ABOUT:
Planet of the Vampires (1965): Mario Bava directs this psychedelic space-horror, produced on a shoestring budget. Two spaceships responding to a distress signal crash-land on a dark planet, resulting in the deaths of some of the crew. Disembodied spirits from the planet’s inhabitants reanimate the corpses and use them to hunt down and kill the remaining survivors.
It’s not a complex plot, yet Bava makes it look as if cosmic doom is dripping from the screen. The color palette is pure radioactive Halloween: acid blues, blood reds, gangrene greens — all blasted through so much smoke you wonder if the planet’s main export is dry ice. The costumes are fun. They crew resemble a Eurotrash bondage cult at a blacklight concert.
Audiences in 1965 kind of shrugged when the movie first came out (they were still high on Goldfinger and My Fair Lady), but real film nerds know: Planet of the Vampires practically invented alien possession horror. It’s creative, menacing and there is a lot of gore for its time.
Despite there being no vampires in the movie, this is a gorgeous, moody film with creative sound effects and an eerie, other-worldly atmosphere that makes it worth watching.