Plan 9 from Outer Statement of Intent

"And remember my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future..."

I fucking hate writing statements of intent. They sound so ooty-footy. "Hey, like, I'm gonna do this thing, and here's why. So, like, pay attention and stuff, cause it's important. Also, this is not a pipe."

So this is not a statement of intent. This just is

Badfilm is a term stolen from the Subgenii. It's either in the first book or the second that they go on about the glories of Badfilm. Badfilm is the state of being in which a movie is so horribly, terribly awful that it somehow becomes a work of art because it's just so horribly, terribly awful.

Kind of like a snake eating itself becomes an Ouroboros, even if it was just damn hungry and out of mice.

The chief rule of Badfilm is that you cannot set out to make Badfilm. You have to make a film and just have it be Badfilm. If you try and make a Badfilm it comes across as twee comedy or satire.

You want an example of prime, grade A Badfilm, we have to talk about Plan 9 from Outer Space. And there's a lot of be said about that film - so much so that Everyone's talked about it, by now. Who knew it would be so popular for being so bad?

The first time I saw Plan 9 from Outer Space I was drunk.

I was at a "friend's" house. I use the term loosely. These two friends were younger stoners I hung out with in high school because I thought they could get me women and beer. They let me hang out with them because I had a car.

In stonermath, "Nerd < vehicle to get cigarettes, beer, and girls."

I got beer, alright, but all the beer got me was drunk on a friday night with some people I either didn't know or wasn't really friends with. It was a "sleepover" so far as my mom knew. I lied about what was going on, just as I lied about going to work the next day.

Karma was a bitch that night. My attempt to be cool while drunk failed. My attempt to get smooth with the few unspoken for ladies there was equally unsuccessful.

Nerd Party tip 1: Never let a stoner girl pour beer on your head. It will not get you laid.

Friend A got drunk, put me in a headlock, then got even more drunk. The beer baptism may have occurred pre or post headlock. The next thing I know Friend A is passed out and lying in a pool of his own barf, and Friend B is freaking out because it's his mom's place.

I tried to help, perhaps to impress the girl who'd poured beer on my head. She'd struck me as alpha girl and I'm a sucker for women in charge. My attempts to help were rudely rebuffed. I stood around and felt stupid, drunk, and no longer horny.

So it's fuck-all in the AM, the party is over. Friend A is asleep somewhere. Friend B is downstairs with girlfriend. Just me and a buzz that's slowly turning into a hangover. Me and a cruddy comfy chair and no blanket and no babe and my first experience with that weird, grey headache that manifests itself between my eyeballs, nose, and throat.

Nerd Party tip 2: drink a lot of water after you stop drinking alcohol. Really.

There's a television. I turn it on.

Black and white film. Crappy ominous music. Zombies. Bad acting.

"Flying saucers over Hollywood."

I'm hung over. Headachy and feeling like shit. Realizing that the actions of my past few months have gotten me nothing but humiliated and feeling guilty. It's not worth crying over but it is a pisser.

Nerd Party tip 3: Aspirin is your new friend.

Movie's over. I stay up, unable to sleep. Come 5:30 I call into McDonalds to say I was sick and couldn't come in. I can't remember that manager's name I do remember him being upset.

Headachy and guilty, I watch as friend A stumbles awake and isn't aware of what he tried to do to my neck last night. Fuck him. Friend B gets up and cleans his carpet. We laugh a little. I don't remember driving people home but I know it happened. I do remember wandering about that day like a ghost, on a day as grey and overcast as my brain felt, until such time as I could go home in uniform and pretend to have worked.

"Flying saucers over Dublin, Ohio."

Thought it all out, me. If you don't look parents in the eye but don't look too far away when you lie to them, they never know unless your voice changes its modulation from fear or guilt.

The trick is to lie to yourself, first.

Friends A and B floated around my orbit for some time thereafter, but never as close. Friend B's girlfriend knew no one who would fuck me. Friend A stole my copy of Appetite for Destruction. Next and last time I saw both of them was when I came across a scene of carnage at the gas station I'd ride to for a daily 2-liter of coke classic. Skidmarks and a smashed car. Inside was friend A with gashed forehead, lying on a stretcher, and friend B watching over him as they prepared to get him out.

Appetite for Destruction? See previous comments about lady Karma and her turnabout policy. I said nothing to them, nor they to me.

"Flying saucers over my suburban sprawl of a teenage life."

The next time Plan 9 from Outer Space came into my life was years later, at college. Junior year, and I'm still a nerd -- but a nerd with a posse. Friendly Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students, boyyyyy. Respect the FACTS or we'll fuck your shit up in our next newsletter.

A highly ebullient friend who'd joined the group helped me celebrate my birthday at his room. We had beer, birthday cake courtesy of my dad (by way of OU's cafeteria service), and a movie I HAD to watch.

Plan 9 from Outer Space.

This time drunk, but happy drunk, the movie opened itself up to me in all its goofy, earnest, and terribly bad glory. We laughed at the bad lines. Rewound key bad scenes. Chuckled at the goofy effects. Watched the ending of whatever Chow Yun Fat movie has everyone dead or blind at the end.

Next year my friend was gone - vanished into the ether of school transfers for whatever reason. I wonder what happened to him -- hopefully something good in return for putting the love of badfilm into me.

I become a junkie for terrible movies -- watching them not just for Tits, Ass, and Decapitations, but for the sheer joy of watching some really funny stuff. There was a lonely and lumpen poetry to these works, with chance snippets of wisdom and wonder. That and some shit that had to be seen to be believed.

"Flying saucers over the neighborhood video store."

Skip ahead years later. I'm back at OU, and the nerd has two posses: FACTS and Campus Crusade for Cthulhu. We open the doors to the game room so the rest of the wargamers can hear us yell "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" when the real horrorshow of the week comes shambling towards the investigators.

On a good week I scare the players. Respect, boyyyyyyyy.

Once I have a place of my own I start having something I've always wanted: bad movie night for CCC, so these glorious things can be shared. Repo Man. Glenn or Glenda. Deadalive. Split Second. Meet the Feebles. Zardoz.

And Plan 9 from Outer Space, now something of a constant companion.

Did my wife and I play that at the bad movie night that was secretly our engagement party? Or was it Glen or Glenda? I'm no longer sure, years later, but I do know that I have come through hell of my own making and out the other end, borne on the flaming ship of Ed Wood's magnum opus. No longer a nerd, now a proud geek.

Flying saucers over my life.

So these are my words, come to tell you of bad movies I've seen and enjoyed. No weighty discussion. No symbolic shibboleths or literary leg-lifting. Just me and a blog and some really crappy films.

Enjoy if you will.