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Planet of the Vampires | Year: 1965 Classification: Horror Directed: - Mario Bava Juicy and scary planet -- great Sci-Fi entertainment! Well, I believe it now. When I was in film school, one of my instructors told me that all the stories that could possibly be told were done prior to the 70's; anything else is just a re-make. Ridley Scott ripped off Mario Bava, John Carpenter ripped off Mario Bava, and I'm sure there are plenty more! I have 7-8 Bava films now in my collection, and it's so obvious that modern filmmakers have stolen ideas and scenes directly from Bava's films. "Alien", no doubt in my mind, was conceived using "Planet of the Vampires" as a basis. All they had to do was create a frightening, living alien for that film series -- everthing else was written for them here! But on to reviewing the DVD: You won't notice them right away, but as the film progresses you'll enjoy the beautiful women featured. They are Evi Marandi and Norma Bengell. As they change costumes or remove parts of their opening wardrobe, they will become more visible. They are your typically juicy, delicious women in a Bava film but in this movie there's no reason for them to be sensual. They're still fine to look at, and it was great that Bava used more than one woman in the crew back then. The DVD picture is rather nice -- beautiful and strange colors and the film is rather sharp for its' date. All colors, mist, bubbling, etc. are rendered nicely from this old film. The soundtrack is the real treat. This is a mono soundtrack, but it again has the enveloping sound like "Blood and Black Lace", so if you have multiple speakers different sounds will come from different places. The unusual spaceship, planet, and space sounds are quite effective. The only problem with sound here is that during obvious loud parts the sound fades away. I'd say this film will appeal to science fiction fans more than the horror/gore fans. But if you insist on building your Mario Bava collection like I have, then you will want to own this remarkable DVD that holds up today as a very nice space epic. Surprise ending -- something that "Alien" did not have. There is no DVD insert booklet nor chapter list. Bava's space thriller drips atmosphere; lean but clean DVD "Vampires from outer space possess the living and resuscitate the dead!" Sounds like an Ed Wood tag line but it's actually the plot of Planet of the Vampires, the sole foray into the 'pure' science fiction genre by gothic horror maestro Mario Bava, best known as the father of the giallo movie and director of the seminal Italian horror masterpiece Black Sunday/The Mask of Satan. Planet of the Vampires overlays Bava's moody gothic visuals on an entertaining pulp SF script penned by Bava, Ib Melchior (Angry Red Planet, Reptilicus, Time Travelers), and a half dozen other writers. The plot (containing some interesting parallels with Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires) is fairly absorbing; there are some well-handled action scenes (and the usual fast zooms); Barry Sullivan is credible as Mark Markery (?!), captain of the spaceship Argus; and Norma Bengell (The Hellbenders) and Evi Marandi (Revenge of the Barbarians, Paris When It Sizzles) are easy on the eyes as Sanya and Tiona (everyone looks great in those black leather space suits). But what really distinguishes this movie are its imaginative visuals and doom-laden atmosphere; Bava's "demon planet" is no gray, dusty moonscape; it looks more like a day-glo hell: twisting, jagged rocks, dripping slime, boiling, smoking pits, the atmosphere dense with slowly swirling clouds of smoke and fog, lit by random splashes of electric blue, green, and red. Inspired moments include: creeping ground-fog used (a la Black Sunday) to signify encroaching evil; the resuscitated vampires ripping off their plastic shrouds in slo-mo; and the humans discovering the gigantic skeletal remains of the planet's former inhabitants. On balance, some of Bava's low-budget in-camera tricks and forced perspective shots, so effectively utilized in B&W in Black Sunday (check out the excellent commentary by Tim Lucas on Image's DVD), fall flat here in color; the spaceship/starfield scenes are only marginally better than the horrible effects in all those crappy Antonio Margheriti-directed Italian 1960s space operas (War of the Planets, Wild Wild Planet, etc.); and the sets suffer from that 'too clean' appearance that usually afflicts historical costume epics. But overall still probably the best pre-2001 SF movie of the 60s and an intriguing look at a different side of Mario Bava, especially for those familiar only with his gothic horror and giallo titles.<BR>As with their other Midnight Movies releases, MGM-UA's DVD package is minimal but of excellent quality. The picture quality of the letterboxed trailer is very good to excellent, if marred somewhat by light-to-moderate speckling and blemishing. French and Spanish subtitles and 16 chapter stops are the only other extras, but the feature itself looks pretty fabulous. The brightness, contrast, and shadow/highlight detail of the 1.85:1 letterboxed source print are excellent throughout. The color by Pathe looks as good as it probably ever did, with rich saturation and reasonably acc SAURDAY MATINEE Classic B movie! Did you like Creature Double Feature, or Elvira... you will love this! Don't forget the 6 pack. 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