Plan 10 from Outer Space (1995)

If you’ve never seen Rubin and Ed (1991), stop reading this right now and get yourself a copy. It’s one of my favourite movies from the 90s. Rubin (Crispin Glover in his best ever performance), a whiny-voiced weirdo, and a hapless real estate agent (Howard Hesseman) go on a deranged journey to bury Rubin’s dead, frozen cat. It’s hilarious, ridiculous, and has been a constant inspiration in my own work. The man behind Rubin and Ed is the enigmatic Trent Harris. His filmography is sparse. Outside of Rubin and Ed, he’s best known for The Beaver Trilogy — a film comprised of three separate shorts filmed at different times and featuring Sean Penn. More recently, Harris directed Luna Mesa, an experimental feature which I’m yet to see. A title in his filmography that had intrigued me for some time was Plan 10 from Outer Space. Was this an unofficial sequel to the Ed Wood classic? A parody? What it actually turned out to be was something so utterly far removed than anything my meagre imagination could cook up that it could only be a Trent Harris movie.

 

PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE
USA, 1995, Trent Harris

I’ve spent a good twenty minutes staring at a blank screen and discovering that reviewing a Trent Harris film is incredibly difficult. His films have an indefinable aesthetic. His pace and tone — even down to the way people speak — is bizarre, and probably easily interpreted as plain “bad” by some. And then there’s the actual narrative, which is just as impenetrable and difficult to summarise.

Plan 10 from Outer Space follows Lucinda (Stefene Russell), an innocent and naive young writer living in Salt Lake City. Lucinda is attempting to write a novel about things in her daily life (like her panty-obsessed brother), but is constantly distracted by her bearded oddball neighbour (Curtis James) who likes to dance semi-naked with his curtains open. Lucinda spirals into a Dan Brown-esque mystery when she discovers the Plaque of Kolob, uncovering an alien-themed conspiracy tied directly to the history of Mormons. Yup. Mormons.

I had no idea Plan 10 had anything to do with Mormons, but I should have guessed considering its Utah setting. I know very little about Mormons outside of what South Park has taught me, and I’ve read reviews of Plan 10 claiming Mormon viewers will get a lot more out of it than the average heathen. But luckily, Harris gives us enough backstory to Mormon beliefs to have a grip on the basics. Well, to a certain extent.

There’s a strange sense of timelessness found in the films of Trent Harris. Perhaps timelessness is the wrong word. With its synth-heavy score and fashion choices, it’s clear that Plan 10 sits somewhere between the late 80s and mid 90s. Maybe a more appropriate word is otherworldly. There is an atmosphere running through Plan 10 (and Rubin and Ed) that places it somewhere off the planet. It’s similar to the feeling I get watching certain Bollywood films, Jacques Tati’s Playtime, and the films of Damon Packard. And it’s not just because of the Bee Man.

Its setting helps. The skyline of Salt Lake City never fails to hurt my brain. There’s something deliriously and deliciously alien about a city that seems to grow out of nowhere shrouded in mountains. Even within the city itself, the clash of sparsely placed buildings and the dominating Salt Lake Temple just does not compute in my brain. Salt Lake City is beautiful and nuts, and a character unto itself in Trent Harris’s world.

Matching its insane aesthetic are the performances from the cast. Everyone is somehow simultaneously stilted and shockingly over the top. In any other film, it would be unbearable, but it’s essential for Plan 10 to exist. The late and very great Karen Black ramps up the surreal dial with unabandoned glee, but it’s leading lady Stefene Russell who steals the show with a quietly odd performance.

Everything is brought together with a score by Fred Myrow. Myrow is the composer behind the iconic Phantasm theme. His collaborations with Trent Harris (he also made the music for Rubin and Ed) are very different from his work with Don Coscarelli. The music is Plan 10 is overbearing and obnoxious, yet, like so many of this film’s jarring elements, it works to perfection creating a dreamlike mood that penetrates every scene. R.I.P. Fred Myrow — a true hero of weird movie music.

You might watch Plan 10 and utterly hate it. It could easily be interpreted as total nonsense — a trashy, disjointed mess of a film. But if you can see the mad genius creeping out behind the hairy-chested exhibitionists and bee-hive-faced aliens, you’ll have a joyously good time at the movies.

Availability:

Plan 10 from Outer Space is available on DVD directly from Trent Harris.