Planet of the Vampires

Wow — it’s gratifying to think of all the classic Eurohorror that’s been released in sensational remastered editions, tracing lost and variant versions, different language soundtracks, etc. Disc presentations previously sourced from export versions, American distributor versions and even projection prints are now being redone with original printing elements from the original rights holders.

We’ve previously seen Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires only through the versions held by MGM, which got it from Orion, which took possession when American-International folded. A.I.P. was a co-producer of the film, and their version incorporated an adapted/adjusted dialogue script from Ib Melchior. Instead of an A.I.P. logo, Radiance’s Terrore nello spazio version begins with a logo for ‘Lucisano Media Group/Italian International Film.’ This iteration of the Bava classic betters by far anything we’ve seen before — the gorgeous images are sharper and the color detail is much greater.

Instead of “The Horror!  The Horror!”  it’s “The Color!  The Color!”

Mario Bava’s early directing career ventured into science fiction as well as horror. As a cinematographer he reportedly directed most of Paolo Heusch’s 1958 La morte viene dallo spazio, aka The Day the Sky Exploded, and most if not all of Riccardo Freda’s  Caltiki, il mostro immortale. Adapted from an Italian short story, Planet of the Vampires is notable for its genre ambitions. As with MGM’s expensive  Forbidden Planet there are no Earthbound scenes. For a full 90 minutes we’re either in space, on the surface of a weird nightmare planet, or within the interiors of spaceships that needed to be designed from the ground up.

Mario Bava’s fanciful lighting style is its own kind of special effect. Most every shot applies the in-the-camera trick film techniques that made Bava the go-to guy for fantastic visuals in ’50s Italian cinema. Alain Silver and James Ursini tagged it as Gothic Sci-fi for its focus on resurrected astronaut corpses. In 1965, with the Italo horror cycle on the wane, an alien planet inhabited by undead spirits was a novel idea.

The nightmare begins when the twin spaceships Argos and Galliot alight on the volcanic, foggy planet Aura. Soon after landing, Argos’ Captain Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan) and Sanya (Norma Bengell) can barely restrain members of the crew from maiming each other in inexplicable fits of violence. Worse, when they trek to the Galliot they discover its entire crew dead, with evidence pointing to an orgy of killing. While the Argos is being repaired some crewmembers report seeing strange lights. Mark and Sanya then investigate a derelict alien craft nearby. It is littered with the skeletal remains of grotesque alien creatures. When the astronauts’ hastily buried casualties begin returning from their graves, a terrible secret finally becomes obvious: spectral Auran beings can possess dead bodies and turn them against the living.

Had it been released a couple of years later, Planet of the Vampires might have been given a ‘hippie-trip’ marketing campaign. Its atmosphere of colored smoke, weird lighting and the strange costumes are more expressive than the the psychedelic exploitation films that would follow. Bava could generate clever visual effects and complex lighting schemes at a dizzying pace. The dreamlike atmospheres he creates have nothing in common with the outer space of Stanley Kubrick. The spaceships could belong to Buck Rogers, and the planet Aura could be a mythic Hell from Bava’s  Hercules in the Haunted World.

Science fiction is the only genre in which success is routinely measured by the ‘realism’ of the special effects. Bava’s in-the-camera composite illusions do have their limitations. His planetary vistas often have a sharp foreground and background, but a fuzzy mid-ground, a photographic impossibility that unmasks many faked flying saucer photos. But Planet also features shots too clever to yield to easy analysis. When the film was new we certainly didn’t realize that Bava had filmed some spaceship shots underwater. Commentator Tim Lucas’s explanations point out things we missed, like an errant finger caught holding a miniature.

And who wants realism, anyway? This alien phantasmagoria is more interesting than the Death Valley scenery and fake studio caves of  Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Bava kept his films small-scale to avoid surrendering artistic control to his producers — or even the optical departments of labs. This autonomy made Bava a one-man effects artisan-genius. Nobody confuses Ray Harryhausen’s animation with that of anyone else, and the same goes for Bava’s work. We know a Bava picture as soon as we see the way scenes are lit.

Both the ship interior and the smoking, foggy landscape outside are largely assembled from modular units — sliding doors and blank wall panels inside, interchangeable rocks outside. Planet of the Vampires does suffer from one production decision. The Argos was meant to land intact and the Galliott was to be wrecked, but it was too tempting to keep both spaceships in good repair so that one studio set could serve for both ships. The result is that we lose track of which ship we are on at any given time. We never get a handle on spacial relationships — after judging the exterior of the Argos, its interior looks to be far too big. But nothing disturbs the eerie atmosphere.

Barry Sullivan’s captain and Norma Bengell’s assistant stay clear in our heads, but most of the the other characters are a blur lacking distinct personalities (or distinct voices). The spacemen fight, shoot ray guns, and dash from one place to another, and we quickly lose track of who’s who. It’s more rewarding to concentrate on the impressive designs and especially the excellent costumes. The The black leather space outfits look like warm-ups for the next year’s  Diabolik. Those high collars look great, but not very comfortable. The stylishness pre-empts any question about ‘pressure suits’ — even the helmets are great designs.

Robert Skotak’s excellent book on Ib Melchior has a chapter devoted to the film, understandably concentrating on Melchior’s contribution. The most novel idea in the screenplay could work in a ghost story as well: the spacemen perceive ‘peripheral vision’ Auran phantoms, that they only glimpse out of the corners of their eyes. Bava doesn’t attempt this kind of subtlety — we instead see flashing blips, and brightly glowing orbs. We can imagine an “Aura-Vision” effect with hints of phantoms in the corners of the frame…. but knowing how theatrical projection varies, any effect placed at the screen’s edge could easily be masked off, and go unseen.

We instead soak up the heady Auran atmosphere. The rising of the ‘Vampires’ from their impromptu crypts is certainly eerie. A slow-motion effect is achieved with optical step printing. It is there in the original Italian version. We know that Bava rarely used opticals, but this film also has a few spaceship shots that are optical composites.

The film’s most striking sequence is the investigation of a derelict alien spacecraft, where Markary and Sanya find giant skeletons that look like spiders with human skulls. Good sound effects add to a claustrophobic effect, as they work to free themselves before an ancient mechanism pumps all of the oxygen from the chamber interior. Back in 1965 we assumed that the skeleton was the remains of an Auran. Only after Ridley Scott’s Alien came out did we pay closer attention to the dialogue in these scenes. Tim Lucas notes that the skeletons outside of the wrecked ship are posed much like the dead human bodies found back in the Galliot, another detail that never occurred to us.

After finally seeing the original Terrore nello spazio in such amazing quality, we’re now much bigger fans of Planet of the Vampires. The Italian audio track is beautifully mixed and modulated. Is it possible that Barry Sullivan dubbed his own voice into Italian?  Although the Italo vocal artiste is an excellent match for the American actor, the answer is probably No: the voice of ‘Captain Markary’ is very similar to voices used for other Argos and Galliot spacemen.