Planet Of The Vampires

Come On Alien

Planet Of The Vampires
aka Terrore nello spazio
Directed by Mario Bava
Italy 1965
Radiance Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Spoilers if you’ve never seen it, I guess.

I’ve got a fair few Blu Rays put out by a relatively new UK company called Radiance over the last year (or two now, at time of writing)... I’ve just not got around to watching any yet. But what better way to start than to revisit an old favourite with their new (again, at time of writing) Blu Ray special edition of the great Mario Bava’s Terrore nello spazio (aka Planet Of The Vampires). Especially with a director like Bava... he does such an amazing job with the colours in his movies that a Blu Ray upgrade of pretty much everything he directed (maybe barring the second Dr. Goldfoot movie) is a no brainer.

Planet Of The Vampires plays out with the relatively small crew (about ten people) of a starship headed up by Barry Sullivan as Capt. Mark Markary and Norma Bengell as Sanya. They, along with the crew of a sister starship in the same area of the galaxy, are investigating a mysterious signal put out from another planet. When the two ships get within range of the planet, they go out of control and crash, or in the case of Sullivan’s ship, land. Then, immediately upon everyone regaining consciousness, half of them are trying to kill each other, until, temporarily knocked unconscious and waking up as themselves again. It’s a case of trying to rescue the crew of the other ship (all dead but, not to remain that way) and, later, to recover the ‘asteroid deflector’ stolen from their ship, so they can escape the clutches of the planet and its invisible inhabitants... who can take over the dead and, sometimes alive, bodies of their colleagues.

Now, I remember when I first watched this and didn’t now much about it (other than it was by Bava and also the first film his son, future director Lamberto Bava, was helping out on, behind the camera). Watching the crew following a signal down to the planet and then, in one case, finding the almost fossilised skeleton of a giant alien creature in an alien ship. Hmm... ring any bells? I mean, Ridley Scott has denied that he saw this movie before he directed Alien but, yeah... really? There’s even a scene where some of the controls of the alien ship are activated by musical notes from a big tuning fork. Um... if you’re going to deny Alien had any legacy from Planet Of The Vampires (especially when special effects guru Carlo Rambaldi worked on both films) then maybe don’t compound the felony by bringing in the idea of a spaceship controlled by musical notes when you do a prequel to Alien decades later. But enough of all that. 

Actually, this film is immensely entertaining and Bava’s reputation for using glass paintings and bits of scenery reflected in mirrors to create the illusion of massive sets really pays off. And, of course, since it’s Bava, it’s a wonderful, psychedelic delirium of a planet, lit in greens, reds and purples all pitched against each other. The film looks wonderful... right down to the quasi SS uniforms the cast are wearing (which were deliberately copied for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom just recently, reviewed here). 

Also, everything feels a little bit like a classic episode of Star Trek (which debuted the same year as this... I wonder if those long funnel like shapes on the starship were copied for the Enterprise or if it was the other way around) and, perhaps even more, like the great science fiction movie Forbidden Planet. A further nod to that great film would be Gino Marinuzzi Jr’s amazing electronic score for this one, which does indeed sound a little like the ‘electronic tonalities’ produced by husband and wife team Bebe and Louis Barron, who built special circuits for Forbidden Planet, making it the first electronic movie score. I can’t help but think that Marinuzzi Jr was asked to provide something reminiscent of that one. 

And there’s even a wonderful twist ending to the movie... not the reveal about two of the three survivors actually being controlled by the invisible bad guys all along but... well, spoiler warning... the fact that the original heroes you were watching were never from Earth to begin with. Indeed, the so called ‘vampires’ of the title are set to conquer the Earth next. 

The new Radiance edition has a few interesting extras on it... which I haven’t had time to watch yet (will I ever... I hope so) and a nice accompanying 80+ page booklet on this original slipcase edition. Also, as you would expect from a half decent transfer of a Mario Bava film... it looks spectacular. Certainly the best I’ve ever seen it looking. So, yeah, if you count yourself as a fan or admirer of the movie (and even if you’re not, you should definitely see something by this director) then the new(ish) Radiance version of Planet Of The Vampires is a not-to-be-missed item for your Blu Ray shelving. A great film given its due.