lugosi began his film career with DRACULA, a movie so popular that it's still being discussed today. That career ended, though, with a 79-minute bit of celluloid filler with all the artistic merit of bubble wrap.

Even though Wood's films were made for no other reason than to pad out a double bill, there’s still something innocent about them. Bubbling under the surface of Wood’s movies is a very distinct imagination that tries to pair horror and science fiction in a way reminiscent of James Whale, but the ideas are half baked (to be generous.) The actors seem like they give a shit, and the whole product feels more like an actual movie to me than something like TRANSFORMERS 2 or Burton's DARK SHADOWS.

That’s why I frequently return to PLAN 9. For better or worse, it’s a genuine movie experience.

Building a CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON dive suit

Michael Burke is building a working dive suit based on the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON monster. Don't take out a loan to buy the thing just yet, though. He explains, in an interview with Gores Truly, that there are a number of legal obstacles to be cleared before such a suit could be made available to the public. Honestly, unless he was marketing this thing strictly as a drowning aid, it's unlikely he'll ever be allowed to sell such a contraption.

"I doubt anyone would sell me a product liability insurance policy for this." Burke says. "The reality is, this suit will increase the risk of injury to anyone using it while scuba diving. All the waivers and training in the world couldn’t protect me from being sued for damages if someone is injured or killed. Right now I am primarily building this for me (Personal use) and display at the shop."

Still, bully for him for taking up such an endeavor. This is truly next-level cosplay.

THE MORGUE: DRACULA opens in Cumberland, Md. (1931)

From the June 10, 1931, issue of The Cumberland Evening Times

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE is a confounding film. It's thoroughly satisfying, even though its resolution resolves nothing. It provides the thrills and chills found in pulp fiction of the era, though it lacks the formulaic story structure (and quaint moralizing) of those tales. It's a mystery, of sorts, that is never adequately explained, and it's an adventure without traditional protagonists. Though the movie has its share of heroic figures, none of them accomplish anything more profound than saving their own necks.

I have to wonder what Lang hoped to accomplish with this story. It's a fascinating bit of film that can be as subtle as it is heavy handed. Despite the care and planning that went into constructing every scene in the film, one of its best moments happens to be one of its shortest: Professor Baum, played by Hungarian actor Oscar Beregi Sr., walks past a wall that's been covered in posters soliciting information for unsolved murders. Are they the work of the crime cult organized by Doctor Mabuse? Is Baum really the man pulling the strings of the cult? And, if so, is he even aware of it? Baum doesn't even spare a glance at the pageantry of death as he walks by the posters, which makes the scene all the more chilling.

As the movie begins, it's been a decade since Doctor Mabuse was arrested following string of violent, bizarre crimes. A resident of an insane asylum, Mabuse has kept himself busy despite his catatonia. Even though his mind is gone, his hand continues to write. When a pen is placed in his hand, it scrawls plans for murder, robbery, arson and blackmail. Those plans gradually find their way to the outside world where a new "Reign of Crime" begins.

The trail to Mabuse leads to an endless series of curtains, cutouts and brick walls. Mabuse, who becomes the prime suspect in the crime, promptly dies, all while a handful of seemingly unrelated crimes continue to point in his direction. Mabuse (whose name is rarely spoken aloud by his many followers) is treated with the sort of reverence usually reserved for gods. Even his henchmen engage in almost-theological discussions about their employer and his mysterious methods. And those who try to prove his existence are met with frustrsation, if not death.

It's hard not to see the similarities between the crime cult's thug-like behavior and those of the Nazis, who were still consolidating their power in Germany when the film was produced. Both the criminals and the Nazis answered to shadowy figureheads who prized obedience more than innovation, and it's no coincidence that the film's heroes are the ones who think and speak for themselves. Even though Lang makes no direct reference to the political climate in late 1930's Germany, its subtext was enough to keep the film from being screened in his homeland until several decades after World War II. Even then, it was shown with an abbreviated running time.

This commentary is tarted up as the kind of pulpy potboiler you'd find in a BATMAN comicbook, only minus the caped crusader. The closest thing the movie has to romantic leads find themselves trapped in a room with a ticking timebomb (a room that is also filling with water.) There are phantom voices, madmen, explosions and so many interlocking conspiracies that you'd swear the script was the work of Mabuse, himself, as he scribbled away in his asylum cell.

