Planet of the Vampires (1965)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE

DAY 5 - 26 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

Planet of the Vampires (1965) - Mini Movie Review plus Screencaps:

Planet of the Vampires

The plot of the film is a weird mishmash of sci-fi and horror that is pretty much just an excuse to throw together a variety of elements like aliens, ghosts, spaceships, reanimated corpses, fistfights, laser battles, and mild amounts of blood and gore, all into one movie, with a corny "twist" ending to top it all off.  The story doesn't amount to much, but it all looks fantastic, filmed by Mario Bava with hypersaturated color in a 1960s pop art comic book style.  There's not much depth to this movie at all, it's pretty much all on the surface, but the surface elements are so much fun that it's still worth the trip.

3½ Robots (out of 5)

American International Pictures

Directed by Mario Bava

Space Ship

  More screencaps after the jump...

Halloween 1966, Volume 1: Nightmare in Space

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE

DAY 4 - 27 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

THIS POST WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!  LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD NOW, BEFORE IT IS GONE! 

My original plan had been to do one mix of songs for Halloween with the theme "Halloween 1966," featuring a variety of Halloween songs from that year.  I was going to post it later this month when I entered the Halloween 1966 phase of my Countdown to Halloween.  My mix of songs kept growing however, until I decided I needed to break it up into several different smaller chunks, each linked together by a loose theme.  The first volume is "Nightmare in Space,"  which works nicely with the "Horror in Space" posts I am currently making for the Countdown, so I decided to post this one early.

The main tracklist is:

• Perrey-Kingsley - Cosmic Ballad
• Florence Marly - Space Boy
• The Space Ghost Theme Song
• Perrey-Kingsley - Swan's Splashdown
• The Byrds - Mr. Spaceman
• The Eyes - When the Night Falls
• Q65 - I Got Nightmares
• The Answers - Just a Fear
• The Sonics - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

In addition to the main tracks, the mix is also peppered with 1966 audio clips from Star Trek, Batman, The Chamber of Horrors, and The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters.

The song "Space Boy" was originally recorded for the soundtrack of the 1966 film "The Queen of Blood" which I reviewed a couple of days ago.  It was never officially released, but has shown up on several Frank Zappa bootlegs over the years, as he co-produced and played some of the music on it.

THIS POST WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!  LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD NOW, BEFORE IT IS GONE! 

 

 DOWNLOAD LINK

Queen of Blood (1966) - 64 Screencaps

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE

DAY 3 - 28 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

Queen of Blood (1966) - 64 Screencaps:

An American International Release

Opening Credits

Queen of Blood - Title

Space

Planet

More screencaps after the jump...

Queen of Blood (1966)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE
DAY 2 - 29 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN
 

 Queen of Blood (1966) - Movie Review:

Alien Landscape

This 1966 Roger Corman produced sci-fi/horror concerns the first contact between Earth and an alien civilization, in the far off future of 1990.  The spacecraft carrying the alien ambassadors crash lands on the planet Mars, and the Earth's astronauts have to launch an emergency mission to Mars to look for survivors.  The first half of the film is a standard sci-fi movie about the astronauts efforts to move the timetable of their Mars program ahead of schedule to look for the alien survivors.  But the second half of the film changes gears to horror, as the earthmen rescue one female alien survivor, only to discover a horrible secret about the alien as they are trapped on their spaceship with her on their return trip to Earth.

Inside the Moonbase

The film has a good cast, including John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and Dennis Hopper.  Dennis Hopper in particular is a pleasure to watch in his supporting role.  His loose, naturalistic acting style contrasts against the more stiff, action hero type acting from the rest of the cast.  He almost seems like a beatnik or oddball character compared to the other macho astronauts.   I only wish they would have given him more screentime, although he makes the best of what he has.

Saxonaut

Also effective is European actress Florence Marly as the titular villainess.  With green skin, a bizarre brussels sprout looking hair-do, and a skintight bodysuit, the "Queen of Blood" is wonderfully wierd looking and alien.  She never speaks a word of dialogue, expressing everything with enigmatic facial expressions, which helps add to her creepy, otherworldly quality.

Glowing Eyes

The film started life as spaceship footage Corman had purchased from several Soviet Union science fiction films from the 1950s. Writer/director Curtis Harrington then wrote a script to fit around this footage, and new scenes were shot quickly on a low budget, and spliced together with the Soviet footage to make a new movie. This film has a very off-kilter mix of beautiful sci-fi scenery from the Soviet films and corny dialogue scenes with the American actors.  The horror sequences, however, with the "Queen of Blood" stalking her prey, are really well shot and effective. Overall, the resulting film feels a bit disjointed and oddly paced, but is still quite enjoyable and worth watching overall.

Rating: 3½ Robots (out of 5)

Come back tomorrow when I'll be posting 64 swellegant screencaps from this film for Day 3 of Horror in Space!

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012
HORROR IN SPACE
 DAY 1 - 30 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN 

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) - Mini Movie Review plus Screencaps:

It! The Terror from Beyond Space

 In the far-off future of 1973, the planet Earth has lost contact with it's first manned expedition to Mars.  A second expedition to Mars finds one lone survivor, with the rest of his crew dead.  His story of being attacked by a creature on Mars is not believed, he is accused of murder,and he is being brought back to Earth to face a court-martial and then the firing squad.  But then, the crew of the second ship starts being attacked, and they discover that the creature from Mars is real, and they are all trapped with it aboard their ship.

