Planet Of The Vampires
aka Demon Planet
aka Planet Of Blood
aka Terrore Nello Spazio
(Terror In Space)
(1965) Italian
Hmmm... halfway to 13,000, will I make it before the start of the new year? Even if I don't I'm so damn happy that you all have stopped by my little horror blog I've got to give you all a big cyber hug anyway... thank you all so much - I never dreamed of this kind of reception, especially since I've only been doing this since June so... yay bad movies!
Speaking of bad movies - this could definitely be considered one - taken at face value. Since I was already told it influenced many future science fiction projects, I took extra care and paid closer attention than normal and yes, there were many fine (and some awful) points to this movie that you do recognize happening in future television/movie projects. And I didn't cheat - I saw the movie first, read the wiki after and yes, what I saw is what is pointed out in the wiki description - yay for me! My brain cell does like to fire once in a while. This movie, again distributed by American International like many of Bava's creations, is based on Renato Pestriniero's short story One Night of 21 Hours.
First let me point out - there is not ONE vampire in this movie. No monsters. No aliens. The mighty enemy they face? Themselves. Oh yes my children, we have zombie action here... sort of. Our basic story is two spaceships responding to a signal from an unexplored planet. One crash lands, the other barely lands intact. Our crew are wearing the coolest uniforms I've seen in an old sci fi movie - motorcycle gear (at least it looks it) from head to foot including gloves and boots - black leather with yellow piping. Bitchin'! They also have yellow motorcycle helmets - err I mean space helmets. Best. Costumes. Ever. Being a Bava film we have more than the usual attention paid to detail here - and you definitely get a Star Trek vibe when you watch the crew at their 'helms' pushing buttons, pulling levers, shouting at each other even though they're in a small room.... the only thing they didn't do is the famous 'jump to the left, step to the right' bouncy action you saw in a lot of Star Trek episodes.
The gore in this movie is actually pretty spiffy for a 60's film - and I'm sure was shocking to those that saw it (mostly Spanish and Italian people as it wasn't released in the US despite AI distribution). One scene shows a crewman whose face has been pretty messed up - there's a sizable hole in his head, his ear is mostly ripped off, lots of blood and what looks to be a bone sticking out near his jaw. Now picky little people like me also noticed that the gum they used to attach the 'wounds' (I've made a few myself in my time) was too shiny and showed up in the shot (should have dulled that with makeup) and the blood was a little off but that's me. Other wounds that weren't that bad were burns, other cuts, and one crew member who opened his jacket to reveal that he had no skin on his chest at all (don't know why or how, just go with it).
The influences? Well, the story is the members of the crashed ship died, as well as several of the members of the other ship - they buried them covered in plastic in soft dirt (On a rock planet?) with a metal plate over the top and some strange metal piece 'marking' the grave. Not a hard grave to get yourself out of. The captain called all these (who were not true zombies, they were being 'controlled' by the unseen aliens who apparently lived 'on a different plane' than they did) returning crewmen the 'living dead'. Now Romero's groundbreaking film didn't come out until 1968, so this was not copying other ideas... same with the other things that were familiar in this movie.
For instance they find an alien ship that had also crashed on the planet (you probably have the right film in mind already) and sure enough inside they find all the crew dead - humanoid shaped but about three times the size of human beings and their skulls were a little different. Got the movie yet? I did, and wiki gives the nod that yes, there is a lot of influence in this movie seen in Ridley Scott's Alien. The wish for the alien life that is dying out on their planet to use the human bodies to 'transport' them out of there, the aliens 'entering' the dead's bodies to control them, their wish to find a planet with lots and lots of little critters to control... there are several other types of movies that come to mind but Alien (and they say Prometheus but I haven't seen that one yet) seem to be the main ones.
A couple of giggles - the main ship's captain's name is Mark Markary (pfffft...) and about 1:13 into the movie he and his female assistant are skulking around the ship as the living dead are trying to get a device off their ship to fly to another planet they sneak up on a door (they were all the 'whoosh' kind, just like on Star Trek but with windows) you can plainly see someone off camera getting too close to the two actors, his shadow appears behind them, then after a second or two quickly jumps back. Funny.
Does this film have a good ending? Did Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (which there are some elements of in this film - for example they overcome some of the crew as they sleep)? Nope. Three live to power the ship up and lift off (and I swear this ship was starting up under water - you see air bubbles shoot out underneath the thing and slide up the side of the ship), the captain, his female assistant and a red shirt - uh I mean Wes, a technician.
Hmmm... halfway to 13,000, will I make it before the start of the new year? Even if I don't I'm so damn happy that you all have stopped by my little horror blog I've got to give you all a big cyber hug anyway... thank you all so much - I never dreamed of this kind of reception, especially since I've only been doing this since June so... yay bad movies!
Speaking of bad movies - this could definitely be considered one - taken at face value. Since I was already told it influenced many future science fiction projects, I took extra care and paid closer attention than normal and yes, there were many fine (and some awful) points to this movie that you do recognize happening in future television/movie projects. And I didn't cheat - I saw the movie first, read the wiki after and yes, what I saw is what is pointed out in the wiki description - yay for me! My brain cell does like to fire once in a while. This movie, again distributed by American International like many of Bava's creations, is based on Renato Pestriniero's short story One Night of 21 Hours.
