Bad Movie Month #29: Age of Dinosaurs

Someone skipped arm day.

Age of Dinosaurs (2013)

Directed by: Joseph J. Lawson
Produced by: Paul Bales, David Michael Latt, Michael Meilander, David Rimawi
Written by: Hank Woon, Jr.
Budget: 

Starring: Treat Williams, Ronny Cox, Jillian Rose Reed, Joshua Michael Allen, Max Aria

I swear I didn't know this was an Asylum movie until the first credit popped up.

When a laboratory resurrects dinosaurs and performs genetic experiments on the animals, it's only a matter of time before they get loose and we start following The Lost World story beats.

This is a movie where evil science must push forward to accomplish its goals, no matter how many "setbacks" or "troubles" the processes encounter. As one character says early on, "why start with butterflies and lizards when you can get going with the cool stuff?"

The Good
At certain points the dinosaurs are animatronic and actually look pretty good. The designs are goofy sci-fi schlock, with horns and spikes in random places, but the movements look alright. The unfortunate thing is that the animatronics are only used once or twice after that first scene, but at times they opt instead to use shadows projected on a wall which is at least an artistic choice that seems to have been driven by the realities of their low budget.

Compared to the other Asylum movies I've seen this one feels like its crew put in the most effort. While that isn't saying much considering the general lack of care the company spares for its productions, it stands out, especially when you consider just how dumb Snakes on a Train was. The difference seems most apparent in the quality of the direction, because unlike most others, Age of Dinosaurs actually looks like a movie. The difference is so notable that, with better actors and effects I could see this actually working as a fun B-movie, rather than an attempt to cash in on Jurassic World.

The Bad
It's when the animatronics are replaced by CGI that the dinosaurs start looking like crap. The first shot of the carnotaurus walking around and biting someone's head off looks cheap. The shots of the dinosaur's eyes look really, really cartoony. Of course, this doesn't just apply to the dinosaurs but the environments and setting whenever computers are used to render their holding cells or cloning pods. At one point a bunch of glass shatters towards the screen as a fuzzy mesh. During a chase scene the dinosaur's model is animated faster than it should logically be moving, so it looks like it's sliding along the ground.

One thing that doesn't help the animation is the dinosaur designs themselves. It's fairly obvious that the people who worked on this movie never actually studied dinosaur anatomy, because each one looks like a drawing by someone who thinks dinosaurs are cool without actually knowing what they looked like.

As expected the acting isn't anything to write home about, except for when it's really, really bad. The movie's "kid," Jade, is a stereotypical brat, complete with attached cell phone, college acceptance/rejection subplot, and imitation Jennifer Tilly squeak. The scientists and crew are a group of pretty blonde women who can't seem to forget that they're reading off a script while they aimlessly twiddle with buttons and knobs on a control board. Wheelchair CEO (I can't remember the character's name) does fine as an amoral, big-picture science guy.

The movie outright steals several shots or scenes from the Jurassic Park series, including the classic velociraptor-kitchen scene, even down to the framing. Here is the shot from Age of Dinosaurs. Here is a shot from Jurassic Park. Uh, I mean, surely this movie was a monument of ethical writing and film-making.

During one action scene there's a SWAT team shooting at the big bad dinosaur, and the captions indicate that there should be gunshots...but it looks like they forgot to put in the muzzle flashes and sound effects, because all the actors are doing is shaking their guns and pretending to shoot. Of course, this scene comes immediately before the dinosaur takes down a CGI helicopter, so maybe their budget could only afford either gunshots or helicopters.

I don't know whether Netflix provides its own closed captioning or if it used the movie's native CC tracks, but whoever created it should be embarrassed. There were numerous typos, inaccuracies, and missing words which really shouldn't happen in this day and age.

The Rest
Sometimes I wonder why we can't get a good dinosaur movie. I don't mean that as a joke, despite how silly it might be. The original Jurassic Park is great, but I can't really think of any other high-profile, well-received dinosaur movie. I might just start writing a treatment for Jurassic Continent...