Take That, You Filthy Alien!

This is a fun little b-movie sci-fi monster pic.  It's nothing special, but it packs a lot of entertainment value into it's 1 hour and 9 minute running time.  It basically has one set, which it redresses with various accoutrements to make it look like multiple levels of a spaceship, but it does so effectively.  The monster is just a guy in a really cheesy rubber suit, and the exterior of the spaceship is an obvious scale model, but that's par for the course for b-movie 1950's sci-fi, and is kind of part of the fun.   It is mostly remembered today as a possible inspiration for the 1979 film Alien.

Help!  My Ape Mask Melted On My Face!

Rating: 3 Robots (out of 5)

More screencaps after the jump...

Countdown to Halloween 2012

I'm currently gearing up this blog for October, when I'll be participating in the "Countdown to Halloween" this year!  I've recently redesigned the blog with the Countdown in mind, I think it's much more visually appealing and distinctive now.  My goal for the countdown is to do one Halloween related post every day in October leading up to Halloween on October 31st.  That's pretty ambitious for me, as my usual posting schedule is "once in a blue moon" and "every 17th Tuesday on a leap year."  I've been working on a backlog of posts ahead of time, though, so hopefully I'll be able to pull it off.

I have several "themes" I'll be emplying for my Countdown posts.  They include:

The Horrors of 1966: Movies and Music
This will include reviews and screencap collections from horror movies released in 1966, as well as a mixtape I'm working on of Halloween music from 1966.

The Horrors of 1966: Saturday Morning Horror
I'll be reviewing a variety of horror themed Saturday Morning Cartoons that originally aired in 1966.

Horror in Space
This category was inspired by the movie Alien.  It will include reviews and screencaps from Alien, as well as the movies that inspired Alien, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space, and Queen of Blood, as well as movies that were in turn inspired by Alien, such as Saturn 3 and Galaxy of Terror.

Karloff the Uncanny
A celebration of the films of Horror's greatest icon: Boris Karloff.  I'll be reviewing several classic Karloff films, as well as some fun Boris Karloff action figures I have.

Creepy Comics and Art
I've got a couple of Jimmy Olsen posts planned for October: "The Top 10 Monster Transformations of Jimmy Olsen," and "The Top 10 Disguises of Jimmy Olsen."   I'm probably going to review a few scary comic books as well, but I don't have any specific titles picked out yet.

The Category of Random Halloween Stuff that Doesn't fit in any of the Other Categories
What well I post in this category, you ask?  Wait and see!  Honestly, possibly nothing, but I want to keep my options open. :)

The scares begin on October 1st!  Don't miss out on the fun!

Your pal,
Joshua the Atomic Robot

Toy Collection, Part 3: Batman and Vincent Price

1966 Batman Coloring Book

Coloring books are cool-looking but relatively inexpensive vintage Batman items to collect.  I love the artwork from this era.  I'm hoping to get a few more coloring books, then framing them on hanging them on my wall. Some of the pages in this book have been colored in, but that's okay with me since I'm buying it to display anyway. Bought on Ebay.

Hangman

 Hangman by Milton Bradley.  I love this box because it has the great Vincent Price (one of my favorite actors) on it.  I used to have a collection of vintage board games years ago, including this one, but I got rid of them, and now I regret it.  Most of the games I had in my old collection were ones with celebrities on the cover, like the Bionic Woman, and Murder, She Wrote.  This box is a lot more beat up than my old one, but it will do as a replacement for now.  Bought at a local thrift store.

1966 Batman Frame Tray Puzzle

Similar to coloring books, puzzles are another cool-looking vintage item you can collect cheaply.  Man I love the artwork on this.  It's going to look great on display.  Bought on Ebay.

Toy Collection, Part 2: New, Used, and Vintage

Here's a few of my latest acquisitions for my toy collection:

Talking Batman Alarm Clock

I used to have one of these when I was three years old, it's one of my most vivid childhood memories. I had no use for an alarm clock at that age, but I loved it anyway, because I could hear Batman talking to me. Now, thanks to ebay, I have this again.

Mystery Incorporated Action Figures

 I found Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne in a bag of random toys at a local thrift store. They didn't have Scooby, but I bought it anyway. A few weeks later, I found Scooby in another random bag of toys at the same store. Now I have the complete set!

Venture Brothers Action Figures

A collection of new Venture Brothers action figures from Bif Bang Pow toys. On the left are two 3 3/4 inch Brock Samson action figures. The standard version in black, and the limited edition 2012 San Diego Comicon version in a blood-smeared white t-shirt.

Then I have an assortment of retro Mego-style 8 inch action figures/dolls. These are the way they used to make action figures in the '60s and '70s: plastic dolls with removable cloth outfits. These days they mostly only make girl's dolls like this, like Barbie, or Bratz, for instance. But back in the day, they used to make boy's toys, such as the original G.I Joe, Captain Action, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mego's World's Greatest Superheroes and lots of others, in this style.