Review by IronWolfe
BACKGROUND
Original Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1. Directed by Mario Bava. Writing credits: story—Renato Pestriniero ("One Night of 21 Hours" [first published in Interplanet 3]), English language screen story—Ib Melchior, English-language screenplay—Ib Melchior and Louis M. Heyward, script—Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Román, Alberto Bevilacqua, Mario Bava, Rafael J. Salvia.
Mario Bava is primarily known as a director of terror and giallo motion pictures, but he also indulged in fantasy/sword & sandal fare, a pair of westerns, crime, comedy, and science fiction. He was cinematographer on THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED and directed DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRLBOMBS, DANGER: DIABOLIK, and TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO a.k.a. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. He also co-directed CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER (that last is a tough call, but I include it as science fiction because the amorphous creature type films tend to fall into the science fiction category.) At the time of his death, Bava was preparing a return to the genre, in fact, with a project called STAR KNIGHTS.
The resemblance of ALIEN to TERRORE is pretty well known by now, so I won't go into it beyond saying that the similarities go deeper than a skeletonized "space jockey" and a U-shaped ship. That isn't a knock on ALIEN or Dan O'Bannon, it's simply a fact.
PLOT
Deep space, and two spaceships: the Argus and the Galead have followed a distress beacon to a planet shrouded in fog so thick it's deflecting their LASER probes. Each of the ships has a crew of nine. The Argus' crew consists of Captain Mark Markary (Barry Sullivan), Sanya (Norma Bengell), Wess (Angel Aranda), Tiona (Evi Marandi), Brad (Stelio Candelli), Bert (Franco Andei), Eldon (Mario Morales), Kell Carter (Ivan Rassimov), and Doctor Karan (Fernando Villena). The Galead, the Argo's sister ship's main crew consists of Captain Salas (Bava perennial Massimo Righi), Markary's brother, Toby (Alberto Cevenini), Kier (Federico Boido), and Doral (Franco Andrei).
The two ships are in contact as they prepare to land, but suddenly the link is broken and all Hell breaks loose. They begin to plunge toward the planet's surface, hitting a top speed of Mach 40. Most of both crews are rendered unconscious, with only Captain Markary managing to remain conscious—barely—until the touchdown.
The gravitational madness is immediately replaced, however, by madness that seems to have affected the entire crew. Sanya and Brad recover first—and immediately attack Markary with intent to kill. Markary manages to K-O Brad for seconds and, when he comes to, he is as surprised as Markary to find Sanya trying to kill the Captain. Wes comes to and immediately joins the fray—attacking Brad. Sanya suddenly passes out, comes to, and is horrified to find the three men fighting. When Wess has been laid out, Markary and Brad rush to the engineering room to find Tiona, Eldon, and Bert grappling—and to barely prevent Tiona from ending that fight with a steel pipe. Doctor Karan attacks Carter, but Wes breaks that up and Karan flees the spaceship, sans helmet, slamming the airlock behind him. When Markary and Brad catch up to him he is shocked to find himself outside at all. Just as surprising, although somewhat pleasantly so, is that when Markary and Brad assess the damage that should have come from the "crash" landing, they find that the Argus has landed intact, without a scratch: as smooth as a training flight at the Space Academy.
None of the crew can explain their reasons for their homicidal frenzies. But the worst is yet to come. Just when things are starting to calm down on the Argus, Salas issues a distress call from the Galead. It is cut off before he can tell them what is happening, but there is little question that the crew of the Galead is also at each others' throats. When the Argus attempts to take off on a quick scouting mission to locate the Galead they find that every fuel cell has been inexplicably drained of power.
Markary, Sanya, Eldon, and Brad locate the Galead and take off on foot. Markary isn't surprised, however, to find that when they get there almost every crew member is dead—murdered by his or her fellows. Only Salas and Kier are missing. The bridge is locked from the inside with four of the crew, including Toby Markary, lying dead inside. Eldon is left to guard the ship while the others return to the Argus for cutting tools. When Markary returns, this time with Brad, Tiona, and Karan they find the bridge doors open and the four crew members...and Eldon...missing. A closer inspection of the ship turns up Salas and Doral, lying dead in the engineering room, beside the shattered meteor deflector.
The Galead will never fly again..."And neither will her crew."
WHAT WORKS
Men and Women as Equals: There is never any question that Sanya and Tiona are on an equal footing with the men of the Argus. There is no need to explain it, no need to argue about it. Tiona is stationed at guard duty without any sort of elaborate BS, she is simply told to stand guard. The women's feminine aspects aren't completely jettisoned—Tiona nearly breaks down at the burial of the three crewmen of the Galead—but there is never a question of catering to the "weaker" sex. Neither is there any macho posturing necessary by either of the women. They know how to handle the weaponry and are just as levelheaded about using those weapons and about jumping into a fight, when necessary, as the men.
