Sunday, November 7, 2010

"Plan 9" vs "Meet the Feebles" - What's the Worst Movie Ever?

For the longest time I was absolutely convinced that Meet the Feebles (1990) was the worst movie ever. I mean, people have walked out of festival screenings saying "That's it I officially hate Lord of the Rings (2002)."  Why? Because Peter Jackson helmed both films. And no one wants to believe that there could possibly be a link between this one awful movie, and his great epic Trilogy. But that was before I saw Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958) by the "legendary" Edward D. Wood.  And by "legendary," I mean to say he's often considered to be the worst screenwriter and director of all time.

In Feebles, a motley crew of puppets is putting together the pilot for their own variety hour televised special. For your pleasure - or disgust - I have compiled a brief description of some of the key characters. I'm not giving all the names because, quite frankly, they are not necessary to illustrate my point:
  • Bletch, a walrus producer who's cheating on his wife Heidi the Hippo with a siamese cat (not a pretty thought). He also happens to be in the drug trade.
  • Heidi, a hippo singer - and leading lady - who is gaining weight rapidly as a compulsive over eater. Her food addiction is triggered by stress and an oncoming nervous breakdown.
  • A rat who happens to be an all-around jerk and a coke dealer.
  • A frog who performs a knife throwing act, and is also a Vietnam vet, and a coke junkie.
  • An oversexed rabbit who has caught a venereal disease known only as "The Big One."
  • An elephant that doubles as a deadbeat daddy. The mother of his child is a chicken. The phrase you here him say most throughout the movie is "I keep telling you, he's not mine!"
  • A siamese cat who is more or less a burlesque dancer and sleeping with Bletch the Walrus.
Do you see where I'm getting at? I don't think there really is a plot to this movie. There might be a small one, I'm not quite sure where it is. It's like trying to find Waldo (Wally to my readers in the U.K). Pause at the right time of the DVD and "Oh! There he is! In the far left, near the bottom corner! See him?"







However, Plan 9 is pretty bad too, but for completely different reasons. All due respect to the great Bela Lugosi and Vampira - they had virtually no lines of dialogue whatsoever - it appeared as though no one could act their way out of a paper bag. Ed Wood, really believed in this movie. He thought it would change his career. But the message I got out of this casts' acting was "I'm desperate for a role and will even take this movie, despite the fact it will kill my career before it even starts! I have no faith in this project whatsoever!"

The direction and production was just as awful. The direction may be Ed Wood's fault, but he was limited to the studio budget and the actor's confidence in him. As far as production goes, this movie was extremely low budget, and obviously so.

  • The actors' abilities screamed "I am underpaid."
  • You can clearly see the strings holding the spaceship up.
  • You can see where the space station was glued together.
  • The houses didn't seem quite right, as if they were just shells in a studio.
  • The interior of the spaceships looked like cardboard. I mean, more than in Star Trek and the classic BBC version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Even the dials looked like rings made of construction paper.

So I'm stuck in a dilemma. Which one is the worst movie ever? You tell me. Drop me a line at bekindplzrewind@gmail.com and let me know. Or if you think a differet movie was worst, let me know as well. I may write about it in the future!

3 comments:

  1. Neither. I love Meet The Feebles and Plan 9 both for very different reasons. Lord of the Rings however is the dullest pile of cr*p ever. I couldn't even sit thru part one and the rest looked just as tedious. My vote for worst film ever made? Either "AVATAR" or the insulting American version of "Godzilla", which ironically doesn't even have Godzilla in it! Both Hollywood turds!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I personally didn't mind AVATAR, but let's face it, It was an almost line for line rip-off of "Pocahontas."

    ReplyDelete
  3. And don't get me wrong, I thoroughly loved both Plan 9 and Meet the Feebles, I just think they were horribly thought out and put together. For me, that's part of the charm.

    ReplyDelete