From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Planet of Vampires released in 1965.
Starring:
Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Ángel Aranda
Directed by:
Mario Bava
Genre:
Action, Sci-Fi, Horror
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
Not Rated
Budget:
$200,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.3
The Synopsis is:
“After landing on a mysterious planet, a team of astronauts begin to turn on each other, swayed by the uncertain influence of the planet and its strange inhabitants.”(via IMDB)
Story:
The story was based on an Italian-language science fiction short story, "One Night of 21 Hours" by Renato Pestriniero. I couldn’t find much about this short story but it was of a horror science fiction nature.
This movie is the product of a unique period in film history from the early 1950’s to the late 1960’s which gave rise to the low budget science fiction film extravaganza which was often shown as a double feature. One of the leaders of the pack was the motion picture production label American International Pictures (AIP) formed by two former Realart Pictures Inc. employees; their former sales manager James H. Nicholson and former entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff.
They discovered that they could make more money producing their own content instead of paying off the rights to distribute their movies, so they had many in-house writers and many co-producers.
This movie in particular was co-produced by Italy's Fulvio Lucisano for Italian International Film, and Spanish production company Castilla Cooperativa Cinematográfica.
Their in-house writer was Danish-American novelist, short-story writer, film producer, film director, and screenwriter Ib Melchior, famous for writing and directing The Angry Red Planet (1959) which I reviewed on this channel. He’s also responsible for writing the screenplays for The Time Travelers (1964) and the critically acclaimed Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964). He wrote the screenplay for the English-language version of the film, with some assistance from AIP producer Louis M. Heyward under the working title of “Planet of Terror” then the Italians named it Terror in Space” (Terrore nello Spazio) for their audience.
There was additional work on the screenplay, by Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Roman, and Rafael J. Salvia and Italian horror director Mario Bava, .
They wrote a very mysterious sci-fi noir with grand implications of sheer horror.
Pacing:
At an hour and 28 minutes, what can I say, I just love a short and sweet film. However, it was created in the old style of pacing which is more of a slow burn until the climax, but is full of surprises and intrigue that leaves the audience ripe with discussion.
Challenge:
When I first saw this film about 20 years ago there was a bit of confusion as to what the challenge was. To be honest, I really didn’t see the whole movie, I just caught the end on late night TV. But since then, I have watched and enjoyed it several times, which I have to stress is so important to do or you can miss some really important information. I have heard so many people get things a little mixed up, because there is so much detail and tension to this story and a mysterious unfolding of the ultimate plot.
The challenge in the film are incorporeal creatures from a dying planet by a dying sun, called Aura. Because they don’t have actual bodies, they can’t build spaceships to leave the planet so their only option was to get someone to come to the planet and take over their bodies and use their spaceships to leave.
The film doesn’t explain how, but they have been sending out distress calls into outer space hoping that someone would come to investigate. According to the main protagonist, Captain Mark Markary who finds the corpse of giant humanoids, these appear to be the remains of ancient travelers. They too were attracted to the planet from the distress call. It’s uncertain why they died, and the film leaves that to your imagination. Whatever happened, the Aurans failed and the giants managed to save their world.
It seems as if the Aurans can gain temporary control over living creatures if they are asleep or unconscious, but it’s only temporary. If the living creature wants to blend with the Aurans willingly, they can co-exist in their body. How do I know this? At some point in the film the Aurans attempt to steal a device called a meteor rejector so that they can safely travel through space. While captured, one of the Aurans explains this to our main characters.
The final way the Aureans can completely take over the human body, which seems to be the preferred way if it is deceased.
I thought it was interesting because the planet being called Aura refers to the word aura refers to “a quality that surrounds a person, place or thing”. When we do get a glimpse of the Aurans, there are flashing orbs of light energy that barely register in vision.
The reveal of the aurans takes a while to get to the film. I love the ambiguity as to who the enemy is, because it feels like something we can ponder the details on for days. It could be this or that, but either way, there is a challenge that needs to be dealt with.
The title is Planet of Vampires, however, the vampire element is not really present, it’s more like Planet of Zombies or better yet, the Planet of the Body Snatchers. In fact, if you look at the gloomy planet at the very beginning in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978, it looks a lot like Aura. Some theorists have imagined that this movie could be a prequel for that one. It’s a fun theory.
For me, as a vampire lover, I was a little disappointed we didn’t get space vampires! However, I was still rather pleased with this storyline for the challenge.
Their efforts come with a bit of struggle but ultimately they win and this proves how incredibly efficient their plan is. It’s really the venus fly trap ensnarement plan that at the end of the day you can’t help but admire the intelligence it takes to pull this off. With them being desperate to survive makes the challenge understandable and quite impressive.
Empathy:
The Aurans’ distress call attracts two interplanetary spaceships, the Galliott and the Argos, who are on an expedition to investigate it. It’s even more exciting for them because the planet has never been explored by their administration.
