ABCs at the Movies: The Doubles Round!

[Meryl]

Plan 9 from Outer Space is a science fiction/horror film written, produced and directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. in 1958, and released in 1959. The film stars Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Maila "Vampira" Nurmi. The film also claims to posthumously star Bela Lugosi through use of archive footage and a brief scene of the actor shot by Wood just before Lugosi's death in 1956, although Lugosi's character is primarily portrayed by chiropractor Tom Mason.

By merit of its writing, unconvincing special effects (a hubcap serves as the UFO), and multiple production errors visible in the final version of the film, Plan 9 from Outer Space is sometimes regarded as a leading candidate for the title of "worst movie ever made", even according to the back of the videotape box! It has also earned Edward D. Wood, Jr. a posthumous Golden Turkey Award as the worst director ever.

[southendmd]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtqa-tHvBDQ[/youtube]



From IMDb:  "The Cheesecake from Venus!, 2 March 2002

Author: Bruce Cook ([email protected]) from Fayetteville, GA

The infamous so-bad-it's-good space opera from director Edward Bernds, the man who gave us several of the `Three Stooges' movies. Zsa Zsa Gabor (a former `Miss Hungary') plays one of the Venusian women who defies the evil Queen of Venus (Lauren Mitchell) and falls in love with one of the four Earth men who lands on their planet. The queen hates all males because her face (which she hides behind a mask) was scarred in a war the women once fought against the now-extinct Venusian men (an idea perhaps borrowed from `Abbott and Costello Go to Mars').

The captive Earth astronauts go nuts over the sexy dames, all of whom look just fine in their futuristic miniskirts. The mission commander is Eric Fleming (`Rawhide' and `The Conquest of Space'), and one of the crewmen is Paul Birch (`Not of this Earth').

The best thing you can say about this movie is that it gives the audience a look at numerous props from more worthy 1950s science fiction movies: the astronauts' uniforms and the Venusian women's outfits are all borrowed from `Forbidden Planet' (along with a few blasters). The spaceship is from `Flight to Mars' (from a design originally submitted but rejected for the `Destination Moon' rocket). The sets and monster spider are from `World Without End' (the latter of which was also directed by Bernds, though it's a much better movie).

Amazingly enough, it was filmed in color and CinemaScope, one of the few 1950s sci-fi films that can claim this honor. In 1987 it was beautifully spoofed in `Amazon Women on the Moon', right down to the borrowed `Forbidden Planet' uniforms (recreated for that film)."

=aside=
With thanks to Meryl for finding this gem.

[oilgun]

Propbably THE most overrated film of the 20th century! 

I saw it at the Toronto Film Fest and couldn't believe the audience gave it a standing ovation at the end!  And there I was, regretting that I hadn't gone to see that doumentary about the Ouagadougou Film Festival instead! (Real film, btw)  

[MaineWriter]

==comment==

When this movie came out, I had lots of friends saying it was great, so moving, a triumph, etc., so I actually hauled myself off and saw it in the theater. What a mistake! Completely implausible, totally ridiculous...things like: Julia Roberts learns to swim in the pool at the Y and then leaps overboard from a sailboat in a raging gale, hangs onto a buoy in the middle of Buzzard's Bay for the duration of said gale, and then swims to shore...all without drowning. THEN, she is able to take little rocks and with perfect aim, knock out all the streetlights along the boardwalk! (I may be mixing up some details here but who cares...I just remember it was all garbage.) I should have walked out of the theater but didn't and gave up two hours of my life that I will never get back. Sigh....



A few IMDb comments of people who share my opinion:

This movie was probably about as silly as The Naked Gun (which was supposed to be). Case in point:

1. In order to fake her drowning Roberts is secretly taking swimming lessons at the YWCA. After her "death" the YWCA calls her husband at work to give their condolences. HELLO how did they get his work number?

