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Review by E.C.McMullen Jr. |
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PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES- 1965USA Release: Oct. 27, 1965 Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica, Italian International Film, American International Pictures (AIP) Ratings: USA: N/A |
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Onboard the spaceship Argos, a crew approach a planet. They are responding to an alien signal that they can't interpret. The planet is covered in fog and mist. "Meteors" whisk by the spaceship, making "whisking" noises as they do.
"Good thing we have our Meteor Rejector!" says one of the crew in pointed, on-the-nose dialogue, which we'll hear repeated endlessly throughout the movie.
"Glad we have our Meteor Rejector!"
"We'd never make it without our Meteor Rejector!"
"Has anybody seen our Meteor Rejector?"
"What will we do without our Meteor Rejector?"
And so on.
They are in contact with their sister ship on this mission, the Galliott. The Captain of the mission is on that ship, but on the Argos, everyone defers to, and takes orders from, Argos Captain Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan: EARTHQUAKE, THE 'HUMAN' FACTOR).
The Galliott is 3 PARSECS AWAY, but the ships keep in touch with Radio Transmissions!
Mark's son, Toby (Alberto Cevenini: THOR AND THE AMAZON WOMEN, DEATH ON THE FOURPOSTER, HERCULES THE INVINCIBLE, JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, NIGHT OF VIOLENCE) is on the Galliott and its his first mission. Over the audio video transmission, there is something the cheery kid wants to say to his Pop, when the communication is suddenly disrupted and everyone is overwhelmed by 25 times the amount of gravity they have on the ship.
It's only through the stoic, superhuman really, actions of Mark that everyone survives the landing. Because as soon as they touch ground they're immediately at each other's throats, trying to kill one another, and its only through the unaffected Mark, that they are forced - with a hard punch to the face for the guys or a real good shaking for the gals - to come to their senses.
So far the only weird thing to them, is their communication giving out, the bizarre gravity shift, and their instant unexplained rage at each other.
Everything else is a given.
Now for the crew.
Captain Mark Markary is the Captain and his chief pilot appears to be,
Sanya (Norma Bengall: ABRIGO NUCLEAR).
Mark Markary's Engineer
is Wess Wescant (Ángel Aranda: THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES, JAVIER Y LOS INVASORES DEL ESPACIO, A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE, SATAN'S BLOOD).
Science officer, Dr. Karan (Fernando Villena: DAY OF FEAR, IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN, THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, THE DRACULA SAGA, DEVIL'S POSSESSED, PERVERSION, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS).
The rest of the crew of indeterminate purpose includes Carter (Ivan Rassimov: THE WITCH [1966], THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, SACRIFICE!, YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY, A WHITE DRESS FOR MARIALÉ, SPASMO, ENTER THE DEVIL, JUNGLE HOLOCAUST, SHOCK, COVERT ACTION, THE HUMANOID, EATEN ALIVE!, ATLANTIS INTERCEPTORS, BODY COUNT),
Eldon (Mario Morales),
Bert (Franco Andre),
Brad (Stellio Candelli: THE BLACK ARCHER, AGENTE SEGRETO 777 - OPERATION MYSTERY, AL TROPICODEL CANCRO, NUDE FOR SATAN, YETI: GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY, A MAN CALLED RAGE, DEMONS), and the worst crew member to ever have on a voyage,
Tiona (Evi Marandi), who is there to flip out, scream, and lose her mind over everything. The fact that the only other woman, Sanya, is so capable and take charge, further serves to make Tiona so annoying.
The spaceship they all move around in is fantastically huge with an overwhelming amount of wasted space that serves no purpose. Production Designer Giorgio Giovannini (UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE, BLACK SUNDAY, THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS, BATTLE OF THE WORLDS, THE EVIL EYE, BLACK SABBATH, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE TWELVE HANDED MEN OF MARS, WAR OF THE ZOMBIES, THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, MISSION STARDUST, THE NAME OF THE ROSE) basically created the spaceship interior as a massive cathedral made of metal. The main command center alone is large enough to play a game of basketball without hitting the navigation machinery, all of which is against the bulkheads, forcing the crew members to quickly walk from one side, All the Way to the Other, and running if its an emergency.
PLANET OF THE APES VAMPIRES has its fans, of course. I know the defenders of this movie praise its SciFi Pulp ethos.
TRIVIA 1 During World War II, Ib Melchior served in Allied military intelligence as a spy - deep Cloak and Dagger stuff inside the European Theater of Operations (E.T.O.). Ib's job involved being the type of deep cover person who, if he went missing, would never be recognized by the governments he served. He would simply vanish. An unknown soldier never commemorated. The only reason we know these things about Ib at all is because, following WWII, the U.S. Government and the King of Denmark publicly awarded him for his service and with that, the world knew of the crucial role he played. |
The thing is, Mario Bava wasn't going for camp or comedy and he knew the difference, as seen in his later bikini comedies with Vincent Price. Mario was stone serious with this one. The same can be said for lead writer of the English dub of the movie, Ib Melchior (GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN / GIGANTIS THE FIRE MONSTER, THE ANGRY RED PLANET, REPTILICUS, JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET, ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS, THE TIME TRAVELERS, DEATH RACE 2000 / DEATH RACE). His prose wasn't as developed in the 1960s as it was later on in his life, but the man was working to be a serious writer1, having just received critical praise for his dramatic script for ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS (1964).