First let me point out - there is not ONE vampire in this movie. No monsters. No aliens. The mighty enemy they face? Themselves. Oh yes my children, we have zombie action here... sort of. Our basic story is two spaceships responding to a signal from an unexplored planet. One crash lands, the other barely lands intact. Our crew are wearing the coolest uniforms I've seen in an old sci fi movie - motorcycle gear (at least it looks it) from head to foot including gloves and boots - black leather with yellow piping. Bitchin'! They also have yellow motorcycle helmets - err I mean space helmets. Best. Costumes. Ever. Being a Bava film we have more than the usual attention paid to detail here - and you definitely get a Star Trek vibe when you watch the crew at their 'helms' pushing buttons, pulling levers, shouting at each other even though they're in a small room.... the only thing they didn't do is the famous 'jump to the left, step to the right' bouncy action you saw in a lot of Star Trek episodes.
The gore in this movie is actually pretty spiffy for a 60's film - and I'm sure was shocking to those that saw it (mostly Spanish and Italian people as it wasn't released in the US despite AI distribution). One scene shows a crewman whose face has been pretty messed up - there's a sizable hole in his head, his ear is mostly ripped off, lots of blood and what looks to be a bone sticking out near his jaw. Now picky little people like me also noticed that the gum they used to attach the 'wounds' (I've made a few myself in my time) was too shiny and showed up in the shot (should have dulled that with makeup) and the blood was a little off but that's me. Other wounds that weren't that bad were burns, other cuts, and one crew member who opened his jacket to reveal that he had no skin on his chest at all (don't know why or how, just go with it).
This movie is also progressive when it comes to the women - they are equals to the men and serve many purposes on the ship - they even get involved in the fights. In fact, one gets punched full on in the face by one of the male undead. When are you going to see something like that? Of course she got right back up which isn't going to happen but still...
Now the planet is mostly rocks (Star Trek'y type of terrain) but is also very colorful, and the problem of making it seem like a large planet instead of a small set is covered over by dense fog and mist - a cheap but effective way of making a kind of illusion of size. Bava despaired at having such a low budget and had to resort to 'camera' tricks to make his planet work - mainly by using mirrors to duplicate things and make them look larger, a lot of miniature work and, of course, the fog. He also had to work with an international cast - meaning that the actors were from different countries and most didn't speak English. I wondered as I watched the movie why some of the actors/actresses mouths matched the dialogue and some didn't. Some were Spanish, Portuguese and Italian - that must have made it difficult to keep a fluid movie dialogue going but Bava did very well for what he had to work with.
The influences? Well, the story is the members of the crashed ship died, as well as several of the members of the other ship - they buried them covered in plastic in soft dirt (On a rock planet?) with a metal plate over the top and some strange metal piece 'marking' the grave. Not a hard grave to get yourself out of. The captain called all these (who were not true zombies, they were being 'controlled' by the unseen aliens who apparently lived 'on a different plane' than they did) returning crewmen the 'living dead'. Now Romero's groundbreaking film didn't come out until 1968, so this was not copying other ideas... same with the other things that were familiar in this movie. 
For instance they find an alien ship that had also crashed on the planet (you probably have the right film in mind already) and sure enough inside they find all the crew dead - humanoid shaped but about three times the size of human beings and their skulls were a little different. Got the movie yet? I did, and wiki gives the nod that yes, there is a lot of influence in this movie seen in Ridley Scott's Alien. The wish for the alien life that is dying out on their planet to use the human bodies to 'transport' them out of there, the aliens 'entering' the dead's bodies to control them, their wish to find a planet with lots and lots of little critters to control... there are several other types of movies that come to mind but Alien (and they say Prometheus but I haven't seen that one yet) seem to be the main ones.
A couple of giggles - the main ship's captain's name is Mark Markary (pfffft...) and about 1:13 into the movie he and his female assistant are skulking around the ship as the living dead are trying to get a device off their ship to fly to another planet they sneak up on a door (they were all the 'whoosh' kind, just like on Star Trek but with windows) you can plainly see someone off camera getting too close to the two actors, his shadow appears behind them, then after a second or two quickly jumps back. Funny.
Does this film have a good ending? Did Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (which there are some elements of in this film - for example they overcome some of the crew as they sleep)? Nope. Three live to power the ship up and lift off (and I swear this ship was starting up under water - you see air bubbles shoot out underneath the thing and slide up the side of the ship), the captain, his female assistant and a red shirt - uh I mean Wes, a technician. 
Soon the captain and assistant reveal that despite still being alive they have been 'taken over' and ask Wes to join them. He refuses, electrocuting himself to death by sabotaging the ship so they can't get far. They have to land fast and choose the first planet close enough - a marble looking planet of blue with 'primitive societies' still living in buildings of stone and steel (What the hell were the spaceships made of anyway - plastic?). That's right - the first loser planet getting to fall under alien control will be the third planet from Sol - Earth.
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| Pffft, just they wait until the gorefest REALLY starts... |
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