Should You Watch It?
Honestly...this might be worth your time. As the movie goes on it gets goofier and goofier, hitting critical mass around the one hour mark. Special scenes of note include the "No joke!" dinosaur text, the exploding elevator, and a spinosaurus somehow chilling on top of a huge skyscraper. There is enough here that you might be able to overlook some of the Asylum crap.

Extra
The Asylum has had some success recently making original trash like Sharknado, which at least shows they are self-aware enough to understand their place in the current pop culture landscape. With this under their belt I wonder whether the Asylum couldn't make some sort of respectable name of themselves, in the same vein as Troma or Cannon, by abandoning their mockbusters altogether and producing low-budget camp fluff. While 2015 showed no sign that they were going to stop making crap, Sharknado 4 is planned for release sometime in 2016, so if that's successful maybe the studio can continue branching out.

Bad Movie Month #28: Pocahontas 2: Journey to a New World

Can someone get this movie a blanket?

Pocahontas 2: Journey to a New World (1998)

Directed by: Tom Ellery, Bradley Raymond
Produced by: Leslie Hough
Written by: Allen Estrin, Cindy Marcus, Flip Kobler
Budget: I couldn't find any information about this movie's budget anywhere online.

Starring: Irene Bedard, Billy Zane, Jim Cummings, Donal Gibson, David Ogden Stiers, Linda Hunt, Jean Stapleton, Russell Means, Finola Hughes, Brad Garrett

Some time after the events of the first movie, Pocahontas hears rumors that John Smith has died. When a John Smith replacement arrives, he whisks Pocahontas back across the sea, where everything ends up far happier than it does in reality.

Between 1994 and 2011, Disney produced and released roughly 49 direct-to-video movies. The vast, vast majority of these were sequels to theatrical Disney releases both recent and classic, including Mulan, several Aladdin follow-ups, and a sequel to Bambi where the titular character murders a lodge full of hunters after noticing his mother's head mounted on their wall (that may not have actually happened, I haven't seen it). At best these were accepted and forgotten about, and at worst they were regarded as the trash they were and destined for landfills or given to the least favorite child as a birthday gift.

The first Pocahontas movie was at least a Disney animated classic. This one? Not so much, despite its half-assed attempts to call back to the best parts of the first.

The History
Would you have guessed this movie isn't historically accurate?

The Bad
The animation has taken a serious hit, more so than you might think from a straight to video sequel. Grandmother Willow in particular looks really, really bad...as in bad Photoshop masking bad. The actual motion of the characters is jerky and lacks that fluidity that earned Disney a name in the 90s. When characters speak the animations are over-the-top in a way that reminds me of the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings, where everyone gesticulated wildly. The background characters don't move at all, and at points it looks like the animators forgot to replace their stand-in models. There's an extended sword fight/action scene towards the end, and it's best described as tepid.

The characters have been reduced to their roles, rather than actual characters. Pocahontas is a spunky girl hero, the animals are groan-inducing "comic" relief, and that's pretty much it. This is just emphasized by the awful voice acting from pretty much everyone involved. Bedard obviously has no interest in this, as her Pocahontas sounds like she's on downers throughout the entire thing. Zane plays Rolfe as a goofy, cock-sure diplomat that with some of the most annoying "quips" put to script. The animals make all the necessary chattering noises when appropriate.

Hey, you remember how the songs in the original Pocahontas were woven into the plot and served to describe and elaborate character motivations? How "Colors of the Wind" reinforced the movie's emphasis on nature, how "Just Around the Riverbend" foreshadowed Pocahontas finding some meaning in a cause? Well all that metaphor has been replaced by characters singing about what they see and telling the audience how they feel.

For a movie that's only 72 minutes long, there sure is a lot of filler. Long dance scenes, comedy bits, and animations that feel like they're going on longer than they should just to use up time. It makes the movie feel like it was stretched out from a 44-minute TV special to a full-length movie.