The problem with Bava's script and Ib's reworking is they wanted to play at sounding scientific without having to know what they were actually talking about.
Yes, I'm talking about the
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
Meteors, by definition, come from space, they don't exist in space. A meteor is the existence of an extra terrestrial object entering the earth's atmosphere in a trajectory that will result in collision. Now whether this collision will make a noticeable impact or whether the collision will be from dust as the object burns up in our atmosphere doesn't change its state. Prior to entering our atmosphere, the object could have been any manner of space debris from asteroid to comet, their fragments, or something else. As long as it wasn't an object that originated from earth.
Want to know more about Space Objet d'Art?
Hell yeah you do!
So go to NASA and check out Asteroids, Comets & Meteors.
Watch the video and get an eyeful! Or just listen to it while you read the rest of this review and get an earful!
More Science at PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES SciMo.
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES: Influence
As Director, Co-Writer, Co-Cinematographer, and Co-Special Effects artist, Mario Bava (A BAY OF BLOOD, LISA AND THE DEVIL) and his team were noncurante about the science in a Science Fiction Movie, but on point about Mario's love of German Expressionist sharp light and shadow, except in bold Technicolor ... er ... Colorscope!
I've got push back from fellow Horror movie enthusiasts on this point over the years. The debate stops the second I take a (properly rendered - no VHS) scene from the movie, plunk it in Adobe Photoshop, and desaturate it.
Mario Bava worked on more movies as a cinematographer than a director, got his start in Gothic Horror, and kept the experiences in his mental toolbox forever.
When actor Barry Sullivan sat in the audio booth, watching the film and dubbing his lines, he claimed that the visual beauty of the movie brought tears to his eyes (Bava shot his movies without an audio track - MOS - and his actors usually spoke in their native tongues).
Beyond that, Mario Bava's spaceship designs were inventive and influential as well. As of 1965, movie spaceships foreign and domestic either looked like Chesley Bonestell's pointy tube rockets or flying saucers. Just as spaceships changed into highly detailed machines after 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, so spaceship designs significantly changed after PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.
Hardcore ALIEN fans may be aware that this movie, in still shots anyway, was a major inspiration to writer Dan O'Bannon (DARK STAR, ALIEN, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, BLEEDERS), and everything from the shape of the Argos to the giant and long dead aliens will look familiar.
The blue fog enshrouded alien spacecraft Argos
of 1965's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES
As beautiful as the visuals are, and Mario Bava was a master when it came to cinematography and visuals, it was the screenplay, based on the short story, One Night Of 21 Hours by Renato Pestriniero, that lets this movie down in every way (seven screenwriters in all including Bava. This brilliant concept never had a chance with all of those cooks!).
The blue fog enshrouded alien spacecraft in 1979's ALIEN
Even for its time American International studios realized they had a potential dud and released this as part of a double-feature. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES was sold as the Value Added feature to the Boris Karloff and Nick Adams movie, DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (based on H.P. Lovecraft's THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE).
1965: A large alien corpse, still at its
controls, inside a haunted house of an ancient alien wreck.
Crew unknowingly bring the infection inside their ship.
The infection mimics the crew members.
Watch for the ripped Open chest scene revealing the alien parasite!
1979: A large alien corpse, still at its
controls, inside a haunted house of an ancient alien wreck.
Crew unknowingly bring the infection inside their ship.
The infection mimics the crew members.
Watch for the ripped Open chest scene revealing the alien parasite!
John Carpenter while we're at it
1982: A large alien corpse, still at its
controls, inside a haunted house of an ancient alien wreck.
Crew unknowingly bring the infection inside their ship station.
The infection mimics the crew members.
Watch for the ripped Open chest scene revealing the alien parasite!
It's too bad. There's a superior movie here if only there was plenty of judicious editing, but at 88 minutes the movie is already skirting the limits of feature film length, and that's taking into account the opening and closing credits run time, which was unusually long for 1965.
Fans of this site may often see me extoll the virtues of a movie's concept over its execution, telling readers that a movie is Ripe for Remake. Well, PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES was and the solid proof of that is writers Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett's creation of ALIEN.
Mario Bava gave it his best, but the story needed a Ridley Scott touch.
Three barely earned Shriek Girls for PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES.
This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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| DRESS NICE | |
| YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY (Sub-Section: ANCIENT EVIL ALIENS) |
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| IT THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE MOVIE REVIEW |
FORBIDDEN PLANET MOVIE REVIEW |
ALIEN MOVIE REVIEW |
For those who scroll,
As mentioned earlier, before PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, movie and TV spaceships were all V2 rockets, saucers, or submarines in space, including the popular FLASH GORDON and BUCK ROGERS matinee serials, to name a few.
Was Mario Bava's 1965 movie design, blending rocket tubes as engines to a saucer/disc, influential on 1966's Star Trek, as well? Ah, that's just nuts I tells ya!
The Argos
Romulan Bird of Prey
Perhaps even the Starship Enterprise?
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