Plan 9 From Outer Space (DVD 2001)

'Plan 9' has achieved iconic status for its awfulness, and its director lasting fame as the world's worst director. True enough, it's a badly put-together movie, and the person who made it obviously had little or nothing in the way of technical nous or original ideas. However, this is certainly not the worst film ever made, nor was Wood the world's worst director. If you want to see a truly atrocious movie try 'Exorcist II - The Heretic'; what a complete piece of embarassing garbage that is! Or try one of its director John Boorman's other films - 'Zardoz' for instance. Compared with these, and many other works by acknowledged high-profile Hollywood auteurs, Wood's piece is at least fun to watch, thoroughly daft but engaging in its amateurishness. It certainly beats any of the seemingly-endless series of 'Saw' or 'Aliens Vs. predator' movies into a cocked hat for a winter evening's entertainment at home in front of a crackling log fire.

This edition comes with a terrific two-hour documentary about Ed Wood, and the shop price new is about £14 in the UK. This means that, pound for pound, this film is worth twice as much than almost any film considered important from the last forty years of cinema. So how bad a movie is that? I bought my copy for a few pounds so that, after we had watched Tim Burton's film about Ed Wood Jr., my partner could see the thing itself and appreciate the context of the biopic. It was a good investment because you can watch (firstly) 'Plan 9', (secondly) the documentary and (thirdly) 'Plan 9' with 'saucer-vision' switched on, so that at certain points a saucer appears and directs you to the appropriate point of the documentary, returning you to the main film after the segment ends. A couple of quid bought me a lot of fun!