2. Before she leaves town she drops her wedding ring in the toilet. Days or even weeks later her hubby finds it in the John. Does this mean the toilet was never flushed?

3. No explanation is given on how she is paying for her mothers care in the retirement home (since she did it behind her RICH husbands back).

4. Towards the end of this tiresome film Roberts suspects her husband is in the house. Instead of running for her life she runs to the kitchen instead to see if the cans are stacked neatly.

and

Nice hair and straight teeth can only take a thespian so far, even in material as dumb as this. Julia Roberts has always been a charismatic performer but unfortunately Sleeping With The Enemy was made during her initial dream run of enormously popular and profitable crap. Poor Julia lives in a Lovely Home with hubby Patrick, who has dark, smoldering features (good) and a vicious temper (bad). This can't go on, so Julia escapes in the best James Bond style and starts over in a new Lovely Home. Evil control-freak Patrick wants her back and will stop at nothing to fulfill his dream of invading her kitchen and obsessively re-stacking her cans. Spousal abuse isn't very entertaining, even when it's trivialized in a schlocky bit of fluff like this. Worst Scene: the music montage where Julia tries on hats to the strains of Brown-Eyed Girl...ugh.

[memento]

Some of the comments from Rotten Tomatoes:

The direction is so ham-fisted you almost expect Porky the Pig to have a cameo.

This loopy movie is so screamingly awful it should hit your local video store's markdown bin sometime next month.

Twisted loses itself to its own insanity.

You've seen better mysteries on Murder She Wrote, you'll hear better dialogue in an Ed Wood flick, and you'll experience better sex scenes on a hot day at your local zoo.

[oilgun]

Finding a bad "U" that I had seen was tough going.  This the best I could do.  I mean it stars Jean-Claude van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, i think that alone is enough to make it eligible. 

[MaineWriter]

==comment==

Okay, so I am going way out on a limb here...this movie hasn't even been finished yet, much less released, but I am betting it is going to be a dog. Tom Cruise has not had the Midas touch in a LONG time and I don't see why this movie should be any exception. If I am wrong, you can all come back and beat me up a year from now....

[Meryl]

From pajiba.com:  Neil LaBute’s remake of The Wicker Man is a stupid, stupid movie. When an auteur as widely admired as LaBute makes a movie as clumsy and hackneyed as this, a critic may be persuaded to call it a genre deconstruction or a parody — it’s the critic’s Get out of Jail Free card for a director who has badly misstepped — but I’m going to go out on a limb and call the film what it is: genuinely idiotic. And it’s not just that it’s a terrible movie — that would be a big improvement. If a horror movie isn’t going to be great, the next best thing is for it to be terrible; at least then it can be cheesy fun. No, LaBute’s Wicker Man goes beyond mere badness into clumsy abuse of the most exhausted genre gimmicks (it’s got hideous twins speaking in unison, a dilapidated old barn where rotten boards suddenly collapse beneath our hero’s feet — at one point, he even wakes from a nightmare to find himself in — another nightmare!) and a creepy misogyny that should keep film-studies majors busy theorizing for decades.

There's more, if you really need to....http://www.pajiba.com/wicker-man-the.htm

[MaineWriter]

==comments==

Words cannot describe how much I loathe this movie. It is another one that I was suckered into seeing in the theater because of good reviews...this time from the critics! I believe it was Roger Ebert who said this would be the next "Christmas classic" like "It's a Wonderful Life." Yeah, Roger...in which dysfunctional universe? This movie was full of horrible characters living horrible lives (disguised as upper middle class America) and behaving in horrible ways. I sat through the entire thing with my jaw hanging on my knees at just how bad it was. Even now, this revolting piece of trash sits at rottentomatoes.com with 53% rating. Those reviewers must have been paid off. That's the only way I can imagine this movie got a good review.



I don't even like putting up a picture of these horrible characters! This awful movie has 405 comments at IMDb...208 give it one star! That should tell you something....

[oilgun]

No, Luciano!