The Plan 9 remake doesn't actually start shooting until April 2010 — director John Johnson had hoped to finish filming by last March, but he was able to increase the film's budget and film in 35MM instead of 16MM by waiting until next year. But he was still determined to put together this teaser in time for the movie's anniversary, and it includes a loving tribute to Ed and his crew. Do we lose points for admitting that a couple moments in this teaser were actually genuinely scary — particularly the car scene?

Johnson will be having a live chat, answering your Ed Wood-related questions — no cashmere sweater queries, please! — on Sunday at 8 PM, at this site.

[Plan 9]

Bernard Herrmann

Herrmann is one of the most celebrated composers in Hollywood history, having scored classics from Citizen Kane to Psycho to Taxi Driver. He makes our list for his groundbreaking score for 1951's The Day The Earth Stood Still (pictured above), with its prominent use of the theremin. After this movie, use of the eerie, otherworldly, electromagnetic instrument became the signature sound of sci-fi scores.

Louis and Bebe Barron

The Barrons took Herrmann's innovation a quantum leap further with their score for 1956's Forbidden Planet, which featured not a single traditional acoustic instrument. The husband-and-wife team's collection of all-analog burbles and bleeps sounds delightfully retro today, but the movie's all-electronic score was, at the time, controversial. Still, the sounds ideally complemented the tale of an isolated planet beset by an invisible monster.

Jerry Goldsmith

Goldsmith's 1968 score for Planet of the Apes swung the pendulum back toward traditional orchestration for sci-fi movies. Well, sort of; his tense, percussive score (echoing Charlton Heston's attempt to hold onto his sanity) included a Brazilian instrument called a culka that sounds like hooting monkeys. Goldsmith would go on to write many other memorable sci-fi scores, notably, Alien (1979) and the majestic theme for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), which would be reworked for TV as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

John Williams

With the original Star Wars (1977), John Williams became the gold standard of sci-fi composers. His Wagnerian use of leitmotifs created instantly memorable themes for the major characters, and his grand opening fanfare is so thoroughly evocative of the movie that it instantly transports viewers back to the sense of awe and wonder they felt when they first saw that imperial cruiser fill the screen. Williams has scored just about every film Steven Spielberg has made; his five-note theme for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) became a character in itself.

Vangelis

The Greek new age composer is best remembered for his electronic score for Chariots of Fire, but his work on Blade Runner (1982) was similarly stellar, a mix of electronica, noirish brass, and traditional orchestral sounds that matched the movie's polyglot futurism.

James Horner

Yes, now he's known for syrupy goo like Titanic, but he got his start as a scrappy Roger Corman factory worker (Battle Beyond the Stars, 1980). He soon graduated to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), where he expanded on Jerry Goldsmith's score for the first movie to include nautical themes (fit for all those Moby-Dick references in the script). His elegaic music surrounding Spock's death and funeral was an early sign of Horner's ability to create music tearjerking enough to make a Vulcan cry. (Genre fans will also recall Horner's memorable scores for 1983's Krull and Brainstorm.)

Alan Silvestri

Silvestri, who's scored nearly every Robert Zemeckis film, is a disciple of John Williams who has a knack for creating a grandiose sound that makes his patron's movies seem bigger and zippier than they are. Case in point: his first big job, the Back to the Future trilogy (1985/89/90). Heard now, it instantly evokes Marty McFly zipping along on his skateboard, or Doc Brown firing up the time-traveling DeLorean. Silvestri's other genre works include Predator, The Abyss, and both Lara Croft movies.

Danny Elfman

Elfman, whose work is so closely associated with Tim Burton that he seems to be the musical portion of the director's brain, combines a reverence for traditional movie orchestration with an irreverence toward classical melody, bred perhaps of his days as the frontman for Oingo Boingo. The result is a frenetic, jumpy, off-kilter sound that's nonetheless grand and majestic, a sound that makes Elfman's music instantly recognizable, not to mention well-suited to such Burton genre pastiches as Ed Wood (1994) and Mars Attacks (1996).

Basil Poledouris

Poledouris created stately, mournful scores for movies with rugged, damaged heroes (the Conan the Barbarian films) and lent a gravity to Paul Verhoeven's science fiction films (notably, 1987's RoboCop and 1997's Starship Troopers) that helped ground their deadpan satire in real human emotions.

Bear McCreary

The ubiquitous 30-year-old composer (who'll be performing the score from Battlestar Galactica this Saturday at a free concert at Los Angeles' California Plaza, as well as next month at Comic-Con) is the sci-fi scorer of the moment, thanks to his television work on BSG and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. His tension-filled scores, mixing traditional orchestration with less orthodox instruments (accordion, bagpipe, duduk, erhu), is completely integral to his shows; particularly BSG, where his Middle Eastern/metal rearrangement of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" (familar and strange at once) was key to understanding the plot and characters.

The aesthetics of Wood's original flick already inspired Tim Burton to make a demented biopic about the director — a spunky transvestite who took care of the mostly-forgotten Lugosi in his old age — called simply Ed Wood. Both campy and a serious, touching homage to the world Wood created with his movies, the movie earned Martin Landau an Academy Award for his portrayal of Lugosi. Is there really a need for another director to revisit Wood's greatest work "seriously"?

According to the film website:

Simply titled "Plan 9", the remake will be a serious-minded retelling of the original story, paying homage to the spirit of Wood's film without resorting to camp or parody. The film will focus on the horror and science fiction aspects of the original, but will also be largely character-driven. Johnson's goal for "Plan 9" is to make a film that honors not only the original source material, but also Ed Wood's intentions when he made "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Wood's plan was to make a very scary sci-fi/horror film, and Johnson wishes to do exactly that - create a film that Wood would have enjoyed, or perhaps even made himself, if not bound by the technological limitations placed on filmmakers 50 years ago.

Plan 9 From Outer Space [via JoBlo]

Famous names: Bela Lugosi Vampira Edward D. Wood Jr.

Crunchy goodness: 3

Elevator pitch: The Day the Earth Stood Still meets Night of the Living Dead, only not good

Life lesson: Go for broke: there's no percentage in making the second worst movie of all time.

Design breakthrough: Shower curtains really do look like cockpit doors...who knew?

Review Including Screenshots, Audio & Video