On this level, THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE functions like a well-oiled, well-edited movie serial. If that were all the movie had to offer it would probably be enough, but it was made by a man who understood his craft like few directors ever would. Lang was the kind of filmmaker the world wouldn't see again until Steven Spielberg, a director who could make crowdpleasers with both heart and substance. There are a few scattered moments of outright horror in the movie, such as the huge, alien eyes that make up most of Mabuse's ghostly face. Generally, though, Lang created a fantasy grounded in a warped version of reality. Comparisons to 2008's THE DARK KNIGHT are appropriate.



Even though THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE doesn't share the Old Testament morality of the pulps, the movie has an alarmingly accusatory tone. At times it's a little like having a conversation with someone who doesn't understand personal boundaries.  Lang's insistence on having the actors look into the camera for many of the film's more dramatic sequences forces a very quiet form of audience participation. There were times I wondered if Lang was intentionally screwing with his audience. Even the opening sequence is largely silent as the sound of a printing press drowns out all dialogue as it cranks out reams of counterfeit money. Almost ten minutes pass before a single word of dialogue is spoken. More to the point, Mabuse, himself, doesn't speak at any point in the film. The film is a sequel to Lang's silent DOCTOR MABUSE THE GAMBLER, released ten years earlier, and it appears Lang intended to cast his villain as a relic of the past. But that doesn't mean the villain doesn't have a thing or two to still teach the future.

(NOTE: Director ANSEL FARAJ  is currently in post production on a new film about DOCTOR MABUSE. Listen to my interview with Faraj in THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY podcast.)

Vintage Swedish horror movie posters

Vintage posters from Sweden for THE WOLF MAN, THE MUMMY, THE BLACK CAT and THE INVISIBLE RAY. VIA.

Thomas Edison's FRANKENSTEIN (1910)

Created in 1910, the Thomas Edison-produced FRANKENSTEIN is an almost impossible movie to evaluate. It's objectively bad by every definition of the word and rests on a disjointed narrative that suggests director J. Searle Dawley had only recently discovered the concept of storytelling. Running at a brisk 16 minutes in length, the movie still manages to waste the audience's time by including moments so unnecessary that even Peter Jackson would have left them on the cutting room floor (and that guy wastes NOTHING.)

Yet, it's place in history as the earliest adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel guarantees it will always have an audience, but first isn't always best. It's clear the idea of cinematic storytelling was still considered a novelty in 1910, and as artistically relevant in the eyes of some as the stereoscope. It might have been a fun ways to spend a few minutes, but nobody thought of it as art.

The movie opens with the inter-title card FRANKENSTEIN LEAVES FOR COLLEGE, and is followed just a few seconds later with TWO YEARS LATER FRANKENSTEIN HAS DISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. Not only does this revise the definition of "economical storytelling," it also seems to misunderstand what the word "discovered" means. Any asshole can "discover" a mystery ... it's not much of an accomplishment. Tripping over a dead body while jogging in Central Park doesn't make you Sherlock Holmes. It makes you an extra in a cold opening for LAW & ORDER.

Even though silent movies are, by necessity, about "show don't tell," the movie goes to great lengths to tell us everything instead of showing. The title cards tell us Frankenstein's mind is "evil" but we're expected to take its word for it because the doctor doesn't do or say much of anything. I was thrown for a loop by how much of the story was cut for expediency. Yes, the medium of filmmaking was in its fetal stages in 1910, but goddamn, Edison ... invent some sense of cinematic scale, already.

What the movie gets right, and the primary reason why people still seek it out, is the presentation of the "monster." Here, the creature is a bizarre, androgynous freak, a being who was - all jokes aside - shortchanged in the genetic department by its "parent." It's a far cry from the monstrous superman of the Universal Pictures series. With a nice set of clothes and some clever accessorizing, Boris Karloff's monster could probably pass for human in modern society. The same certainly couldn't be said for Edison's monster, who's a misshapen hodgepodge of lifeforms. He's a sad, pathetic wretch, and the performance by Charles Ogle (as well as the inventive, if overlong, "creation sequence") are worth the time you'll put into watching the movie.

Frankensteinia, the flagship blog for all things FRANKENSTEIN, has an interesting look at the "roving" props for this film, which can be seen on screen in at least one other Edison production.

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