Planet of the Vampires
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Planet of the Vampires |
| Original title | Terrore nello spazio |
| Country of production | Italy , Spain |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1965 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 (after re-exam; previously 16) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mario Bava |
| script |
Callisto Cosulich Antonio Roman Alberto Bevilacqua Mario Bava Rafael J. Salvia |
| production | Fulvio Lucisano |
| music | Gino Marinuzzi |
| camera | Antonio Rinaldi |
| cut |
Romana Fortini Antonio Gimeno |
| occupation | |
| |
Planet of the Vampires (original title: Terrore nello spazio ) is an Italian - Spanish science fiction - horror film from 1965 . The film, directed by Mario Bava , was released in German cinemas on January 17, 1969 .
The story is told of the crews of two spaceships that land on the planet Aura, from which they have received a distress signal. Aura is inhabited by disembodied beings who seize the astronauts' bodies in order to escape their dying world.
action
The spaceships Argos and Galliot head for the planet Aura because of an intercepted distress signal. While the two spaceships orbit the planet, contact with the Galliot breaks off. The Argos is forced to land on the planet by a mysterious force. The temporarily unconscious crew members attack each other, but thanks to Captain Markary's quick action, the situation remains under control. The Argos can locate the Galliot, which also landed on the planet, but their entire crew was killed. The crew ran amok on the Galliot too, with a fatal outcome.
Markary and his crew explore the planet during the time-consuming repair of the Argos, which was damaged during the landing. Not only do they come across a long-ago stranded spaceship and the remains of its non- humanoid crew, but they are also threatened by resurrected Galliot dead. They realize that aura is inhabited by disembodied beings who can take possession of the body of other life forms, both living and dead. The Aurans want to move to another planet because their own world is doomed, and for this purpose they attract foreign spaceships with a distress signal. Only Markary and his companions Sanya and Wess survive the subsequent arguments.
Shortly after the start of Aura, Wess notices that Markary and Sanya have been taken over by the Aurans. Wess sabotages the spaceship before he is killed. Markary and Sanya decide to head for the next inhabited planet the ship can reach in order to take possession of its inhabitants. The earth appears on their viewing devices.
background
Due to the international cast, the main actors spoke their text in their respective national language: the American Barry Sullivan in English, the Brazilian Norma Bengell in Portuguese , Ángel Aranda in Spanish etc. Their voices were later dubbed for the respective cinema market. For this reason you can hear Barry Sullivan's original voice in the English version, for example.
In the United States, American International Pictures took over the theatrical release of Planet of the Vampires . AIP produced an English dubbed version of the film, which Louis M. Heyward and Ib Melchior named as co-authors, and released it under the title Planet of the Vampires . In the US version, around two minutes of the film were missing, especially shots in the spaceship wreck, in which Markary and Sanya find the skeleton of a strange astronaut.
A number of reviewers have pointed to parallels between the Planet of the Vampires and Ridley Scott's Alien, created in 1979, from individual ideas to production design to a complete scene, the discovery of the stranded, extraterrestrial spaceship. However, both director Scott and co-writer Dan O'Bannon denied in an interview having seen Planet of the Vampires .
One of the astronauts in the film, the crew member Sallis, is exposed as a dead man controlled by Aurans because a decayed, partially skeletonized chest becomes visible under his uniform jacket. This scene refers to a scene in Bava's debut film The Hour When Dracula Comes , in which the witch Asa, who poses as the deceptively similar Princess Katia, reveals her true identity.
Reviews
"The script is banal but Bava's direction is captivating [...] a triumph of the ingenuity of trash cinema." - The Aurum Film Encyclopedia - Science Fiction
“Atmospheric science fiction fantasy film with ghostly images […].” - Leonard Maltin
“Entertaining trivial film that combines utopia and horror and contains more approaches to sophisticated design than the usual products of this genre.” - Lexicon of international film
“Viscous horror of the cheapest type.” - Protestant film observer
Web links
- Planet of the Vampires in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Fan page with information, posters and photos about the film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Planet of the Vampires . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2004 (PDF; test number: 40 144 DVD).
- ^ Robert J. Skotak: Ib Melchior: Man of Imagination , Midnight Marquee Press, 2000.
- ↑ Ronald M. Hahn, Volker Jansen: Lexikon des Science Fiction Films , 5th edition, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1992.
- ↑ Jeffrey Frentzen: Alien: It! The Terror from Beyond the Planet of the Vampires , in: Cinefantastique , Volume 8, Number 4, 1979, pp. 24-25.
- ↑ Tim Lucas: Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark , in: Video Watchdog , 2007, p. 600.
- ^ Review by Derek Hill on Imagesjournal.com.
- ↑ Mark Patrick Carducci, Glenn Lovell: Making Alien: Behind The Scenes , in: Cinefantastique , Volume 9, Number 1, 1979, pp. 10-39.
- ↑ “The script is banal but Bava's direction is compelling […] a triumph of the pulp imagination.” - Phil Hardy (Ed.): The Aurum Film Encyclopedia - Science Fiction , Aurum Press, London 1991.
- ↑ “Eerily photographed, atmospheric science-fantasy […].” - Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide , Signet / New American Library, New York 2007.
- ↑ Planet of the Vampires. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 67/1969