The scenes they had filmed were few: Lugosi looking distraught at a funeral, Lugosi skulking around a graveyard while making various Dracula-esue poses, and Lugosi sneakily entering a house (through the front door, granted, but he looked awfully sneaky while doing it). Lugosi had filmed only a few days worth of scenes for the at-that-time untitled movie, and Ed Wood had decided he wanted Lugosi to play a vampire-type character, most likely trying to feed of off Lugosi’s previous success at portraying Dracula on the big screen.

Let me quickly give you a little more information about the scenes involving Bela Lugosi, as this is a part of this film that really intrigues me. It’s amazing to think that Wood seriously thought that he could cut all of these corners and skimp on all these costs and still produce a quality movie that people would want to see. But somehow the movie rides that fine line of being terrible without being boring it’s so bad, it’s actually fun to watch. The dialogue is a joke, with actors saying lines that not only make no sense, the actors clearly don’t even believe the things they are saying. The special effects are anything but special, with the prime example being the flying saucers going across the screen with strings clearly attached to them. The editing is haphazard, with sections going from night to day at random in mid-scene. ‘Plan 9’ is a film near and dear to my heart, but let’s not mince words here: the movie is an absolute disaster from start to finish. The resulting movie is an amazingly accurate guide on the exact wrong way a movie should look, feel, and sound. ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ is a movie that its director, Ed Wood, thought for sure would land in the “really good” category, but he was plagued with problems throughout the movie, including: a disastrous script that he refused to let anyone else re-write or add to one of his “name” stars, Bela Lugosi, died during production of the movie, but Wood simply re-wrote the script to fit what scenes had already been shot and he skimped on production costs, especially in the special effects and editing departments. There are a lot of good movies, too, but use whatever cliché you’d like: you can’t score a touchdown on every play, even the best have their off days, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, you can’t win ’em all…take your pick, the bottom line is that some movies are really good, some movies are average, and some movies are really bad.

Plan 9 from outer space tor johnson cop