Rifftrax Live & Plan 9 From Outer Space

Ok, this will be a two part review; first the film, then the Rifftrax experience itself; each rated separately.
So really, you’re getting a two-for-one here, people.
Yes, I love you too.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said of Plan 9 From Outer Space?
The insane brainchild of infamous director Ed Wood Jr., the plot of the film is interesting unto itself, to say the least.
It involves Aliens trying to take over the world by using plan 9; resurrecting the newly deceased, in this case, Vampira, Bela Lugosi, and Tor Johnson.
Well, Bela kind of….the chiropractor of Ed Wood’s wife actually stood in for almost all of Bela’s undead scenes, since Bela himself died before production of the film was completed.
The film begins with airline pilot Jeff Trent in his amazingly constructed flight cabin made up of three walls, two stools, and a shower curtain.
Jeff and his co-pilot encounter a UFO, which is actually a painted paper plate suspended by thread.
Elsewhere, a funeral is being held for Bela Lugosi’s wife, (and you can tell it’s a cemetery because of the wonderful tiny cardboard headstones that are only two feet apart from each other) as two gravediggers look on.
Bela is understandably overcome with grief, or perhaps the heroine kicked in; I couldn’t tell which.
After the service, the gravediggers go to leave, when they encounter Vampira, who appears to be undead…..yeah.
Her arms raised, the scene fades to black.
What happened?
Who knows; perhaps she cuddled them to death, because a woman with a waist about two inches in diameter just doesn’t strike me as a threat to two gravediggers who also happened to have shovels as weapons.
So, back to Bela, who apparently so absorbed in grief by his wife’s death, wanders into traffic and is apparently turned into pavement paste.
At his funeral, the corpses of the two gravediggers are discovered that must’ve been some hardcore cuddling!) Inspector Daniel Clay (Tor Johnson) is on the scene with two numbnut police officers who will offer much ridiculous dialogue to come.
Good ole’ Tor encounters Vampira, who is now joined by Not-Bela and is killed as well.
Now comes one of those ridiculous lines from the aforementioned officers when they stumble upon his massive ton of flesh: "Inspector Clay is dead...murdered...and somebody's responsible!".
Those boys don’t miss a trick, do they?
We then cut to Jeff Trent and his wife Paula sitting in their backyard looking out at the cemetery (we assume) as he relates his earlier UFO experience through more absurdly written dialogue.
He figures the UFO’s are related to the strange goings on in the cemetery…..oh, no doubt.
Suddenly, a blinding light and massive gust of wind knock the chemistry-lacking couple to the ground, a “spaceship” landing nearby.
Of course it is.
What follows in the film are more sightings of flying paper plates, inane dialogue, and of course……more stock footage than you can shake a heroine needle at.
But what makes this film fun is the fact that it’s taking itself almost deathly serious.
From the cardboard stiff line delivery, to the insanely dangerous way that the one inspector flips his revolver about; even tipping his hat up with it.
And on the subject of line delivery nothing will probably ever top the line delivered by Eros (Dudley Manlove): “You see? You see? Stupid! Stupid!!”.
And really, what would any Ed Wood film be without Tor Johnson?
Glen Or Glenda, that’s what; and we reeeeaaally don’t want that.
Plan 9 From Outer Space, originally titled “Grave Robbers From Outer Space” has often been regarded as the worst movie ever made.
Poppycock, I say.
Sit through Manos: The Hands Of Fate, then we’ll discuss worst of the worst.
So on top of the seriousness the film tries to project amidst all the incredibly cheap special defects, blatantly fake props, the worst stand in for an actor I’ve seen this side of an old school Star Trek fight scene, and absurd dialogue, are the main reasons I recommend this film.
Sounds crazy, right?
Hear me out; one thing I truly respect about this film is Ed Wood’s pure ambition and love of making pictures.
He wasn’t about to let a little thing like no budget get in the way of his vision.
And that’s what it was always all about.
Plan 9 was the culmination of Ed Wood’s film making dreams.
Sure, the result may have caused nose bleeds in some people, birth defects in pregnant women brave enough to sit through it, but dammit, I’ve got to hand it to a guy with that much guts.
He didn’t make the film to make a quick buck; he made it because he loved doing it.
And that puts him in the plus column in my book.
There’s a reason the man has a cult following.



Rifftrax: The Live Show

Now I was lucky to actually have just stumbled into this.
It was to be a birthday gift for a friend of mine, and they were gracious enough to let me attend with them.
For those who don’t know what Rifftrax is, refer to my post from last week; it also contains links to their site and related sites.
We attended at a local AMC theatre, and immediately I was surprised at the attendance.
The theatre itself was darn near packed, everyone eagerly awaiting the show.
Now, the show itself was being held in Tennessee, and was being broadcast via satellite delay to over 400 other theatres across the country.
Right up on the big screen we were treated to a visual of the theatre they were broadcasting from, and the packed audience that were attending there.
A nice young lady, who I’m unfamiliar with, and no doubt someone will berate me for not knowing, was the host of the show, and shortly introduced the Riff-Kings themselves; Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett.
Immediately they jumped into riffing the film short “The Flying Stewardess”, and cut into it with such wit and observational humour, the theatre was out loud laughing the whole way through.
However, not all was well with this segment of the show; on at least four occasions, the feed blinked out for about 4-5 seconds, instigating an “aaaawww!" from our audience.
Luckily, this didn’t last long, and the show was able to continue.
In between the short and feature presentation, we were treated to ads, courtesy of somethingawful.com; which of course were wonderfully deranged parodies.
What actually kind of brought the show to halt in terms of pace, was geek folk singer Jonathan Coulton coming out and doing a couple of songs.
Now, while they were amusing, and it was oddly funny to see the camera cut to the same two girls in the audience singing along a little too vehemently, it really didn’t add anything to the show; and for me personally, I could have done without it.
Thankfully right after his two songs, Mike and boys came out and did a little ditty of their own, with Coulton’s help of course; and this was immediately followed by the feature presentation of Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Let me tell you; originally I wasn’t certain that Plan 9 could even be riffed successfully, since the film itself is kind of a parody.
But sweet Christmas, these boys cut into it with their A-game!
A flurry of observational riffs, put-down jokes, and dialogue inserts had the audience in our theatre roaring.
This was a film the guys have obviously studied and experimented with carefully, picking and choosing just the right combination that worked seamlessly in tune with the film.
Not only that, but they knew just when to hold back during scenes or dialogue that had the audience laughing by itself.
Such as Eros’ wonderful tangent on stupidity; cutting in right when they needed to; not overshadowing the lunacy, but enhancing it, if that makes any sense.

So to sum up, aside from a couple of tech glitches, and a unnecessary folk music interlude, the Rifftrax crew delivered in spades.
I certainly hope they plan to do more of these shows, at least once a year; because experiencing a good riffing with a large audience is just too wonderful an experience to only do once.
One quick side note however; surprisingly the version of the film they chose to present was colourized.
Now while this isn’t a big thing, and I understand that showing a colour version of the film is probably meant for the benefit of an audience who prefers it, I did find it a bit jarring, and hope they decide to steer away from it in the future.


Author's note, a correction: In my review of Starcrash, I mistakenly and foolishly subbed Fritz Freiling for the unmistakable classic voice talent of Mel Blanc.
For that, I'm stupid, and will accept any taunting of my self-noted stupidity.