Back in the 1953….one of the very first ever movies about outer space and aliens came to the movie theaters in America was Invaders from Mars….which had a story line about a night when a young David McLean sees a spaceship crash into a nearby sandpit…..when his father goes to investigate….but comes back changed….where once he was cheerful and affectionate….he’s now sullen and snarlingly rude….then others fall into the sandpit and begin acting like him….cold, ill-tempered and conspiratorial. David knows that aliens are taking over the bodies of humans….but he’ll soon discover there have been far more of these terrible thefts than he could have imagined. The young doom-monger finds some serious help in a lady doctor and a brilliant astronomer. Soon they meet the aliens who are green creatures with insect-like eyes….as these beings prove to be slaves to their leader….who was a large, silent head with ceaselessly shifting eyes and two tentacles on either side…each of which branches off into three smaller tentacles. It’s up to the redoubtable earth trio to stop its evil plans.
The next alien movie to appear in movie theaters was Plan 9 from Outer Space which was originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space back in 1959….which was an American independent black and white science fiction-horror film….that was written, produced, directed and edited by Ed Wood…. and starring Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Vampira….in a film that posthumously bills Bela Lugosi as a star….with silent footage of the actor that had actually been shot by Wood for another, unfinished film just prior to Lugosi’s death in August 1956. Plan 9 from Outer Space was released theatrically in 1959 by Distributors Corporation of America…which was then credited as Valiant Pictures.
The story line concerns extraterrestrials who are seeking to stop humanity from creating a doomsday weapon that could destroy the universe….as the aliens implement “Plan 9”….which was a scheme to resurrect the Earth’s dead….who were referred to as “ghouls“…..and by causing chaos, the aliens hoped the crisis would force humanity to listen to them….and if not….the aliens would then destroy mankind with armies of the undead….so, this film was like the original precursor to The Walking Dead of today….or the army of the dead in Game of Thrones….which are both immensely popular in 2017.
Plan 9 from Outer Space played on television in relative obscurity until 1980….when authors Harry and Michael Medved dubbed it the “worst film ever made” in their book The Golden Turkey Awards….. Wood and his film were posthumously given two Golden Turkey Awards for Worst Director Ever and Worst Film…..which simply makes this video well worth watching.