I'm not going to talk much about whether this movie is "problematic" in its portrayal of various cultures and how they interact because I'm not really qualified to speak on that. Suffice to say, it handles it with all the sensitivity and tact that a 90's straight-to-video sequel possesses.

The Rest
I don't know what else I can really say about this. If you've seen one Disney sequel you've pretty much seen them all.

Should You Watch It?
No.

Bad Movie Month #27: Manos: The Hands of Fate

Lavese las manos, por favor.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Directed by: Harold P. Warren
Produced by: Harold P. Warren
Written by: Harold P. Warren
Budget: $19,000 (roughly $139,000 in 2015, according to US Department of Labor)

Starring: Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree, Jackie Neyman, Tom Neyman, John Reynolds

Michael (Warren), his wife Margaret (Mahree), and their daughter, Debbie (Neyman) are on a family vacation in Texas when Michael gets lost on the desert roads. They stumble across a lodge owned by the mysterious Master and his multiple wives, who are some sort of pagan cult that sacrifices people to a hand or something.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is the Casablanca to Plan 9 From Outer Space's Citizen Kane. Released around the same era, with roughly the same quality, the pair of them form a perfect storm of disastrously hilarious camp. This is the result of a movie which started as a bet and was plagued with production issues throughout. After whipping up $19,000 and promising the cast and crew a cut of the profits (because he couldn't pay them a wage), Warren spent a summer creating this cinematic masterpiece.

This is going to be fairly brief, simply because this is a movie I think everyone should watch once. It's pretty much impossible to divide this into good or bad, so let's just start.

The so Manos it's Manos
The first thing you'll notice about the movie is that it starts with a fade-in and several seconds of crackling microphone feedback. The audio quality will stay consistent throughout, with the regular hiss of poor pickup. This is interesting, considering every sound effect and line of dialogue was dubbed back in during post-production. This is particularly noticeable when the words coming from the speakers don't actually sync to the actor's delivery.

The second thing you might notice is that the acting is hilarious, even if you haven't noticed the dubbing issues (I doubt that's the case though). Problems stemming from the size of the sound stage and lighting setup meant that actors had very little space they could move around in. When characters have to run somewhere we see them take a step or two, then fade to a shot of them in the new location. When Michael and Margaret are frantically searching for their daughter they stand outside the front door, stock-still, shouting and waving their flashlight around.

Certain scenes look like they're from a silent-era film. The lighting used during various outside shots created what looks like an unintentional iris shot, and when combined with the lack of color it looks like something spliced in from Birth of a Nation. In addition the lights apparently attracted moths, which are clearly visible flying into and out of the camera's view. There are constant cuts to a couple making out in a car who continuously get told off by police, and nothing ever comes from it. There are multiple different shots of the Master's wives fighting each other, seemingly without any stop. At one point the movie cuts away from the fighting, we have a full length conversation, and it goes back to the wives who are still fighting. This occurs multiple times.

The score is a mix of piano and...clarinet? Whatever it is also sounds like a leftover from the silent film era, so much so that I constantly expected title cards to pop up and tell me what everyone was saying.

Apparently there weren't enough profits to compensate anyone except Neyman and her dog, who received a bicycle and dog food, respectively.

The Rest
For some bizarre reason there was a video game adaptation released in 2012 which featured retro-style graphics and sound design. It got mixed reviews, which is far better than I would have expected. Luckily there hasn't been an attempt at a remake, but I feel like it's only a matter of time before someone who misunderstands why it's entertaining will try and produce it.

Maybe it would work as a stage musical.

Should You Watch It?
Yes. Words can't quite sum up just how off-kilter this movie is.

Bad Movie Month #26: The Toxic Avenger

This won't prepare you.

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Directed by: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman
Produced by: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman, Stuart Strutin
Written by: Lloyd Kaufman, Joe Ritter
Budget: $500,000

Starring: Mitch Cohen, Mark Torgl, Andree Maranda, Pat Ryan, Jr.

In Tromaville, New Jersey (the pollution capital of the world), Melvin Ferd (Torgl) is a tiny little nerd regularly harassed by the thugs who visit the gym where he works. When exposure to toxic waste turns Melvin into a superhuman freak, he uses his abilities to get revenge.

