Rifftrax: Plan 9 From Outer Space

Movie:  (1958) The “Citizen Kane of bad movies” as Mike puts it.   Aliens try to conquer earth by raising the dead to be an unstoppable killing force, to prevent humans from one day destroying the universe.  Unfortunately the aliens aren’t really any smarter than the humans are.

First released: First riffed by Mike solo (Jan 1 2006), then rereleased as a three-riffer version (Jan 22 2008 on VOD, Jan 29 on DVD) .  

Premise:  Not much!  Mike comes on and introduces himself, Kevin and Bill; then DisembAudio is introduced and explained, then they give a starting point and countdown.  When the movie starts the riffs are synced and start in right away.  There are no characters other than DisembAudio, and no pretense of a reason to riff other than that is what the audience is there for.

Availability: Watch on Hulu; Download VOD from Rifftrax or Amazon instant; DVD from Amazon and Netflix.

Reminds me of:  It’s the quintessential Ed Wood film, so most like Sinister Urge and Bride of the Monster; similar to other low-budget 50’s Sci-Fi like The Unearthly and maybe Teenagers from Outer Space.

Stray observations:

First off, admittedly this was not the first Rifftrax production.  Rifftrax started with Mike Nelson solo on mp3s, then Kevin and Bill joined in over the first few movies.  Some of the first ones were redone as three-riffer versions, then Streaming/VOD/DVD options came in, which allowed the ‘whole package’ to be delivered.   While the Audio Commentary tracks are often good, there are some difficulties with keeping the riff track in sync, and periodic adjustments after hearing DisembAudio repeat a line.  After a while you really notice how tightly they riff in sync with the movie.

Anyway, the whole movie is famously “bad”; albeit entertaining.  It looks a bit like a high school stage production, all shot on sound stages with dubious set dressing and rather wooden acting.

Cast and crew roundup:  Famous for Bela Lugosi’s death early in production, several of the actors are from Ed Wood’s regular players, particularly the policemen like Carl Anthony (Patrolman Larry/ Johnny Ride from Sinister Urge) and Duke Moore (Lt. Harper/Sgt. Randy Stone from same). Of them the most famous is probably Tor Johnson, in a truly iconic performance.

Callback: “Time for go to bed!”

Fave riff:  “Doctor Smith’s gayer brother.”

Next week:   Cinematic Titanic covers old ground in “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”!  After that I will try to go back and cover what I should have covered this week—Rifftrax’s first production, “Reefer Madness”!

Note: I will have to look at the release schedule for Rifftrax and post a schedule for upcoming posts.