Daniel M. Kimmel has made us think about film as the veteran critic who wrote the Hugo finalist Jar Jar Binks Must Die... and other observations about science fiction movies. He's made us laugh as the author of Shh! It's a Secret: a novel about aliens, Hollywood, and the Bartender's Guide, Time on My Hands: My Misadventures in Time Travel, and Father of the Bride of Frankenstein. Now, for the first time anywhere, in the guise of his pompous alter ego Dr. Brentwood Masterling, M.F.A., D.V.M., Ph. D., he gets to do both.
Can Your Heart Stand the Shocking Facts? is indeed a "deep dive" into the world of director Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s Golden Turkey Award winner for Worst Film, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In it, Dr. Masterling provides an annotated complete transcript of the movie, along with an essay about Wood, and several questions for further discussion. Herein you'll learn how star Bela Lugosi cleverly died before the film was even made, and how Plan 1 had been to bring a gift basket to Earth. Is any of it true? As the Amazing Criswell asks in the film's stirring climax, "Can you prove that it didn't happen?"
