Plan 9 Punk Soundtrack

May 13, 2025

On Monday, May 12, we did the first screening of PLAN 9 PUNK, a screening of Ed Wood's masterpiece with the music removed and a DJ playing a new soundtrack featuring Southern California punk & garage rock. Below are links to listen to the songs, and below that are my thoughts on the creation of this weird idea!

As part of my ongoing Atomic Cinema series at Bottlerocket Social Hall here in Pittsburgh, I've done a few events where I've had someone DJ a new soundtrack over an existing movie; first with Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and later with Ishirō Honda's DESTROY ALL MONSTERS.

Both times I had my amazingly talented friend DJ Formosa pick and play the music and she did a spectacular job with an Italo disco vibe for VAMPIRES and Japanese pop, jazz, & weirdness for MONSTERS.

But as a DJ myself I was drawn to the challenge and wanted to try it. Years ago I had local musician Swampwalk create and play a new soundtrack for Ed Wood's PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (which was totally awesome) which meant I already had a version of the film where I'd taken out all of the music. Plus I love this movie!

Unlike the other films we've done at Bottlerocket, PLAN 9 doesn't have a true score; like many low-budget sci-fi films from the 1950s it has a soundtrack that was assembled by music supervisor Gordon Zahler from classical libraries and lots of obscure European compositions. It's stitched together for the least amount of money; in short it's perfect for reappraisal.

In thinking about what kind of music to use, I was struck by how Ed Wood ends the film, with a title card that reads "Filmed in Hollywood, USA." Wood was born in Poughkeepsie NY, but spent almost all of his career in the greater Los Angeles area. His films are suffused with the spirit of the San Fernando Valley and low-rent Hollywood environs, in all of their DIY, "let's put on a show" glory.

And of course that DIY spirit is also present in the garage rock and punk spirit of Los Angeles. Specifically I was thinking of Latino bands like Thee Midniters and their rambunctious "Jump, Jive and Harmonize" or Los Illegals' blistering "El Lay" (the only song not on the streaming services so you'll need to click over to YouTube to hear it).

Digging into this world was so much fun, and more work than I expected! PLAN 9 has long stretches without dialogue, and equally long stretches with tons of dialogue. Some songs like the Dickies' version of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" were a no-brainer, as were the multiple selections from the Weirdos with their classic "We Got the Neutron Bomb." Others were fascinating discoveries for me, like the androgynous, queer proto-electropunk of the band Nervous Gender, who have two songs here. I also discovered The Zeroes, another Latino punk band featuring Robert Lopez, who would go on to become the musician and performance artist El Vez, the Mexican Elvis.

"Tale of My Lost Love" from female teenage band The Female Species becomes a letimotif for Bela Lugosi's character and his love for his dead wife. And my friend Adam Hart (who co-hosted Atomic Cinema's screening of George A Romero's THE CRAZIES and wrote an amazing book about Romero) suggested The Little Girls to me. I hadn't heard of them but their few recorded songs provided a great backdrop for the relationship between the dull airline pilot and his equally dull wife. And circling back to "Filmed in Hollywood, USA," the only possible choice to end on was the Runaway's "Hollywood."

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this soundtrack. And keep your eyes peeled; the dead have a way of coming back to life and maybe this live event will happen again in the future. God help us, in the future.