Once the ships enter the atmosphere, they become under the influence of the spirits and begin to murder each other.
The story is being told with a focus on the spaceship Argos. Argos has ancient Greek roots. One would be reminded of the ship featured in the ancient Greek story of Jason and the Argonauts. While entering the planet's atmosphere, the crew passed out from 40 G force. This is when the Aurans gain temporary control over the crew and that is all that they need to kill them in order to gain full control of their deceased bodies and complete their plan. It’s a dramatic moment in the film that leaves the viewer in awe and curiosity of what is happening.
Only the captain of the Argos is of such strong will by the name of Captain Mark Markary is able to resist the G force and stays awake during the landing. After noticing that his crew men are trying to kill each other, he is able to snap them out of their murderous trance.
Captain Markary is a middle aged man that displays wisdom, courage and is the archetype of the classic 1950’s 1960’s action movie hero. This is about all of the character development we get for him. Though I did enjoy his monologue in the scene with him recording his captain’s log. He says, “A captain should not be afraid and I confess now, to whoever may hear this, that today, now, I am experiencing fear. I must not let my crew know this. I must keep them busy. I must not let them know that the situation appears more hopeless with each passing day.”
This speaks to the code of the captain to remain stoic for his crew. He’s terrified, but he must never reveal his true emotions to keep up appearances.
Coincidently, close to the end of the film when Mark and his crew member Sanya investigate the giants who landed on the before them. Mark plays what sounds like the last entry of a captain in Mark’s position. I thought that was a very interesting similarity, though it could easily be overlooked. It’s shouting to the audience, don’t you see something familiar here? This happened before.
The Argos crew decide to seek out their sister spaceship, the Galliott. The Galliott is similarly named after a boat. It is the name of a small naval galley boat propelled by sail or oars.
Unfortunately, there was no one like Mark to stay awake during the G force landing and so the Garlliott’s crew killed each other. Eventually, the dead, which included Mark’s brother Toby, are taken over by Aureans and the story becomes a creepy horror event of the dead rising, killing the surviving crew members, and increasing their ranks.
I mentioned Sanya who is not a love interest, thankfully. She’s just a very competent crewmember and one who Mark seems to trust very much. If you see Mark, she is probably somewhere close by.
The next crew member that is probably the next most important is Wes, who is the tech wiz. He fixes the ship and Mark heavily relies on him for his expertise. For the most part, he too has a very shallow character development during the film. However, we learn that he is dedicated to his job and trusts Mark. He is the surprise hero in this film who actually saves his world from invasion by destroying the meteor rejector.
Technical:
Besides the compelling story, the film really delivers when it comes to the technical aspect. The film’s budget was only a bare $200,000. That’s incredible if you think about all of the sets, costumes, and creativity that is featured in the film. For 1965, this was incredible!
I’ve heard many complaints about it, because it was made only 3 years before 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 as if the production was slacking. It wasn’t . Again the budget was only $2000,00 and Odyssey cost 10 million to make. To compare the two to each other in that respect is vastly unfair.
Mario Bava made every decision based on his restricted budget, so all of the visual effects were done "in camera". He used forced perspective with miniatures and mirrors to give the illusion of the set being a sprawling landscape. What a wonderful low budget technique.
This planet looks as if it has many rocks throughout, but in actuality there were only two plastic rocks multiplied in several shots by mirrors and multiple exposures.
What really enhanced the look of this alien planet was the use of colors and fog amidst the set pieces.
I loved the creepy bright greens that felt toxic, the powerful reds that felt volatile and the bright blues that felt cold and unfriendly. This could have ended up looking rather tacky without this simple atmospheric lighting technique, but the tangibility and attention to visual creativity of this world really held the film together.
Another incredible standout in the film were the costumes. Wow! I was in love with them the moment I saw them and without looking at the movie, but just stills of the film, I thought the crew were the vampires. I was wrong, but I still loved the costumes. It took 20 days for costume designer Gabriele Mayer to finish the costumes for the entire cast. They were unique and highly creative. The same look was later used in X-men 2000. I am not sure whether their costumes were inspired by Planet of Vampires, but they look quite similar.
The sounds were exotic, alien and foreboding. At certain points you can hear the atmospheric howling of strange winds. There are also strange high pitched vibrations and wails, all accompanied by eerie silence or orchestral cues. This was all used to create suspense and fear throughout the film brilliantly. Again with that micro budget, they really set the mood fantastically.