The Toxic Avenger was Troma Entertainment's first big hit after originally producing sex comedies and exploitation films during the 70s. When Lloyd Kaufman had the idea to film a horror movie, this was the result. Watching a Troma movie is an experience; there's something strangely surreal about each production, and The Toxic Avenger is no exception.

This is one of those movies that opens with a "sexy gym" montage, so that should give you a good clue about it already. Straight from the start we get the extremes of all the necessary 80's tropes: sexy gym, big hair, murderous bullies, thug in a headband, girl in a WHAM! shirt, sexploitation scene, and a clear shot of a skull getting crushed under a car tire.

The Good
Though there's not much real "horror" to the movie, the transformation scene where Melvin's skin bubbles and breaks as his hair falls out is actually pretty unnerving. It all looks practical and impresses even compared to today's effects.

And that goes for the gore, too. When someone gets a finger put through their eye or a bloody jaw, it looks good, if a little over the top. There are several moments where people have their skulls cracked, broken, or crushed, and each one looks pretty convincing.

The fight choreography, when there is any, is actually not bad. It's goofy, sure, but you can at least tell what's happening throughout. The stunts are also fairly well done, far better than I would have expected.

The Bad
The worst part about this movie is that there's so little you can really criticize when the entire thing is 100% intentional. Calling the acting bad is redundant, because no one bothered to be anything but camp. To say the writing is bad is to describe every Troma picture's script. It leaves little to say except that you shouldn't bother watching if you aren't prepared for one of the (intentionally) worst movies you'll ever see.

The Rest
Dividing the good and the bad in this one was really difficult, because Troma is in a league of its own. It's definitely the strangest superhero movie I've seen, and not in a bad way.

Gee, there's talk of a remake. Not interested. There are already a lot of sequels, and I think that's plenty of Toxic Avenger for now.

Should You Watch It?
Yes, but I think this is probably something to prepare for, instead of having it sprung on you.

Bad Movie Month #25: Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2

"Naughty this!"

Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Directed by: Lee Harry
Produced by: Lawrence Applebaum
Written by: Le Harry, Joseph H. Earle, Dennis Patterson, Lawrence Applebaum (story), Lee Harry, Joseph H. Earle (screenplay)
Budget: $100,000

Starring: Jean Miller, Eric Freeman, Elizabeth Kaitan, James L. Newman

This movie was first revealed to me through the internet fossil website YTMND, more specifically through the above clip of the infamous "Garbage day!" scene. I have not seen the first one, and otherwise had no idea what this movie was about before I started it.

Several years after Ricky's brother Billy committed a series of grisly Christmas murders, Ricky is being held in a mental hospital until he can be tried for his part in the first movie's killings. But when Ricky escapes, it's his duty to find out who's nice, and who's naughty...and murder the naughty ones.

This is one of those slasher movies that likes to take the exploitative route, with cheap effects, over-the-top violence, and tawdry nudity and sex scenes. The characters all have plenty of one-liners, though Ricky takes the cake by delivering one every other line or so. The characters are all fairly unlikable or undeveloped, and the murders are fairly mundane, rather than elaborate Christmas-themed events.

The So Bad It's Good
There's a number of lines with hilarious delivery. Any time Ricky talks to his shrink he sounds like he's forcing the words out through his teeth, and the words are often met by an equally stilted one-liner from the shrink. It's a really funny case of movie-therapy, because I can't imagine this therapist made that type of remark when he earned his license.

The performances are hilarious. Freeman does his best in coming across as a cold, arrogant psychopath but the way he raises his eyebrows after pretty much every "I'm evil" line is really goofy. Newman as the shrink feels like a combination of Blackadder-era Hugh Laurie and John Cleese, and all that that entails. In the last forty minutes the movie starts to come into its own with the performances and writing, particularly after Freeman is given free reign to go all killer.

