Directed by: Edward D. Wood Jr.
Starring: Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Bela Lugosi, Maila Nurmi (Vampira), Tor Johnson, Tom Keene, Lyle Talbot, Dudley Manlove, Joanna Lee
Narrated by: Criswell

STORY

Flying saucers are appearing over California.

The government knows about them.

The military knows about them.

And according to the mysterious Criswell, what you are about to witness may prove that we are not alone.

Commercial airline pilot Jeff Trent and his co-pilot encounter a flying saucer while traveling over California’s San Fernando Valley. The strange craft passes dangerously close to their plane, but Jeff soon discovers that convincing anyone of what he saw may be almost as difficult as surviving the encounter.

Meanwhile, something considerably stranger is happening in a nearby cemetery.

Two gravediggers are finishing the burial of a woman when they encounter something impossible.

The dead woman is walking again.

Soon her grieving husband dies as well, only to return from the grave himself.

But the dead are not rising on their own.

Extraterrestrials have arrived on Earth with a plan.

And unfortunately for humanity, they are already on PLAN 9.

The aliens, led by Eros and Tanna, have grown increasingly frustrated with the human race. They believe humanity is rapidly approaching the discovery of a weapon powerful enough to destroy not merely Earth, but potentially the universe itself.

Since humans refuse to listen to warnings, the aliens decide to get our attention another way.

They begin resurrecting the dead.

Their ninth plan involves controlling recently deceased humans and using them to frighten the living into acknowledging the existence of extraterrestrial visitors.

Among their growing army are the mysterious Vampire Girl, her undead husband and Inspector Daniel Clay, a police officer who makes the unfortunate mistake of investigating the cemetery and becomes one of its permanent residents.

As the flying saucer sightings increase, the military begins responding. Colonel Tom Edwards joins police officers investigating the strange events while Jeff becomes convinced that the UFO activity near his home is connected to what is happening in the cemetery.

Eventually the humans discover the alien spacecraft and confront Eros.

The alien explains that humanity’s relentless development of increasingly destructive weapons threatens everyone. Earth scientists may eventually create a weapon capable of causing sunlight itself to explode, setting off a chain reaction that could destroy the universe.

The aliens therefore believe they are saving existence from the most dangerous creatures in the cosmos.

Us.

What follows is one of the strangest confrontations in science-fiction history, involving extraterrestrials, soldiers, police officers, flying saucers, resurrected corpses, fire, explosions and a plan that may not have been particularly well thought out in the first place.

Plan 9 from Outer Space has become far more than a movie.

It is a piece of American pop culture.

Its flying saucers wobble. Its cemetery sometimes looks suspiciously like a soundstage. Night becomes day and then becomes night again. Bela Lugosi appears even though he died before principal photography began. Dialogue reaches magnificent heights of strangeness.

And somehow, against every conceivable odd, the whole thing WORKS.

Not because Plan 9 is polished.

Because it is absolutely, unmistakably, enthusiastically itself.

Ed Wood wanted to make a movie about aliens, zombies and the possible destruction of the universe.

He made it.

And generations later, we are STILL watching it.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

BELA LUGOSI DIED BEFORE THE MOVIE WAS MADE

Here is where the legend begins.

Bela Lugosi died on August 16, 1956, before principal photography on Plan 9 from Outer Space began.

Ed Wood nevertheless had silent footage of Lugosi that he had previously filmed for an unfinished project.

Rather than abandon the footage, Wood incorporated it into Plan 9 and built Lugosi’s character into the new story.

The result gave Bela Lugosi one final, unforgettable appearance in an Ed Wood film.

BELA’S DOUBLE DIDN’T EXACTLY LOOK LIKE BELA

Wood needed additional scenes involving Lugosi’s character after the actor had died.

His solution has become one of the most famous pieces of Plan 9 history.

Thomas R. Mason, a Hollywood chiropractor, was used as Lugosi’s double.

There was one fairly obvious problem.