The Argos and the Galead: I know, pillory me, a lot of people hate these ships and think the insides look like soundstages. (On the other hand, so does the inside of the Enterprise, it just has carpeting.) Anyway, I like the look of them, both inside and out. I like the cobalt-blue metal of the interiors and the design of the stairwells and deep and intimidating interiors, in which Captain Markary and crew are nearly lost to the viewer when they enter the dome. Perhaps the floors could have been the same smooth steel as the walls, but then again, for traction purposes, the concrete floors make sense. There is plenty of walking room here, and for a two-year voyage to track down a distress signal, that walking room also makes sense.
The Alien Ship: The alien spaceship with the remains of three of its saurian crew, is a beautiful and awesome piece of work. The entire inside-the-ship sequence is extremely effective, especially when the log is turned on and the distorted voice of the alien captain becomes a threat in itself. I've always liked the moments when Sanya shocks herself on one of the pieces of equipment and Markary feels the need to touch it himself. It's a dumb thing to do, but it's also a natural thing to do (how many of us have had a spouse or loved one or friend burn themselves on a hot pan and given in to the urge to check it ourselves for no good reason?) It's also sort of refreshing to see a piece of completely alien technology fiddled with by an explorer only to find he can't figure out how to turn the darn thing off.
Science-Fiction Gothic: TERRORE is at its core a gothic terror film with a science-fiction setting. The planet itself is like a small piece of Hell (and, indeed, parts of the sets were lifted from HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD) with almost painfully twisted rocks, lava and the nearly sentient ground mist. The resurrection sequence is a wonderfully effective set piece. The whole film, both on the planet and often inside the Argos and Galead, is teeming with atmosphere. With better dialogue, this could have easily fallen into the classic category.
The Uniforms: Yeah, I know, they sort of date the film to the sixties, but I still like both the leather uniforms and the 'working' uniforms. Besides, Norma Bengall does look so good in her black leathers.
A Few Other Odds and Ends: Some of the miniature work does show, but for the most part Bava is dead on in his use of the miniatures. Filming from directly behind them, through gaps in the alien craft, the crew members dwarfed as they approach. The seemingly gargantuan interior of the Galead's dome (and I will say that some of the moments lose some effectiveness on the small screen because the crew members are so small that it takes a few seconds to see them sometimes. TERRORE was meant to be seen on the big screen). There is a standout shot when the crew of the Galead is discovered in the bridge as Bava zooms out from a close on Toby Markary's face and zooms in to Mark Markary's face, peering in at his brother's body. Barry Sullivan has trouble with some of the physical performances, but he shines in the latter third of the film (I will say I keep wondering what another Bava perennial, Cameron Mitchell, could have done with this part).
WHAT DOESN'T WORK
Techno-Babble: Some of the techno-speak on the spaceship is pretty silly, and so convoluted as to be distracting. It, thankfully, ends after the landing. Some of the other dialogue is stilted as well, and I always find myself wishing that Melchior and Bava had done the script by themselves. I do think this may be a question of way too many screenwriters involved.
Some of the Miniatures: There are a few times on the planet where Bava (or one of the three AD's) doesn't get the depth of field he needs, making the miniature work obvious. (This only happens a few times, and stands out only because of the infrequency of it.) In addition some of the spaceship shots are obviously miniatures, both in space and during take-off and landing. There isn't quite enough heft to the ship sometimes.
The Dubbing: TERRORE was shot in English, but in phonetic English, so many of the characters' voices were dubbed anyway. The dubbing isn't all outrageously bad, but it is obvious that not a great deal of care was put into a lot of it.
THE DVD
This one's nearly a bare-bones in the MGM Midnight Movie line and it's a shame it is MGM and not Image. The picture is a beautiful 1.85:1 but non-anamorphic, and the single extra is the trailer. The print is likely the U.S. version which (and I have lost the reference I found this information on) was added to before release here. All in all, this deserves a better treatment, but as is it's worth the small purchase price of around $14.95 USD.
THE FINAL WORD
TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO a.k.a. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is not the best of Bava, but even hampered by some instances of bad dialogue, Bava lands squarely in the top ten directors of all time (though he'd never have admitted to it). I have yet to see the Italian cut, and call it gut feeling or pandering or whatever you will, but I suspect the sequences (and I'm talking about the miniature filming) that don't work well were the stuff added after the fact. It won't appeal if you're looking for a forty-million dollar CGI-enhanced blockbuster. (Then again, Bava would have laughed himself senseless if he was ever told to try to spend forty million dollars on one motion picture). But it is solid gothic terror in a science fiction setting, with dynamic visuals and a good story that more than one filmmaker has managed to crib from. Recommended without reservation for fans of Mari Bava, and recommended for at least a rental for fans of gothic terror and that genre of science fiction that relies on story and character more than laser blasts, computer-coordinated fiber-optic enhanced spaceships, and CGI beasties.
http://www.scifilm.org/reviews3/planetvampires.html