“I live by night, seeking fresh new blood to flow in my rather cold veins.”
There is a vampire plague on Earth. It is believed that the plague originated in outer space. An expedition led by Dr Rynning (John Carradine) is sent to a distant solar system to try to discover the origins of the plague.
Something goes wrong with the spaceship XB-13 and it is forced to make an emergency landing. The members of Dr. Rynning’s crew are Commander Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers), Captain Bob Scott (Fred Meyers), Willy (Joey Benson), and Linda (Britt Semand). The planet they land on has an atmosphere exactly like earth, with the exception of some chromatic radiation that makes it change colors.
Dr Rynning experiences a mild heart attack. He remains in the spaceship while the rest of the crew goes exploring. The planet is inhabited by prehistoric creatures as well as two warring tribes of primitive people. One tribe is peaceful, the other is a violent tribe of vampire-like creatures.
Suddenly, a girl runs by being chased by three cavemen. The cavemen are dispatched and Willy tackles the girl knocking her out. While she is unconscious Linda implants a "communicator" devise in her brain so that she can understand and speak English. When she comes to, she identifies herself as Lian Malian (Jennifer Bishop). She tells them the story of her people, the peace-loving Tagani, who are hunted by the blood-thirsty Tubatons.
“Horror of the Blood Monsters” AKA “Space Mission to the Lost Planet” and “Vampire Men of the Lost Planet” was released in 1970 and was directed by Al Adamson. This was my first foray into the world of Al Adamson. They say you never forget your first. I’m sorry to hear that. Al is referred to as Mr. cut and paste. I see why.
Al Adamson ran across a Filipino film called “Tagani” 1956. He liked is so much he bought the rights to it. By 1970 movie theaters wanted to show only color movies. “Tagani” is in black and white. Al shot some color footage to wrap a story around the old black and white film. He also added bits and pieces of monsters from other movies such as the standard stock footage from “One Million BC” 1940 and some spaceship shots from “The Wizard of Mars” 1964.
In order to disguise the fact that “Tagani” and “One Million B.C.” are in black-and-white and the new stuff is in color Adamson invented the theory that the new planet was being exposed to something called “chromatic radiation”. This radiation could change the color on the planet depending on how much radiation was there at the time. Then he tinted each scene from the black and white footage in different shades of green, yellow, blue and red. Al referred to this colorization as “Spectrum X”.
Al also added some random footage where two of the mission control personnel Dr. Manning (Robert Dix) and Valerie (Vicki Volante) are hooked up to some machine to enhance sexual gratification. Something like the orgasmatron in “Sleeper” 1973 but with electrodes instead of stepping into a machine. This footage was inserted several years after the original color footage to explain the random tinting of the older black and white footage. The vampire montage at the beginning of the movie was filmed several years after the original color footage as well. This was to explain why the expedition was sent into space. I’m not real sure if any of the explanations helped.
It’s a buffet of sabretoothed vampires, cave people with snakes coming out of the shoulders, bat monsters, lobster men and some really dopey dinosaurs. Not to mention the random stock music.
How is the movie? Well… it was… um… different.