Mason did not look very much like Bela Lugosi.

He was also noticeably taller.

The solution?

Mason spends much of his screen time holding a cape across the lower portion of his face.

Problem solved.

Well...

Sort of.

VAMPIRA ENTERS THE CEMETERY

Maila Nurmi had become a Los Angeles television sensation as Vampira, the glamorous, impossibly thin horror hostess dressed in black.

Ed Wood cast her as the film’s resurrected Vampire Girl.

Vampira barely speaks in the movie, but she does not need to.

Her black dress, long fingernails, tiny waist and eerie movements through the cemetery created one of Plan 9’s most enduring images.

VAMPIRA TOOK THE BUS

Here is an AINTOID we absolutely LOVE.

According to Turner Classic Movies, Maila Nurmi received $200 for one day’s work on Plan 9 from Outer Space.

And how did one of horror cinema’s most recognizable undead women get to the set?

She rode the Santa Monica Boulevard bus.

In full Vampira makeup and costume.

Imagine waiting for the bus, looking over and finding VAMPIRA sitting beside you.

Only in Hollywood.

TOR JOHNSON RISES FROM THE GRAVE

Professional wrestler Tor Johnson plays Inspector Daniel Clay, whose investigation of the cemetery ends very badly.

Clay is killed.

Then resurrected.

Johnson’s enormous frame and distinctive appearance made him perfect for Wood’s world, and his lumbering undead Inspector Clay became another of the film’s unforgettable characters.

Johnson had already worked with Wood in Bride of the Monster and would become permanently associated with the director’s wonderfully peculiar cinematic universe.

CRISWELL PREDICTS THE FUTURE

The film opens with one of the most recognizable personalities in the Ed Wood universe.

Criswell.

Jeron Criswell King, known professionally simply as Criswell, became famous in Los Angeles for making outrageous predictions about the future on television.

In Plan 9, he looks directly into the camera and prepares the audience for the incredible events they are about to witness.

The film marked Criswell’s feature-film debut.

GRAVE ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE

Plan 9 did not begin life as Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Its working title was Grave Robbers from Outer Space.

In fact, Criswell’s opening narration still refers to the story as one involving grave robbers from outer space.

But that title would become a problem.

A very strange problem.

THE BAPTISTS HELPED FINANCE PLAN 9

Yes.

Really.

The movie received financing through a Baptist organization.

But there was a condition attached to the arrangement.

According to Turner Classic Movies, numerous members of the cast and crew were required to be baptized.

Which brings us to perhaps the greatest behind-the-scenes story in the entire movie.

THEY WERE BAPTIZED IN A SWIMMING POOL!

Members of the Plan 9 cast and crew were baptized in a swimming pool in Beverly Hills as part of the financing arrangement.

Think about this for a moment.

A movie involving aliens resurrecting corpses in a cemetery was partially financed through a religious organization after members of the production agreed to be baptized in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.

Hollywood history does not get much better than this.

THE ORIGINAL TITLE CAUSED ANOTHER PROBLEM

The Baptist financiers reportedly objected to Grave Robbers from Outer Space because they considered the title objectionable.

The film eventually became Plan 9 from Outer Space.

And really, that title created an entirely new mystery.

What happened to Plans 1 through 8?

Ed Wood never gave us those movies.

We have been waiting ever since.

THE PRODUCERS BECAME GRAVEDIGGERS

J. Edward Reynolds and Hugh Thomas Jr., who were involved in producing and financing the movie, also appear on screen.

They play the two unfortunate gravediggers encountered near the beginning of the picture.

Help finance the movie.

Get baptized.

Become a gravedigger.

Get murdered by the undead.

That is independent filmmaking.

THE FLYING SAUCERS

Few flying saucers in movie history have been loved quite as much as the ones in Plan 9.

They hover over Hollywood, fly above the city and wobble through the sky in exactly the wonderfully handmade fashion audiences expect from an Ed Wood production.

The special effects became part of the film’s legend.

