Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)

The critic celebrates Plan 9 from Outer Space as a glorious cult classic and a sacred text of B-movie lore, a masterpiece of the maladroit born from sincere artistic limitations. Wood’s uncommon devotion to his material and the film’s earnestness are singled out for praise amid its flagrant incompetence.

The oft-ridiculed director Ed Wood stared so fixedly at his own grandiose designs that he stumbled upon the stuff of filmmaking in this extravagant example of his sublime absurdity. The flimsy sets, flagrant acting, perfunctory staging, and hectic montage of stock footage convey a frenzied vision of cosmic catastrophe that comes to life only in the awesomely silly special effect of a flying saucer aflame in the night sky; Wood is an auteur despite himself.

The critic finds rewatching the film a reassuring experience as it remains every bit as bad as remembered, with stilted dialogue, a baffling plot and laughably crude effects. He singles out its magical innocence, complete lack of cynicism and childlike pleasure in filmmaking for praise, arguing these qualities make it joyfully entertaining despite its ineptitude.

The critic notes the film has become accepted as the worst ever made but argues it is consistently entertaining thanks to its ranting dialogue, camp performances, wobbly sets, paper-plate flying saucers and bizarre elements like the Bela Lugosi footage. He concludes it is worth seeing even for those tired of bad-movie fandom, describing it as brilliantly terrible or terribly terrible depending on viewpoint.

The film earns its reputation as one of the worst ever made through its absurd plot involving alien invaders resurrecting the dead, but it carves a historical niche thanks to Bela Lugosi's final screen appearance. The review highlights glaring continuity errors, such as mismatched furniture and a stand-in for the deceased Lugosi who towers over the original footage.

The film is not the worst ever made and Ed Wood was not the worst director; it is a singular, fast-paced and entertaining sci-fi/horror/conspiracy picture driven by genuine love for filmmaking. The coherent plot involving aliens resurrecting the dead to warn Earth about a doomsday weapon stands out as surprisingly solid for its era.

The critic calls Plan 9 from Outer Space Ed Wood's best bad movie, a schlocky and poorly made but hugely entertaining cult classic full of exuberance and soul. They highlight its cardboard sets, wooden acting, continuity errors, and the use of unrelated Bela Lugosi footage as sources of its accidental charm and enduring appeal.

The critic calls the film the worst ever made but also one of the funniest and most lovable, praising its passion and straight-faced delivery despite technical flaws. Wood's determination to finish the low-budget production despite setbacks like Lugosi's death is singled out as what makes it compelling.