Planet of the Vampires (1965)

Crappy film

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Two spaceships land on a mysterious planet. Which is the bare bones of many a science fiction movie but this one has its felicities. The main one is the fantastic look of the film. The costumes, the make-up, the spaceships, the planet itself. Like 'Forbidden Planet' (1956) every frame is a work of art. This planet has vampires, though not the bloodsucking type, but a parasitical force that possesses bodies. By the end of the film most of the two ship's crews are dead and the film ends on a disquieting note. Before that are many atmospheric scenes; the rising of the dead, the exploration of a previously crashed spaceship; the crossing of the alien landscape etc. Even the mist and fog are creepy and some of the sound effects are positively scary. The great Mario Bava directs with a sure hand and it is easy to see the influence this film has had on other films. The cast is capable led by the American actor Barry Sullivan. There are some beautifully coiffeured women but thankfully there isn't any soppy romance to hold up the plot. The men and women are entirely equal.A fine film and well worth watching.

When I first sat myself down to watch this I really wasn't expecting anything more than just another dusty old sci-fi clunker, but I was soon pleasantly surprised by it, it was very compelling and surprisingly eerie and to me it was a good movie. Not brilliant, it is quite slow and I can see how someone would get bored with it, but for me how it looks and feels made for some great atmospherics and it soon establishes a nice sense of dread. Visually I thought it was gorgeous, the first thing I noticed was the style of it. That alone elevates it above mere B-movie material as far as I'm concerned. The colours and designs of the fog-shrouded alien landscape are surreal and beautiful, and the way the sleek space suits looked and even the far-out techno jargon all had an effect that to me was like a 50's pulp science fiction comic book come to life, that amazingly luminous colour photography was so striking and otherworldly that it makes it feel like you're almost there! It's a visual triumph, that sparse creepiness was positively mesmeric to me, I couldn't take my eyes off it. Some of it even seemed a bit ahead of its time, like in the scene where the alien parasite awakens the corpse which claws its way out of the black body bag. It sure wasn't vampires threatening the people but the title fits very well. Although what it may or may not have influenced will always be more acclaimed, I think this picture still stands on its own merit as a very well presented fun and spooky adventure that's dripping with fear. Bava was a great one for turning a little into a lot and creating atmosphere out of meagre resources and this early gem of his superbly proves that. I'd recommend it to fans of his work that have yet to see it or just plain fans of chilling retro sci-fi cinema.

