I couldn't be more happy to be home. I'm dead, dead tired. These double shifts at the morgue are killing me. But I'm young, strong, and can handle it. That's what I want them to think. After all, my uncle had pulled a lot of strings to get me this mortuary-assistant position. I'm not going to screw it up by ever showing I'm exhausted at work. I'll collapse at home--thank you very much--on my sofa that doubles as a bed for me in the living room. And that's what I'm doing now, sitting on my butt, with a bag of chips in one hand, and a cold soda can at my side. 

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy work, or, rather working. That is, what "working" brings my way: money. How could I ever afford living in such "opulence," without bank? That's a little dry humor of mine. "Opulence"? Ha! This place is a dump! But, it's home, and where I crash.

Still, I have to unwind before sleep. That accounts for my potato-chip snack and soda-drink company. After all, seeing dead bodies at work for hours on end, haunts your head in your down time. Nothing like a little snack and TV watching before bed, to think, while you clear your mind.

Why did I really take this job?  What can it really do for me? How am I even surviving through it?

As my thoughts think up answers, I tap the remote-control button that turns on my TV. I watch intently as the "idiot box" comes to life. 

A first wave of darkness snaps to the screen and I wonder about the movie that soon will appear. A television has always fascinated me. How do those "people" from a far away studio play out roles in a "box" of sorts in your living room? Amazing. It would be even more so if you could climb into the TV, and into the movie, wouldn't it? No doubt that ability will never come to light, though.

Still, they are making great technology strides in the TV space.

The dark screen fades. I hear music play.

I grab a handful of chips, cram them into my mouth, and wash it down with a swig of soda. As I do so, I hear more music. Then, the magnificent Crisswell appears on the TV screen with his chilling prediction.

"'Plan 9 from Outer Space'? Awesome! What a gnarly horror movie, dude! The best of the worst movies ever made!"

I've seen this cult-classic film dozens of times. Each time it's more ridiculously engrossing, entertaining, and horrifically horrible. So much so that I can't help screaming directions at the television for the players to obey--so that they'll stay alive, and I can get more laughs.

But the characters never listen to me. They do as Ed Wood, the director, had told them to do--so that they "will" die. 

Plan 9 from Outer Space. What a goofball 'D-movie' for me to be watching before bed.

Yeah, I know, the phrase is "B-movie." But I'm talking about Plan 9 from Outer Space. The "D" I'm using in place of "B" is for "dead." That is, "a dead-movie," in both directing and acting. I'm lucky if I don't nod off right here. 

How can I, though, when the names introducing the players are rolling? 

Still, it's amazing to me why such legends as Tor Johnson, Vampira, and Bela Lugosi ever took those roles. Then  again, it's even more unbelievable how Ed Wood convinced them to do so for this film. What does "the latter" say about Ed Wood as a horror filmmaker? Perhaps that he was a genius?...

I toss more potato chips into my mouth, take a soda sip, and ready myself to make fun of the film.

Crash! Boom!

The lightning that blasts onto the screen in the introductory credits grabs my full attention. That's odd. It's never pulled my eyes to it before. Yet, its flash and sound here forces me to focus on Ed D. Wood, Jr.'s triple credit of: "Written-Produced-Directed by." Oh, that Ed Wood--king of the quirky-bad horror filmmaking people. What an ego.

Before I can settle back again, though, I feel myself being pulled forward. 

Help, is my first thought. But who's there to help me? And help me from what?

I tug back on my hand with my other. My body falls down, hard, to the couch--crushing the potato-chip bag as my elbow knocks over the soda can.

Damn it!

Still, I sigh in relief. I just saved myself from something that was pulling me forward. 

Before I can think about cleaning up, or, digest what had just happened--without warning, as the movie's music rises again--I'm sucked in one fell swoop into my television set!

Being pulled in beyond the TV's glass is excruciating. I scream. I can feel my body turning and squeezing its way into the tube, yet, everything bodily about me is remaining intact. 

How is this possible? 

Twisting like a corkscrew, my body inches inward--the glass not breaking, the Plan 9 from Outer Space horror movie not interrupted.

Then I drop into the start of the movie. Stunned, yes. In one piece, yes. Confused, yes.

From the ground, I glance up through the untamed grass around me. The place in which I now find myself is cold and eerie. I feel alone. Why not? I'm in the opening cemetery scene of Plan 9 from Outer Space--not far from the mourners at the graveside of the old man's wife!

I must be dreaming.

I jump up and smack the dust and dirt from my body. The sound catches the ears, then the eyes of the mourners in the distance. I look at them; they stare at me and...

"That's him!" shouts the old man. "The killer of my wife!"

Before I know what's happening; before I can turn and run, I find myself, safe, beside the gravediggers. 

I take a quick, frantic look around. I no longer see the mourners, so a grab a shovel from one of the gravediggers.

"Hey, son! What is the big idea?"

