Horror Of The Blood Monster — Horror Of The Blood Monster (DVD)
Between the early 1960’s & early1980’s Adamson directed thirty films, making his way through a host of exploitation sub-genres from biker movies, onto straight campy horror, through to sci-fi/ horror blends, onto haphazard action films. Horror Of Blood Monsters was the second film he made in 1970, after the wonderfully titled Hell's Bloody Devils- which was seemingly a neo-fascist biker movie. So like all effective cinematic exploitators Adamson certainly had great eye-catching titles…sadly the films themselves were often less successful.
Horror Of The Blood Monster starts off quite promising, and even a little creepily campy - as we get a series of badly lit attacks on people by various vampires, as an over-the-top male commentator discusses the vampire plague that threatening to overtake earth. Next, we switch to a very cheap looking launch room, and we’re told that a mission is been sent out to find the origin of the vampires, in an attempt to destroy them. Fairly soon we get to see inside the spacecraft, and this is basically all thin sliver painted wood, dutch tape, and rickety doors. Leading up the mission is John Carradine, and as the crew travels through space, we get some amusing banter, un-needed flash-backs, and a few lo-fi effects. When they land on the planet and exit the ship( via a normal ladder)- this is when things start to go seriously awry.
First, we get fairly amusing battles between clearly pet lizard in sets, interaction between the cavemen like natives, and oh the screen keeps turning from red tinted, yellow tinted & blue tinted. Carradine sadly remains on the ship, and we get the selection of bland characters investigating the frankly bland, very earth desert looking planet. From time-to-time we get the appearance of crappy monsters like the lobstermen- but these are only fleeting, and for the most part the film just seems to be made up of lots of badly choreographed fights between badly wigged cavemen & the crew. And really the 85-minute runtime felt double its length.
There are no extras here aside from a selection of trailers, and really I can’t recommend Horror Of The Blood Monster unless you’re an Adamson collector, or mash-up completist- what a pity the films initial promise petered out.