The So Bad It's Bad
The movie starts with a series of flashbacks, which aren't so much flashbacks as reused footage from the first Silent Night, Deadly Night with an occasional voice-over. Because I haven't seen the first one this didn't bother me too much, but if all of the flashback stuff is reused footage than I can only imagine how much filler this is for...fans of the first one, if there are any. For real, there's enough reused footage that I would have probably asked for my money back.

No, really, the entire first movie is retold through flashback over the first 45 minutes, with reused footage from all the important plot points played in sequence. It's probably the most filler-full movie I've seen in a while.

This movie has a following as a cult slasher movie, and I partially understand why. Unfortunately, the parts that make it entertaining are separated by long stretches of exposition and information dumping which really make the movie drag when it's not being funny. Other than the humorous stuff, not a lot happens. The biggest issue is that it doesn't feel like a slasher movie as much as it does a movie about a murderer. I realize that's kind of a minor difference, but when you're watching them it matters.

There's a lot of rape in this movie. It's a delicate topic, and I'm not going to go too far into it here, but I counted at least three different attempted rapes within the first hour, with varying outcomes. Just so you know.

The Rest
The final Silent Night, Deadly Night is number 5: The Toy Maker, released in 1991. I wonder when we're going to get the tongue-in-cheek, reference-filled remake. We got a remake of the first one in 2012, which was pretty well received for what it was. Considering Hollywood is looking for anything to remake maybe holiday season 2016 will be deadly.

Should You Watch It?
You might get something out of this if you're a fan of campy holiday slasher movies, but be prepared to deal with some really sufferingly slow parts in-between the laughs. If you really want to see the best parts, skip to the 40 minute mark, as that's when it becomes something memorable.

Bad Movie Month #24: The Star Wars Holiday Special

Not long enough ago, not far enough away.

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

Directed by: Steve Binder
Produced by: Gary Smith, Dwight Hemion (executive), Joe Layton, Jeff Starsh, Ken Welch, Mitzie Welch
Written by: Pat Proft, Leonard Ripps, Bruce Vilanch, Rod Warren, Mitzie Welch
Budget: ~$1,000,000

Starring: Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Art Carney, Kenny Baker, Bea Arthur, Don Francks, Harvey Korman, James Earl Jones

When the Wookiee holiday Life Day is threatened by the Empire, it's up to our heroes to help the walking carpets get their holiday on. Along the way there's countless celebrity cameos, yawn-inducing variety television skits, and the distinct feeling that your brain is slowly seeping out your ears.

The Star Wars Holiday Special has a legendary reputation as one of the worst things ever put to film, both as a Star Wars tie-in and as a production itself. After the release and success of A New Hope CBS pitched the idea of a television special to George Lucas, and everything else is history. Though Lucas wasn't actually involved in this, he is responsible for the story and narrative, so he is most definitely not blameless.

The movie begins with Han and Chewbacca escaping the Empire in a short sequence, followed by roughly fifteen minutes of nothing but Wookiee shrieks and roars. The story swaps between the actual Star Wars stuff, Wookiee yuppie shenanigans, and the endless barrage of awful variety show performances and shorts from a variety of 70s icons and stars who no doubt took their regret with them to the grave.

The very fact that this was created demonstrates the staying power of the Star Wars franchise, because if something like this had been released after, say, the Fellowship of the Ring, then I can't imagine Jackson would have had the perseverance to continue the series at all.

The So Mediocre It's Tolerable
The animated sequence that serves as Boba Fett's introduction to the Star Wars universe at least has Boba Fett atop a dinosaur, so there's that. Again, I can't help but wonder how a character introduced in such a way made any positive impact on the fan base, especially considering the original portrayal of Fett in episodes 5 and 6 show him as nothing more than incompetent or lucky. Fett is easily the coolest part of this, so much so that he feels incredibly out of place.

Jefferson Starship's performance of "Light the Sky on Fire" is okay, I guess. Bea Arthur shows up as a bartender at a Tatooine cantina and sings a song about having one more round before the Empire comes and murders everyone. Her performance almost sells the idea that she owns a drinking establishment while under the thumb of an oppressive government, and I would have far preferred the special follow her character.