Performances:
The performances were pretty good in this even though it's impaired by the obvious dubbing. No matter what project you watch there will be this issue because none of the actual sound performance was filmed. It was the typical process for low budget international films. It was just easier that way because they were often using an international cast that didn’t speak the same language. Some people suspect that everyone is saying their lines in their own language, but I can’t seem to tell. It looks like they are all mouthing their lines in English, except for when the character Kir, who is possessed by an Auran. And you can imagine if you are giving a monologue in a movie that is going to be dubbed anyway, why not say it in your own language. However, according to the crew, they all spoke their own language for their lines. I guess that speaks well of the voice actors matching their mouths.
American actor Barry Sullivan plays Captain Mark Markary and he’s fantastic. He never really became a big name in Hollywood, but he was a credible actor with 190 credits during his long career of 51 years.
To give you an idea of how international the set might have been, the main supporting cast were comprised of Brazilian actress Norma Bengell who played Sanya, Spanish actor Ángel Aranda played Wess Wescant, and Greek actress Evi Marandi played Tiona. The rest of the cast were mainly from Italy.
Enjoyment:
Wow, this movie is something else. If you thought you saw this movie and know what happens in it, watch it again and go over every detail. There is a lot that can easily be missed even after several viewings. You really have to pay close attention to this one.
It starts with the ending. What happened?!
After having the meteor rejector stolen by one of the Aurans who are using the Galliot to escape their planet, Mark gathers his crew to get it back, leaving Wess to finish his work repairing the ship. This is their last chance or they will be stranded on the planet and die.
They also decide to blow up the Galliot to prevent the Aurans from being able to leave the planet. They get the rejector but there is a huge fight before the Galliot explodes. Only Mark and Sanya make it back to the ship and the ship takes off.
Wes, realized that something was wrong and we discover that somewhere along the way, Mark and Sanya were taken over by the Aurans. What? When? This is the part that no one can figure out. It could have been that right after the Auran monologues and tells the humans that they can coexist with them, the choice had been made after realizing they were doomed. It could have happened when the film cuts away from the riveting fight at the Galliot before it blows up. Perhaps they struck a deal knowing they couldn’t get away from the blast if they kept fighting and as we could see there were quite a few Aurans left to fight by the end. So I think they struck a deal about that time, but this is all off camera and never confirmed.
Wess decides the only thing he can do to stop these creatures from invading his world is destroy the meteor rejector. He is successful but he sacrificed his life in the process. The Aurans then reveal that without the meteor rejector, they will never reach the world that belonged to the Argos and the Galliot. So instantly I thought, “Oh great we’re safe. The ship can’t make it to earth.” They say they have to now switch course to a nearby planet and the audience can clearly see that it is Earth.
This pretty much blew my mind because these humans were not from Earth but from a more advanced planet that is almost just like Earth. They are definitely humans because the Aurans refer to them as such and suggest that humans are all over the universe along with other creatures of course. I also thought that it was interesting because they had characters like Mark, Brad, Bert, Toby, Brent and Carter. That would really throw us all off from even dreaming that these characters are not Earthlings. However, the film may be translating names for us or maybe a name like Mark is spelled Mrk or there is something different about the names we don’t know about. This is all fascinating and I could go on and on about the different theories there could be.
It was a wonderful surprise and just an incredible way to leave the audience with so much delicious food for thought. Yum, yum, yum!
AIP released the film as a double feature with Die, Monster, Die! (1965) so it sets the precedence that this is a small production that wasn’t expected to make tons of money. It’s one of those films that didn’t do well at the box office in the US, but it did fairly well in Italy, and extremely well in Spain because the actor Ángel Aranda was a big star there.
This movie pre-dates the original StarTrek TV series that began September 1966. There are definitely many similarities, but that should be expected as the two involve a space crew exploring other worlds.
In the late 1970s Atlas/Seaboard Comics published a comic book entitled Planet of Vampires, which combined Planet of Vampires, Planet of the Apes 1968 and the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson published in 1954. That sounds interesting. I’d love to take a look at that one day.
When looking at this film the bells of recognition start ringing of a very famous movie that bears several visual and story plots with Planet of Vampires. That movie is Alien 1979 and Prometheus 2012. Director Ridley Scott and writer Dan O’Bannon have denied even seeing this film and I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s possible. The movies that they said inspired them was The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) and Dark Star (1974). However after seeing both movies the themes are quite similar and some people have said that it is possible that there are similarities between the two movies because they share the same visual effects artist Carlo Rambaldi. This too is possible as making movies is a collaborative event, but it’s yet to be explained how much he contributed to the actual story.
According to rumors, Planet of Vampires strongly influenced the film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Over the years, this movie has grown into a cult classic, as it should, that has been recognized for being way ahead of its time.
The creativity of all of the grand ideas and daring to make a movie fully set on an alien world is so bold and could have ended in a terrible disaster. This film is the shining example of what can be done with a small budget and crazy heaps of ingenuity. It’s visually stunning and intellectually riveting all set off world. I love this movie and everything it can teach us about filmmaking.
My Rating:
8
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it.
This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
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