What makes a bad film so watchable? Where is the line where a film’s mediocrity becomes a shining achievement? These are some of the questions raised when watching any of Ed woods cinema genius, he was a man with vision. Even if that vision was odd, his films left a resounding mark on cinema that echos even today.
It is a strange experience as a film critic to experience something as flawed as plan 9, there is a feeling from the word go that you should be appauled by what is in front of you, and I really do mean from the start.
The film opens with some truly indecipherable dialog from what is assumed to be a news reader as he tries to start us towards our journey but between his long pauses and obvious line reading you start to feel a smile creep onto your face. If this is the case you are now hooked. What will follow is an experience like no other, scenes of merit include flying saucers made from plates with visible string, dialog that makes Transformers 2 look like an Oscar worthy film and continuity that with make you tear up with laughter.
The film is broken from start to finish and will not make more sense on multiple viewings. But in this lies the joy of the film, it’s faults make it like watching an episode of Jackass, you are waiting to see how much worse it can get. My only warning is that this kind of film is addictive viewing and may have you craving films of it’s genre more and more, this is a must see for any fan of cinema, to call a film bad you really must see just how bad bad can be and this film will become a benchmark to which all films you watch will be compared. So find a copy, get some friends over, get your popcorn and prepare to be amazed.