They may not have convinced audiences that extraterrestrials were actually invading California.

But nearly seventy years later, people still recognize them.

That counts for something.

NIGHT, DAY, NIGHT, DAY

Continuity is part of the Plan 9 experience.

Characters can begin a scene in darkness, move into footage that appears to have been photographed during daylight and then find themselves back in darkness again.

Sets, locations and stock footage do not always agree with one another.

Rather than destroying the film’s appeal, these inconsistencies eventually became part of why generations of audiences fell in love with it.

Spotting them is practically part of watching the movie.

ED WOOD DID ALMOST EVERYTHING

Edward D. Wood Jr. was not merely the director.

His onscreen credit reads:

Written-Produced-Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr.

He also edited the film.

Wood was the driving force behind the entire production, piecing together actors, locations, sets, stock footage, Lugosi footage and whatever resources he could obtain to put his strange vision on the screen.

Whatever anyone thinks of the finished product, nobody can accuse Ed Wood of lacking determination.

AINTOID: “WORST MOVIE” BECOMES A CULT CLASSIC

Plan 9 from Outer Space eventually became famous as one of the supposedly “worst movies ever made.”

But something funny happened.

People kept watching it.

Then they watched it again.

Audiences quoted it. Film fans held screenings. Books discussed it. Documentaries examined it. Filmmakers celebrated it.

A movie that could easily have disappeared with thousands of other inexpensive productions instead became immortal.

There are technically better movies that almost nobody remembers.

Everybody remembers Plan 9.

AINTOID: TIM BURTON BROUGHT ED WOOD BACK TO HOLLYWOOD

Ed Wood’s strange career eventually inspired Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood.

Johnny Depp played Wood, while Martin Landau portrayed Bela Lugosi.

Landau’s performance won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

That means the story surrounding the making of movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space eventually produced an OSCAR.

Ed Wood probably would have loved that.

AINTOID: THE ALIENS MAY HAVE A POINT

Underneath all the flying saucers, zombies and wonderfully eccentric dialogue is an idea that is surprisingly serious.

The aliens are terrified of humanity.

They believe humans are developing weapons without possessing the wisdom to understand the consequences.

Their solution is certainly questionable.

Resurrecting the dead is rarely an ideal diplomatic strategy.

But the fear underneath their plan reflects a genuine Atomic Age anxiety: technological power was advancing faster than humanity’s ability to control it.

Suddenly Plan 9 does not seem quite so silly.

Well...

Maybe a LITTLE silly.

AINTOID: HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION COLLIDE

Plan 9 refuses to choose between genres.

Want aliens?

Here are aliens.

Want flying saucers?

Here are flying saucers.

Want vampires?

Here is Vampira.

Want zombies?

Here are resurrected corpses.

Want a mad plan to save the universe?

We have that too.

It is science fiction, horror, monster movie, alien invasion picture and zombie movie all at once.

AINTOID: BELA LUGOSI’S FINAL SCREEN APPEARANCE

Although Bela Lugosi’s footage had been filmed earlier and he died before the principal production began, Plan 9 from Outer Space became his final posthumously released feature-film appearance.

That gives this famously eccentric movie a surprisingly poignant place in horror history.

The man who became immortal as Dracula appears one last time, wandering through a cemetery in his cape.

There are worse ways for a horror legend to say goodbye.

AINTOID: ED WOOD WON

Plan 9 from Outer Space was never going to compete with Hollywood’s biggest productions.

It did something arguably more difficult.

It survived.

Decade after decade, audiences discovered it.

The mistakes became beloved. The dialogue became quotable. The flying saucers became iconic. Vampira and Tor Johnson became cult figures. Ed Wood became one of the most recognizable independent filmmakers in movie history.

A tiny movie made with limited money and enormous determination became part of American film culture.

So perhaps the final joke belongs to Ed Wood.

Everyone laughed at Plan 9 from Outer Space.

But they never stopped watching it.

DATE RELEASED

July 1959