Plan 9 from Outer Space
Distributors Corporation of America (DCA) | Release Date: July 22, 1959 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
2
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatJosiah Teal
It is so bad that it’s flawless. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyGlenn Kenny
Shockingly nonlinear, boasting a cast of the once great (Lugosi), the never-even-good (Lyle Talbot, Tor Johnson), and the unbelievably motley (”psychic” Criswell, cinch-waisted Vampira), its 79 minutes are jam-packed with insanity, and those tin plates on strings that Wood tries to pass off as flying saucers are the least of its delights. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
Plan 9 from Outer Space may not be pure bliss to watch, but you certainly can feel the bliss that writer-director Edward D. Wood Jr. must have experienced while making it. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineJordan Cronk
Plan 9 stands as a testament to sincerity run amok, and as a passionate display of artistic limitations, it’s as glorious as it is flabbergasting. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Most of Wood's films have this strangely direct feel to them, but Plan 9 From Outer Space is definitely the tightest synthesis of the man's personal idiosyncrasies and his deep desire to tell a story that everyone would love. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
Wood is notorious for his 1952 transvestite saga Glen or Glenda? (aka I Changed My Sex), but for my money this 1959 effort is twice as strange and appealing in its undisguised incompetence. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard Brody
Wood lacked both the dramatic sense to unfold his speculations in action and the technique (as well as the money) to embody, in any plausible way, his spectacular fancies, but their crude approximations vibrate with his stifled exaltation. Read full review
70
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
Crowned 'The Worst Film Ever Made' at New York's Worst Film Festival in 1980, this deserves its niche in history for featuring the last screen performance of Bela Lugosi, as a ghoul resurrected by space visitors for use against scientists destroying the world with their nuclear tests. Read full review
60
IGNStaff (Not Credited)
Bad acting, awful script, glaring continuuity errors-- it's night! It's day! It's night again!-- nightmarish special effects, and the worst sets you've ever seen. It's a chucklefest all the way through. Read full review
40
BBCNicholas Barber
Don't get me wrong. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a terrible film. A dreadful film. An atrocious film. But it does have some elements that are halfway decent, and it's unlikely that it would have a cult following without them. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesMark Chalon Smith
Sitting through Plan 9 From Outer Space can be torture for film purists, whose cinematic souls well may be soiled by Edward D. Wood Jr.'s banzai extravaganza of bad taste, bad execution and bad results. [24 Sep 1992, p.12]
25
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Taken as a whole, it’s excruciating in ways that few would consider enjoyable. Read full review
20
EmpireKim Newman
Brilliantly terrible or terribly terrible depending on your viewpoint. Read full review
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