The So Bad It's Horrible
There's pretty much nothing here worth watching, even as a bad movie. This is firmly one of those movies where "bad" means "not entertaining."

No one here is putting any effort into their performances. Hamill is all wide-eyed with some truly terrible makeup to cover his car accident scars, Ford has obviously decided that this could potentially end his film career, and Fisher looks like she's deep in her drug problems. Art Carney tries to be a fast-talking charmer, but he looks like he knows he's above whatever science fiction goofery he's acting in.

The variety shows are consistently awful, boring, nonsensical, and anything in between. The early cooking segment with Harvey Korman in...alien drag (maybe?) had me sitting in slack-jawed amazement and inspired a similar reaction as a robot of some sort that kept glitching out. Jefferson Starship shows up about halfway through to sing on a bad soundstage, and...I can't really remember any of the others. They appear on screen without much fanfare and vanish without leaving any impression except a slight sense that you've just been witness to something that should not be.

Not only are the variety shows badly done, but the ideas behind them don't make any sense within the Star Wars galaxy. There's very little reverence towards the series, and ultimately it makes the entire thing come across as a cheap tie-in to capitalize on the success of A New Hope. None of them feel like they belong in a Star Wars movie at all.

Though the animated sequence feels most like an actual Star Wars story, the animation is actually terrible. Not only is it the worst of late-70s animation, the actual character designs make everyone look like they have a mild case of elephantiasis. Han Solo in particular looks like someone painted a human face on a leather bag and draped it over a skull several sizes too small.

The So Weird It's Awful
Art Carney shows up a bunch as a trader who serves to at least partially tie the various stories together by delivering gifts to various characters. At one point he gives Itchy a hologram that feels disturbingly like a porno. Essentially, Diahann Carroll shows up, tells Itchy that she's his fantasy program, and sings a forgettable song while wearing a wig made out of a mop head.

This special and everything in it is officially considered C-Canon within the Star Wars Continuity, meaning that everything happened unless it's specifically contradicted by one of the TV series or movies. I'm pretty sure that, even with the new canon brought in by The Force Awakens, everything portrayed here still happened.

It feels like parts of this were directed by people who don't know basic film principles. At certain points the shots break the 180 degree rule, with characters looking in wildly different directions than the blocking would indicate. The actors go about their scenes with all the enthusiasm of extras earning a bad paycheck.

There are a number of musical numbers throughout, and I'm pretty sure each of them is set to one of the musical pieces from the series. Bea Arthur sings a song to the tune of the Cantina song, Fisher sings one to the Star Wars theme, and I think there are a few others I missed. It was honestly difficult at times to pay attention, simply due to how non-entertaining the entire thing was. It's hard to explain how strange it is hearing lyrics put to these iconic pieces of music, and it feels wrong while watching, like...you are watching something that should not be. It's difficult to find another way to state that emotion, but it's the best way I've found: this entire thing feels like something that should never have been created, and probably would have been better forgotten.

Life Day apparently involves using wookiee totems to transport yourself to the center of a star, where you wear red robes and stand on a foggy stage to do nothing but roar at each other while Carrie Fisher fails to hit her high notes.

Should You Watch It?
No. If you feel so inclined look up the animated sequence and watch that, but really, it's not worth the almost two hours it takes to watch the entire thing.

The Holiday Special is exactly as bad as everyone says it is.

Bad Movie Month #23: Plan 9 From Outer Space

"Future events such as these will
affect you in the future."

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Directed by: Ed Wood
Produced by: Ed Wood, Hugh Thomas, Jr., Charles Burg, J. Edward Reynolds
Written by: Ed Wood
Budget: $60,000 (roughly $489,000 in 2015, according to US Department of Labor)

Starring: Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, Vampira, Bela Lugosi (posthumously)

When aliens invade and start resurrecting the dead to attack the living, it's time for us as a species to face...grave robbers from outer space...uh, I mean, survive in the face of plan nine from outer space.

