Planet Of The Vampires — Planet Of The Vampires( Blu Ray)
From the mid-1960s Planet Of The Vampires is a foreboding, at points decidedly chilling & terror-edged example of the sci-fi horror form. It was the 16th film by highly respected and influential Italian director Mario Bava. Here from Radiance is an extremely well-deserved Blu-Ray reissue of the film- taking in a wonderful clean, crisp, and bold scan. And a good selection of new and archive extras.
Planet Of The Vampires (aka Terrore Nello Spazio, Planet of Blood, Terror in Space, The Planet of the Damned) is from the year 1965. It was filmed between Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome and 007 Studios in Mexico City- and as partly planet-set Sci-fi/ horror, it looks largely good/impressive for its time.
After the spaced bound & brooding soundtracked credits- we drop into the spaceship of Capt. Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan). He and his crew are approaching a planet, which has apparently been sending out a distress call for the last twenty years or so. Also nearby is a second ship, which is going to help with the investigation- but as both ships near the planet the controls become difficult to use- with the captain & crew being pressed down on their control desks.
They somehow manage to land on the fog-hazed, craggy rock terrain, and red, green, and blue light-tinged planet. Just after the landing most of the crew starts attacking/ trying to kill each other. Luckily the capt wasn't affected- so he manages to break each unprovoked fight.
The crew set out to look for the other spacecraft- making their way through the treacherous landscape- they finally get to the ship, and find two seemingly bloody & dead crew mates. They peer in the window of the craft, and seemingly everyone else is dead.
From here the dead seemingly vanish, there are strange haunting moans carrying across the planet, and a general feeling of unease. What’s involved/ living on the planet is not really vampires- but more of body jumping parasites, who become more difficult to spot- with certainly nods towards the paranoia of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.
The cast is largely passable- the crew's get-up is distinctive, wearing black leather suites with lapels up- and yellow thread edges, and at points, they wear similar black leather hoods/ skullcaps.
The film runs at the one hour and twenty-seven-minute mark – dropping fairly quickly into a feeling of unease, and then panic/ terror as the ship is seemingly been controlled. When they are on the planet there is most certainly a feeling of mystery, unease and dread. As the film moves on, we get brief darts of blood/ threat- though these are fairly subtle- with the whole thing being a mood piece, with its feet in both sci-fi and gothic horror.
Moving onto this new region-free Blu Ray. We get a truly lovely 4k scan, which has wonderful clarity and depth of picture, as well as well-defined/ bold colours. We get two versions of the film Italian (89 mins) and English (88 mins). On the new extra side, we have Transmissions from a Haunted World(41 mins) a doc featuring the likes of Guy Adams, Xavier Aldana Reyes, Alexandra Benedict, Johnny Mains and John Llewellyn Probert. This is excellent- we get a ten-minute overview of Mario Bava's career- touching on a few things I didn’t know like he originally wanted to be a painter, and each of his films had a shooting schedule of three to four weeks. Moving on we get a discussion about the 1963 short story the film was based on, and a comparison between the two. They talk about the multi-national cast, the film's production, and its legacy. So definitely a well worth a watch doc.
On the archive side, we get a good selection of things. There’s a commentary track from Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. Interview with Lamberto Bava (13 mins). Super 8 Version - a reconstruction of the cut-down version distributed as Planet der Vampire (17 mins). Joe Dante and Josh Olsen trailer commentaries - the filmmakers provide a short overview of the film (4 mins and 2 mins). Trailer press and image gallery from the Tim Lucas / Alan Y. Upchurch collection.
The finished release comes with two books/ booklets- an eighty-page book featuring new writing by Kyle Anderson, Martyn Conterio, Barry Forshaw, George Daniel Lea and Jerome Reuter. A twenty-page booklet featuring a new translation of Renato Pestriniero’s original short story. And a collection of six exclusive postcards featuring promotional material.
It certainly is wonderful to see this influential/ important/ impactful mix of Sci-Fi and horror getting the release it very much deserves from Radiance. With the beautiful new 4k scan, and a great selection of new/ archive extras. However don’t hang around too long…as this is edition is ltd to just 5000 copies, and I’m sure these will disappear very quickly!