10.000 years ago or 10.000 years to come , in a far future the two spaceships Argos and Galliot are sent to investigate the rare planet called Aura . As soon as the Galliot lands on the planet her team suddenly go berserk and attack each other . The mysterious happening occurs , but the crew (Angel Aranda , Norma Bengell, Fernando Villena , among others) commanded by Capt. Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan) soon discover the crashed Argos . After landing on a strange planet, the squad of explorers learns that her crew died fighting each other . Investigating further, the astronauts come to realize the existence of a race of bodiless aliens that seek to escape from their dying . The crew begin to turn on each other , swayed by the uncertain influence of the planet and its strange inhabitants . Are they beings of the future or the past , these men who rule the Demon Planet? .Thrilling film based on a story titled "One Night of 21 Hours" by Renato Pestriniero with interesting screenplay by Rafael J Salvia and Antonio Roman , the latter a screen-player and filmmaker who co-directed with Mario Bava a Western titled Ringo of Nebraska . Director Mario Bava used the mirror-based Schufftan Process to combine live action with miniatures and thereby avoiding the costly matte/optical printing techniques . Bava used the mirror-based Schufftan Process to combine live action with miniatures and thereby avoiding the costly matte/optical printing techniques . Cinematographer Antonio Perez Olea along with uncredited cameraman Mario Bava bath the picture an incredible atmosphere is somehow both breathtaking and colorful and its groundbreaking imaginery is hypnotic , being filmed in Colorscope. The ingenious camera works and special effects trickery make up for budgetery insufficiency and the whole movie seems to be a nightmarish precursor to ¨Alien¨, ¨Event Horizon¨or ¨Pandorum¨ , though ¨It , the terror from beyond space¨ that bears remarkable resemblance was previously realized . Being a Spanish/Italian co-production , the film is plenty of Spanish/Italian actors such as Angel Aranda , Fernando Villena , The Brazilian Norma Bengell and Evi Marandi , Massimo Righi , Rick Boyd , Ivan Rassimov , among others . This is a good Sci-Fi that had more than 15 titles before it was decided to be Planet of the Vampires such as ¨Terrore Nello Spazio" , "The Demon Planet" or ¨Terror en Espacio¨. In 1965, American International Pictures distributed this film, dubbed in English and titled "Planet of the Vampires", on a double bill with ¨Die , monster , die.This was the film on which Mario Bava's son, Lamberto Bava, began his career as his father's assistant ; Lamberto would latter become a director himself , winning a successful career . The picture was compellingly directed Mario Bava . Mario was the main creator of Italian ¨Giallo¨ genre , Bava ("Blood and Black Lace", ¨House of exorcism¨ , Black Sabbath¨) along with Riccardo Freda (¨Secret of Dr. Hitchcock¨ , ¨Il Vampiri¨) are the fundamental representatives . In fact , both of whom collaborated deeply among them , as Bava finished two Fedra's films ¨Il Vampiri¨ and ¨Caltiki¨ . These Giallo movies are characterized by overblown use of color in shining red blood , usual zooms and utilization of images-shock ; in ¨Planet of Vampires¨ Bava also uses these elements . Rating : Good , this is one more imaginative Sci-Fi picture in which the camera stalks in sinister style throughout a story with magnificent visual skills , including some creepy scenes are worth the price of admission.

Bava had two talents. He could build in an interesting way, and talent number two, he was a lush painter with a camera. Seldom is this put to powerful cinematic effect. But he really was a magician in that old-timey sense, someone who has a fondness for illusory things.And this is perhaps his most pure, in the sense that you get to see the man perfecting spells in his laboratory, trying out a few new ones. The subject is manufactured vision. Okay, the story of two spaceships landing on a planet to investigate a strange radio signal is memorable but goofy, the acting is awful, the costumes cheesy, the sci-fi concoction harks back to Forbidden Planet and other films. But here's the laboratory.The spaceship is Bava's workspace. The interior is always obviously a Cinecitta soundstage, simply dressed on one side with blinks and machinery - it never convinces that this is what you see from the outside as the ship. No one really puzzled about the science of it, because there isn't any. This is the studio, the constructed space where the story of discovery of something menacing is going to be engineered.Bava was never one to think in terms of fluid composition like Tarkovsky (Solyaris) or Scott (Alien), the camera is unexciting. But there are screens inside the ship, and now and then the actors intently peer through them to the alien environment outside.This is Bava's turf. Here the camera can be static because the landscape is vast, timeless - a painter's vision of landscape. The colors and atmosphere can be gauzy because it's a new world, half-glimpsed for the first time. The story muted because it's all strange, the wandering ethereal, the focus on visual discovery. This new planet is aptly called 'Aura', it's an aural effect he's after.Here is where Bava in his capacity as engineer can try out a few cool experiments.a haunted house movie in space, in the trapdoor scene.the alien skeleton and ship, last remnants of ancient visitors.space zombies rising from tombs (someone at AIP decided these were vampires but that's not said anywhere in the film).the planet is inhabited by unseen - spectral - entities with the power to control gravity and the mind, who 'take over' their human hosts in the vein of the Body Snatchers film.all of this anchored in two spots, the device that makes 'space travel' possible as a binocular thingamajig, a cinematic device for seeing; and the shift to 'auran' consciousness happens during sleep.All this elucidates the way Bava works - story as separate from visual imagination, the latter clean, static, painterly; and the notion that for any of this to work, it has to be a dream that you slip into whose aura overwhelms the conscious mind. This is precisely what Solyaris was all about, the dream in context of memory.The difference is Italian sensibility, the belief that nature should be framed, opera instead of meditation.