Plan 9 is arguably the best known of Ed Wood's films, and one that exemplifies his style of film-making, if that's what you could call it. It's been held up as an example of how many of Wood's ideas may have been just a little higher than he could reach with his budget and, potentially, skill as a director and writer.

It's notable as Bela Lugosi's last screen credit. Wood and Lugosi developed a close friendship towards the last few years of Lugosi's life, and Wood planned on his inclusion in an abandoned film of his. After the actor died, Wood used what footage he had in this one. This is fairly easy to notice at certain points because Wood utilized almost every scrap of film from Lugosi's part, including trims and shots that would normally have been left on the cutting room floor and the drop in quality is noticeable even through the standard Wood camp.

The So Bad It's Good
The physical production is the Woodiest of Ed Wood movies, with cardboard headstones, a jet cockpit rendered by a curtain and nondescript steering yokes of some sort. At several points actors will bump into the headstones and you can clearly see them wobble against the curtain hanging behind the set. Whenever you see an actual UFO flying around it's clearly tied to a string and moving against a backdrop and the only exterior shot of the landed ship is represented by the corner of a building and a ladder.

Action scenes are handled with the classic Wood style, with stock footage cut in with very cheap original footage. The UFOs are either model kits, hubcaps, or plates on strings, and the first combat sequence where the military fires on the aliens uses real military stock footage of launchers and jets. Much like the chase scenes these are seriously hindered by the small sets.

Chase scenes are likewise hilarious, with actors running around the same set. This creates the unfortunate effect of making it look like everyone is running back and forth over the same twenty feet of graveyard, while scenes of Lugosi and the stand-in show obvious changes between outside locations and on-set shots. Gunshots are the old-school smoke-and-sparks, and getting hit by a gun apparently makes you develop a minor full-body twitch.

It feels like some of the actors are stage actors, some are film, and others aren't actors at all. Certain characters have a flourish to their movements and dialogue that screams Theatre! while others are competent, and even more don't seem to quite understand what they're doing at all. I'm fairly certain that at spots you can see the actors look down at a copy of the script when they forget their lines.

The entire plot of the movie hinges on classic bad Hollywood science, with the premise that a bomb could explode light particles (or atoms, as stated in the movie) and start a chain reaction that blows up the universe itself. There's an anti-war message in the movie, combined with an environmental message and speech about uniting to better ourselves. Each one is explained within a five minute monologue, just like all good movies.

The So Bad It's Bad
Some of the performances dip into bad, rather than funny bad. Vampira's performance as a zombie is lifeless, pun both intended and not intended. At certain points her facial expression looks more fitting to a bored funeral goer rather than a risen corpse.

There's a lot of filler between shots of the UFOs flying around, people walking, and other miscellaneous footage that doesn't contribute much. There's at least a minute-long scene where the same footage of a military general looking through binoculars is reused. While most of these are actually pretty amusing, it gets tiring at points. There are plenty of moments where the scene will change to a group of characters simply standing around before going back to the actual story.

The Rest
Plan 9 feels like the classic black and white b-movie that every other one in recent memory has been modeled off. With the cheap sets, stilted delivery, and brilliantly obtuse script it's got that perfect camp formula.

There was a remake released in February, 2015 which is sort of an homage/remake/mockery of the original. I haven't actually seen it, but it appears to be a remake with modern horror gore and parody elements. It might be worth checking out, but I don't know that it's necessary. It feels to me like the problem you get when a mega-fan takes over production of an IP and emphasizes their own vision for it. In all honesty I probably would have preferred just a straight shot-for-shot reshoot.

Should You Watch It?
Absolutely. I've seen The Room referred to as the Citizen Kane of bad movies, but that title is far more appropriate to Plan 9. It can fit in at any spot on a bad movie list, either as the first as an introduction or at the end as a grand finale. There's plenty here to entertain. I haven't gone as far in depth on this movie as I could have, because I truly think this is a movie everyone should see at least once.

You can watch the movie in full either on Youtube or Wikipedia.