It isn’t easy being green.
In the year 1990 space travel has been going on for the last 20 years. There is even a space station on the moon. The International Institute of Space Technology receives a signal from outer space.
An alien species contacts the Earth. They relay that they are on their way to Earth with an ambassador to make formal contact. The ship crashes on Mars. They send an SOS probe to Earth relaying their crash. The Earth dispatches a ship, the Oceano, to Mars to attempt a rescue. The earth ship is damaged due to a sunburst but it lands safely.
They find the downed craft. On board is one dead humanoid alien. They think a rescue ship may have found any surviving crew. A satellite ship is sent to assist the Oceano in finding the rescue ship. It lands on Phobos. (one of Mars’ moons.) They find the alien rescue ship crashed on Phobos. On board they find a strange green skinned woman still alive. They bring her on board the Oceano and start back to Earth. During the night the alien seduces one of the astronauts and drains him of blood. Figuring out that she needs blood to survive they use the plasma they have on board to feed her. Once the plasma runs out they have a big problem.
"Queen of Blood" was released in 1966 and was directed by Curtis Harrington. The movie was produced by Samuel Z Arkoff. The executive producer was Roger Corman. It stars John Saxon (Alan Brenner), Dennis Hopper (Paul Grant), and Basil Rathbone (Dr. Farraday). The “Queen” of “Queen of Blood” was Florence Marlay. She never speaks, but she is one creepy lady. She is small framed with an exotic look. And I don’t mean just the green. She’s even smaller than you think once you realize that a foot of her is bee hive hair-do. She’s quite alluring but still creepy. Perfect for the part.
The special effects on the film are actually fantastic. The colors are beautifully intense. The imagery is stunning. That’s because they came from two Soviet movies that Roger bought the rights to. “Mechte Navstrechu” (A Dream Come True) and “Nebo Zovyot” (The Sky Falls). Why make your own special effects when you can suck them up from an existing movie. Perfect for a vampire type movie.
From what I could find the plot to “Mechte Navstrechu” is similar to “Queen of Blood”, however, people who have seen it liked it better than “Queen of Blood”.
The movie is actually a pretty good low budget “B” movie. Especially since they used all that footage from someone else’s movies. Mikhail Karzhukov was the talent behind both. He was director, writer, and production designer. “Queen of Blood” is worth seeing even if only to see the talents of Mikhail Karzhukov.