Plan 9 from the Planet Kleenex

I'm currently laid up with a dreadful cold. I just can't stop sneezing. I spent the night on the sofa with a box of kleenex watching Grizzly the horror movie. At some point I must have dozed, breathing solely through my mouth - not pleasant is it! - and got in bed at 5.15am. I woke to say ta-ra to the Missus, who was standing at a village Christmas fair and have been sneezing and watching films in bed until now. Warm duvets, sci-fi and horror films, a tried and tested cure for the common cold! Oh, and hot tea too.

Grizzly is one of those movies I can watch over and over. There's something relaxing about square-jawed wardens, vast American wilderness and wildlife on the rampage. The Snow Beast is the same. Nothing too taxing and lots of gorgeous unspoiled landscapes. Grizzly actually spawned a toy rubber bear, which we've covered before on MC.

This morning I began a trio of space vamp movies: Queen of Blood, Devil Girl from Mars and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Queen of Blood I hadn't seen before but I've always loved the early Sixties psychedelic poster. I adored the strange title art ( the artist's name escapes me), the sets, the models, the cosmic colours and the music. Really startling. The Martian vampiress plot could have been a bit tenser but overall I enjoyed it, predating as it does Alien and and the very similar Lifeforce by decades. I understand that some imagery was borrowed from earlier films that Roger Corman owned. All in all, a great job by John Saxon (star of the great Black Christmas) et al. Do you like it readers?

Next up, Devil Girl from Mars, with one Gerald Anderson as sound editor! The oldest film of the three - a black and white from the Fifties - and sadly the least enjoyable. I found the pub setting a bit tedious but I did like Nyah the Martian trafficker. The spaceship was a bit clunky but the fireworks and smokey landing could have been from Thunderbirds, still a whole decade away. Is this one you like readers? 

Last but by no means least, Plan 9 from Outer Space by the great Ed Wood. Often branded as the worst film ever made, I'm enjoying it the most of the three and I'm only half way through ( tea break! ). It's a fabulous colourized version.  The plot is the best one - aliens raising the human dead to do their bidding. The cast is amazing: Vampira is hypnotic, Bela Lugosi is basically Dracula cloaking the whole time and Tor Johnson, he's just class - the scene where he rises from the grave is stunning.

Vampira is a fascinating actress, who previously hosted a horror show - she was the first such host - and was mates with Jimmy Dean no less. An American - Finn, her Finnish heritage famously questioned, the character Vampira is genius, what with the black garb and the claw hand walk, very much in the vein of Morticia but one that holds her own. Half of the movie to go. Are you a Plan 9'er?

One observation: the chrome airliners at the start of Queen of Blood and Plan 9 look to be the same!