"You dodos!" I spit back at the stiff words said to me. "You did hear something. Flying saucers! Look!"

I point to the sky.

"We do not see anything in that dark-night sky. We better get out of here, before light, so that we will 'not see' what you are talking about here."

"Well, you two are as good as dead," I reply, "unless the people inside of those flying machines raise 'you' from the dead."

What's going on here? Why am I talking so specifically at them? It's here when I think about the dialogue from Plan 9 from Outer Space. Now, being in the movie, I must've been cursed with the gift of bad dialogue writing and a stilted way of delivering it. Cool!

"Yikes! Look at that," says one of the gravediggers. 

Oh, no, Vampira!

"Don't worry, you gravediggers. She is the wife of the old man. The dead wife. She rose from the dead, when the flying crafts flew overhead. I will take care of her."

Then I harpoon throw the shovel at the old man's zombie wife. Hitting the dead-walking woman, its spade slices one of her arms off.

"That was a good throw, young man," says one of the gravediggers.

"Yes. A baseball club just may draft you, son. If they ever see you throw," the other one stiffly says.

I grin, then my joy wanes. I just saw the zombie wife pick up her arm, hold it in place--backwards, of course, since we're talking about an Ed Wood movie--and it healed together, incorrectly. Classic Ed Wood...with an idea twist from me, Chris Buono! 

"You guys are dead. I have to save myself. I will see you when the spacecraft visitors raise you from the dead."

No sooner do I say that do I transport, in a haphazard cut, to the house of the old man. So sorrowful, he looks, as I watch him emerge from the house that he had shared with his living-dead wife.

Oh, my, God! I am on a road toward death. Please help me escape this forced-into-a-horror-movie TV hell!

"It's alive," I shout toward the old man, hoping to gain his attention.

"Isn't that a line from Frankenstein, you idiot?"

"Sorry, Mr. Lugosi." 

"I am not talking to you. I am deaf," he yells back at me.

"But you heard what I said. How could you be deaf?"

"I read lips."

"You read lips? None of that was in the original script."

"Hey, young man, stop interrupting. It is your dialogue here, not mine."

I smile broadly. "I guess it is. I am like the reincarnated Ed Wood of dialogue here, huh?"

"Hey, sonny, do not flatter yourself. Eddie had an expert ear. Can you not tell by the words being spoken?"

"Eddie? Is that what you called him?"

 "Can we get on with the movie, please, sonny? This flower scene is my best acting."

"But, she is alive, old man! I wanted to give you that happy news, before you died."

Then it happened. Death for the old man. Just as I had predicted. I'm like a Criswell in the movie now!

I feel another awkward scene cut. And the scene changes. Nothing like being back at a crypt in the cemetery...in time to celebrate the old man's death. What fools the mourners are here, though. Spotting the dim-witted couple emerging from the crypt, I say: 

"You are two not very smart people. There is death all around."

"Why, hello, young man. Are you a mourner like us, or just out for a night stroll?" asks the man.

"A stroll? Are you crazy? How can you not see that living-dead lady in the distance? The old man's wife is a killing zombie! I do not want her to get me! I'm afraid. Help!"

The couple looks to the distance.

"Oh, that is just a scarecrow, son," says the woman, to which the man agrees with a nodding of his head. "It is just protecting the grounds here from the birds."

The Birds? That's Hitchcock!

"Wrong movie, sister. You two are about to find some dead bodies that I do not want to see! You are lucky if the old man's living-dead wife does not kill you two."

"If she does," says the woman, "we would not have far to go, son."

"That is correct. After all, we are, already, in a cemetery," adds the exiting male mourner.

How's my dialogue comparing and mixing with your screen characters, Ed Wood? Cringe-worthy good, no? Better? Worse? The same?...

Another movie cut and I find myself at the scene of the dead. That is, in the cemetery, some time later. The cops are here, maybe they can help me, or, at least, protect me from the horror that I know is heading our way.

"Hey, Inspector Clay!" I run over to him. My...Tor Johnson is even more giant a man in person.  

"Hello, son. You should not be here. This is a cemetery, yes. But it is also a crime scene. A murder--more than one--has been committed."

"I know that, sir. That is what I am here for you to let you know--I mean, for me to let you know. Don't go back there alone. Please." 

"Wait a dosh-gone second, young man," grunts Clay. "Are you telling a police person in charge of all of this investigation, what to do? If that is the case, young man, I will have you arrested for interfering with an in-charge lawman. Take him in, Johnny."

Lieutenant Harper grabs for me. 

"NO!" I shout, then take off running, as fast as I can, into the direction that the Lieutenant had warned the Inspector not to go.

Inspector Clay follows me. I can hear his footsteps pounding into the ground, as he does so. The entire scene then cuts to the one of Jeff and Paula Trent. I'm seeing them from beyond their patio, as they talk about Jeff having seen a flying saucer--as he had been flying a plane--and told to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen, once he was on the ground.

