EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor of the American Cinematheque’s Mario Bava festival, which concludes its run at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood this weekend, we offer this critique of one Bava’s that never was reviewed in Cinefantastique, having been released five years before the magazine began publication.
Rather like HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961), this is a film that separates the average Mario Bava fan from the absolutely fanatical. The production values are cheap, but the true believer can find aesthetic pleasure by observing how the talented Italian cinematographer-director used stylish lighting, forced perspective miniatures, and in-camera effects to create a colorful (if not believable) alien world with next to no resources. Unfortunately, Bava’s best camera tricks are not enough to relieve the tedium of a dull narrative that features little in the way of action or plot development. The film is definitely one of the director’s lesser efforts, relieved mostly by the novelty of re-staging some traditional Gothic horror vignettes in the context of a science-fiction film.
The story follows the adventures of two space ships that are lured to an unexplored – and apparently uninhabited – planet by a mysterious distress signal. Exploring the surface, members of the crew find the skeleton of a dead alien, presumably the source of the signal, but what killed the unknown creature remains a mystery. Various members of the crew are killed by an invisible force, but they come back to life, each body now inhabited by an alien intelligence. Eventually, one of the space ships manages to lift off from the planet. When the last remaining normal crew-member finds out that his comrades are possessed, he sacrifices himself to sabotage the ship. Unable to make the trip back to the home world, the aliens must choose another planet to relocate…
Perhaps the biggest problem with PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is that it includes not one but two space ships. The film does not clearly distinguish between the two vehicles, so it is often hard to tell where the characters are and why they need to travel back and forth between the ships, which they do quite often – and at great length. This gives Bava a chance to show off his ability to create an alien landscape on the cheap, but it soon grows unnecessarily tedious, and little happens to enliven the narrative, which plods on like the astronauts, never working up much momentum. It all builds to a routine “surprise” ending that might be worth a chuckle but hardly zings the audience.
There are a few good moments. The discovery of the dead alien is a clear precursor to a similar scene in ALIEN (1979), and it works almost as well, conveying not only the uncanny but also a moving sense of sadness as we realize that this grandiose, obviously intelligent creature met is end on a strange world far from home. The resurrection of the dead crewmen, who have been buried on the planet’s surface, is wonderfully done, the familiar horror imagery revitalized by the science-fiction setting (including grave markers that look like some mad sculptor’s bizarre idea of modern art).
By far the best sequence is a traditional scare scene, in which a female crew member is left alone to finish up some paperwork after the body of a dead crew man has been examined. It is blatantly obvious to every member of the audience that the body has to come back to life, and Bava milks it for every second it’s worth, the camera following the lone woman as she goes about her business, walking back and forth, every shadow, corner, and pillar a potential hiding place for the walking corpse to make its expected entrance. The scene stands out like a small gem in an otherwise rusty ring setting.
Along with the inspired moments, Bava is not above pulling old tricks off the rack. He not only reuses the rotted skeletal chest from BLACK SUNDAY; he uses it in the exact same way: to suddenly reveal that an apparently normal character is actually the walking dead. (In this case it makes even less sense, since the character has not been dead long enough for putrefaction to set in.)
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is historically important for providing much of the inspiration for ALIEN, and the novelty of seeing old-fashioned horror imagery in outer space deserves some commendation. But in the end, these highlights are like the alleged canals of Mars: interesting imagery that lends the illusion of vitality to a dried up, dead planet.
PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (a.k.a. Terrore Nello Spazio[“Terror from Space”], 1965). Directed by Mario Bava. Written by Mario Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Roman, Rafael J. Salvia; inspired by the story “One Night of 21 Hours.” English dialogue by Ib Melchior and Louis M. Heyward. Cast: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda, Evi Marandi, Stelio Candelli, Franco Andrei, Fernando Villena, Mario Morales, Ivan Rassimov.