Something exciting.
This could be big. This could be REALLY big. I have always hated it when classic movies get remade. Only occasionally does this serve a worthwhile purpose, and the remake has to be an absolute classic itself to warrant the process at all. Witness King Kong and Poseidon, both of which came out in the same summer blockbuster season. King Kong was a classic that made sense to remake. After all, the special effects in 1933 were not quite up to the standards they are today, and that really was what the update was all about. The same great story, the same well-drawn characters, the same sense of loss and anguish and pathos at the end. A good director (Peter Jackson), good actors (Naomi Watts especially) and fantastic special effects made that a worthwhile remake.
Poseidon, however, was not a worthwhile remake. The original Poseidon Adventure was a classic. The special effects in that movie were already terrific. The only real difference now is that they would be cheaper, because they could be computer-generated. So apparently, all the producers and director needed to do was to hire good computer guys and then wash their hands of the whole thing. And Poseidon sucked. It abysmally, horribly, staggeringly and spectacularly sucked. The same goes for All The Kings Men, The Truth About Charlie, The Fog, D.O.A., and countless others.
So, as I cross my fingers that there will not be a run of “Casablanca 2008″, or “Citizen Kane in the New Millenium”, there is actually a remake in the works that makes me happy. No, more than that - it makes me ecstatic. THIS is the classic that needs to be redone. Here it is: Plan 9 From Outer Space. THIS is the reason film makers are allowed to redo films. Some just really, really, really, really need it. For those of you unfamiliar with the glorious Plan 9 From Outer Space, here is a brief synopsis of what makes it fantastic:
It is fantastic because it is dreadful. You know that when people call Poison or Air Supply or Insane Clown Posse the worst bands of all time, it isn’t true. There are worse bands out there, playing in someone’s garage, or at the local underage punk club. No one will ever hear those bands, outside their family and neighbours, but they are worse. Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of those garage bands that could be the worst of all time actually making it to international distribution. It is the equivalent of a bunch of no-talent friends with a video camera running around and making their own movie on their recess in Grade Six. The acting is atrocious, the plot makes absolutely no sense, the special effects are stupendously awful, and the dialogue is worse than any you might find in even the most low-budget porn.
It starred Bela Lugosi, who was so addled by drugs at this late time in his life that he showed up in director Ed Wood’s productions simply because he had nothing better to do, and he was too out of it to know any better. Now, Lugosi had died before filming on Plan 9 began, but that didn’t stop Ed Wood. Either as a misguided and crazy tribute to Lugosi, or as a way of getting him into the movie simply because Wood knew that Lugosi’s name was the only way to get the film distributed and to get anyone to see it, Lugosi appears via file footage that Wood had shot some years earlier. And since that footage was merely a series of shots of Lugosi walking out of a forest like a zombie, the plot of the movie had to somehow revolve around that.
And it does. I think. You see aliens are here, and they are returning the dead to life in a plan to take over the world…plan 9, as it were…the rest is sort of a jumble. Even the title of the film is magnificent. Plan Nine From Outer Space makes no sense on it’s own, but what’s even better is that after watching the movie itself, the title makes even LESS sense. Or, at least, seems even more stupid. The movie, it’s stars, and most of all the director, were made famous in the terrific Johnny Depp movie “Ed Wood”, but even for those who have not seen that masterpiece, it’s worth a watch. Movies just don’t get this bad. Ever. (In fact, even worse than Plan 9 might be Wood’s first directorial effort, the wonderfully chaotic and insane Glen or Glenda, about cross dressers and so forth, that features some truly nonsensical file footage discovered somewhere in a pile of used newsreels.)
To remake a movie like this, it can’t help but get better. There is simply nowhere else to go with it. Even a budget of several hundred dollars will ensure a superior product on the screen. But here’s where it gets great - this remake wants to do a real movie! It won’t be an attempt at camp, or an intentionally bad film. A guy named John Johnson (a director whose existence is news to me) is saying he wants to make the movie Ed Wood intended to make - that is, an actually scary, sci-fi horror film. It will, of course, pay homage to the original, but the real attempt here is to make it into a good movie!
This works for so many reasons. First of all, it pays homage to Ed Wood and his moviemaking dream, which was a genuine if misguided attempt to create real cinema. And in some twisted way, it could legitimize Wood as the visionary he always wanted to be. Or, if the new movie follows the story line of the old one closely enough, this could end up being yet another in the so-bad-it’s-great category of films that so many of us love. Either way, this is a project well worth holding our collective breaths for.
The new film is scheduled to be completed to coincide with the release of the 50th anniversary DVD of the original, out later this year. For those of you who have never seen the original, and who won’t be making the effort to find it just to watch something so dreadful, here is a link to youtube, that collects some of the most bonkers and insane moments from that original disastrous masterpiece, Plan Nine From Outer Space.