I call out to them, "Shout it to the world, Jeff! Please! I'm in this now with you. I don't want the living-dead old man and his wife to do me in--like the rest in this movie!"

I'm pulled back to the cemetery. I sense myself running. Is it only in my mind? Am I really back here, again, or, had I never left?

"Whoa!" I trip and fall, my ground momentum rolling me to the side of the path I had been traveling. "Damn, the fog!

My heart pounds as I hunker down, spying Inspector Clay's arrival and his drawn gun. I quiver. I'm not a criminal, murderer, or, one to cause trouble.

"Don't shoot!"

And then he does, at the approaching dead-living old man and his zombie-like wife.

"It's no use Clay. You're dead!"

I watch as the old man and lady take him out. I silently cry. It's much more real for me now, being in the film, than only seeing it happen on TV. Perhaps Clay...is really dead?  

Patrolman Larry and Kelton stumble onto the scene with Lieutenant Harper. They have their guns drawn. They'll protect me.

I stick my head up. They don't notice it. I call, "Hey!"

"Stop!" they call out in unison, pointing their guns at me.

"I didn't do it!"

"Shouting that tells us that you did, right boys?" says Lieutenant Harper. "A innocent man does not say that he is innocent. He just 'is' innocent!"

Great dialogue, no, Eddie? 

Regardless of the words, I'm afraid...of what I'm beginning to feel..death on my heels.

"Stay put now. We are going to arrest you," says Patrolman Larry.

I was never so fear-ridden, whenever I had watched this movie on TV. It never seemed so real to me, like now. I'm scared, frightened that I'm going to be arrested, killed, forgotten forever, and all because I had made fun of this movie--on more than one occasion.

Please, I'm sorry. To whoever I have to voice those words, please hear them. Then get me out of here!

I hear Criswells bellowing narration suddenly chime into my movie world: "Little is the man who believes he is something, but nothing is he, who wants to be something else. 'That' is the question; the answer, however, unknown...because, it has not been revealed yet, my friend."

Oh, my, God! He's addressing me as "friend." I've always considered that the subliminal doomsday reference in the film--both for people and the world!

I find myself now on Hollywood Boulevard, then in Washington, D.C. Scared and shaken now, like all the players in this film--those whom I had formerly scoffed at because of their apparent idiocy, and over-acted fear in this scene. 

But the shrieking sound of the invading flyer saucers above us is real! Ear piercing, it's playing on my nerves, unlike it had ever done--while I had watched it on my television set! 

Colonel Edwards had orchestrated the force of the military. Thank God. Stop them, please, Colonel Edwards! Save us. Save me! Tell him, Captain!

"Take it easy, son," instructs the Captain. 

"We are doing all we can, young man," says the Colonel. "But, suppose we are wrong?"

"Wrong?" I ask.

"Isn't that kind of my line, son? After all, I had challenged the Colonel on those outer-space machines, and those inside of them, being friendly or not."

"Oh, forget that talk, boys. Now, step back, young man. The men in uniform are about to serve and protect the nation and the world, and, the missals that we are about to shoot, at those flying saucers in the sky, are very dangerous. You must not stand next to them, son."

He's correct. So, I flee the area and leap into the air--for no other reason than for being happy I will be safe. But, I won't, I know. More death is coming, I know. The dead Lieutenant Clay is rising from the grave. And I just landed beside him.

As he inches out of the ground, I get to my feet. In the distance, I see Paula Trent heading toward me. She's being chased by the living-dead old man. His wife appears from the shrubbery. I grab Paula's hand and pull her forward. Now we're both being chased by death!

Flying saucer are everywhere, all over the nation. It's good that Colonel Edwards is on the case. Leave it to General Roberts to pick the best man for the job. It's not an easy one to protect all the world, by finding out just what these flying saucer people want.

But I know what Space Commander Erros and his female sidekick Tanna want from us: peace...at all costs! 

It frightens me to think that I am in the mix of this all. I am now an all-knowing, omniscient movie god, of sorts. And I don't like the role! It frightens me. It chills me to the core. Plan 9 from Outer Space's mission was to raise the dead, to stop us from interfering with the rays of the sun--something that would enable us to build a super bomb, that could destroy all!

I see the light, Mr. Ed Wood. I believe in your ability to show the world what it needs to be shown. I apologize for laughing at your work. I...

Moments later...

The cushions of my sofa-bed never felt so good. I gaze at my television set. Criswell is speaking as his image fades out: 

"You have seen the sights and heard the sounds of those from beyond this world. Shaken to your core, you must go, go and tell the movie world what you have come to know of the great Ed Wood--that Plan 10 from 'Sources' Revenge, is Ed Wood having you come around to his way of thinking. He is the 'source' of this knowledge. It is his revenge, for you having made fun of his film. Be safe in sleep, my friend."