Marking the centenary of writer/director/actor Edward D Wood Jr, CinePunked examine his reputation as the ‘worst filmmaker of all time’ via his iconic sci-fi horror Plan 9 From Outer Space. Will they survive unchanged by the experience?
With Robert JE Simpson and Neil Sedgewick
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SLEEVE NOTES
Edward D Wood Jr has a reputation as being one of the worst filmmakers ever, and his film Plan 9 From Outer Space one of the worst films ever (sorry guys, have you seen The Room?), and so in honour of his centenary on 10 October 2024, we decided to dust off the mics and record our first podcast in nearly two years!
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Things have changed a lot in the last while, and we did attempt to reboot the podcast last year with a recording featuring Neil and myself that we decided wasn’t quite up to scratch. And then life got in the road again. The intention has always been to return, but varying commitments means a change is inevitable. Rachael and Ben’s lives don’t allow for regular contributions to the pod, and while they’re always welcome to jump in, I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot less from them for the next while at least.
We’ve also been involved for the last few years with the Never Seen It Film Club events and podcast run with Accidental Theatre, and while I’ve been doing those, it didn’t entirely feel like I was letting anyone down by not maintaining the main podcast. For that I apologise.
I’d prepared quite a bit of Ed Wood material recently for a BBC Radio Ulster broadcast, and barely scraped the surface, and so the hope was I might be able to scratch the itch a bit more with this episode. It’s fair to say though, that Plan 9 is one of the weakest spots to start exploring Wood’s cinema from – and so we may return to his oeuvre via one of his other pictures in due course.
The conversation does pick up on Wood’s limitations as a director, but also seeks to explain the attraction of the film, and why it has become such an iconic picture, in spite of being, well, not very good.
While Neil and I have met up in person at several points over the last few months, for convenience we opted to record remotely for this episode via Zoom, with editing produced via Reaper.
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The CinePunked Podcast is an Avalard Production.
The CinePunked theme music is ‘Riding the Synth‘ – © 2020, Ben Blademan Simpson. Used with permission.
The episode features clips and a trailer from Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956) directed by Edward D Wood Jr, used under fair use guidelines for the purposes of critical review and analysis.
Episode recorded remotely in Coleraine and Newtownards, Northern Ireland on 22 October 2024.
Engineered and edited by Robert JE Simpson. First published on 3 November 2024.
– Robert
CinePunked 