I’ve seen enough cult films over the years to know two things about a movie called Planet of the Vampires. Firstly, it’s probably not going to be high art. Secondly, there’s a surprisingly good chance it won’t actually contain any vampires.
Horror and science fiction titles from the 50s and 60s had a habit of promising one thing and delivering something completely different. So when I threw on Planet of the Vampires, I was fully prepared for either a cheap drive-in monster movie or Christopher Lee wandering around an alien planet in a cape looking disappointed in everyone.
What I wasn’t expecting was a surprisingly influential slice of science-fiction horror that would go on to “inspire” Alien, featuring body-snatching extraterrestrials and some of the strongest atmosphere Mario Bava ever put on screen.
The plot follows the crews of the Argos and the Galliot, two spacecraft drawn to the mysterious planet Aura by a distress signal. Attempting to land through the planet’s violent atmosphere, both crews are suddenly overcome by an inexplicable wave of madness that causes them to start kicking the shit out of each other like it’s a Scottish family gathering. Although order is eventually restored aboard the Argos, the Galliot isn’t so lucky.
Stranded on the planet’s hostile surface, the survivors soon discover that the dead don’t seem content to stay dead. As they explore Aura’s fog-shrouded landscape and uncover the remains of an ancient alien civilisation, they learn that the distress signal was not a cry for help at all, but a lure. Hidden beneath the planet’s surface is an ancient race of incorporeal beings whose own bodies died centuries ago and who now survive by possessing the corpses of others.
What follows is essentially a prototype for the sort of science-fiction horror that would dominate the genre decades later: paranoia, possession, reanimated corpses, and a crew slowly realising the real threat isn’t the planet itself, but the thing wearing the face of the bloke standing next to them. It’s like an evil version of Quantum Leap.
Planet of the Vampires sits between two very different eras of science fiction. On the surface, it’s exactly the sort of proto-Star Trek adventure you’d expect from the mid-60s. The acting is melodramatic, the orchestral score swells dramatically at every opportunity, and the futuristic technology largely consists of sticking flashing lights, coloured spheres, and random blinking nonsense onto every available surface. Half the control panels look like they were assembled from Christmas decorations and bits left over from an electronics shop.
The characters aren’t exactly complex either, but that’s part of the charm. You’ve got the stoic captain, the dependable engineer, the scientists whose primary function is explaining things to the audience, and at least one woman whose response to danger is becoming hysterical until a man tells her to calm down. Or slaps her.
The performances follow suit. Everyone delivers their dialogue with the sort of dramatic conviction you’d normally reserve for informing someone their entire family has just exploded, even when they’re discussing routine navigation procedures. Thankfully, the cast commit so completely to the material that it ends up working.
Barry Sullivan in particular makes for a solid lead as Commander Markary. He’s exactly the sort of square-jawed authority figure you’d want in charge when your crew are being possessed by alien corpse-puppeteers. Nobody’s delivering a career-best performance here, but everyone plays it completely straight, which is exactly what the film needs. If anyone had started winking at the camera, the whole thing would’ve collapsed faster than a Netflix adaptation of a beloved franchise.
And yet, despite all those familiar 1960s science-fiction trappings, there’s a lot here that feels surprisingly modern.
The planet Aura itself is a perfect example. Rather than the bright optimistic worlds common to science fiction at the time, Bava gives us a fog-shrouded nightmare landscape filled with jagged rock formations, ominous spires, and swirling coloured mist. Every exterior looks like the cover of a forgotten progressive rock album discovered in a charity shop.
The same applies to the alien spaceship discovered later in the film. Instead of sleek futurism, Bava presents something dark, industrial, and strangely hostile. The interiors are angular and claustrophobic, filled with shadows and bizarre architecture. Rather than looking like a brightly lit television set, it genuinely feels alien. Not “man with rubber forehead” alien. Proper alien.
It’s here that Planet of the Vampires suddenly stops feeling like a colourful space adventure and starts feeling like the blueprint for an entirely different kind of science-fiction film. The most obvious example comes when the crew explore the derelict vessel and discover the skeletal remains of gigantic alien beings seated at their control stations. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the sequence is essentially a first draft of the Space Jockey scene from Alien. You can practically feel Dan O’Bannon taking notes, even if he’d probably deny it, the cheeky bastard.
The horror elements are surprisingly effective too. While the violence is largely bloodless by modern standards, the film gets away with some fairly grisly imagery for 1965. Several scenes involve crew members discovering the mutilated remains of their colleagues, complete with smashed-in skulls, gouged-out chests, and bodies left in disturbing positions. The effects themselves are simple, but they’re presented seriously enough to leave an impression.
In many ways, Planet of the Vampires feels like a bridge between two eras of science fiction. One foot remains firmly planted in the colourful, melodramatic space adventures of the 1950s and 60s. The other is already stepping towards the darker future of science-fiction horror.
After all, this is one of the earliest examples of an idea that would become a genre staple: the threat isn’t some monster lurking outside the ship, it’s something that can get inside you and turn your own crew against itself.
Even the ending feels ahead of its time. While many science-fiction films of the era still favoured reassuring conclusions where humanity ultimately triumphed over the unknown, Planet of the Vampires ends with the threat escaping containment entirely. The surviving crew don’t survive in any meaningful sense, and have unwittingly delivered the enemy exactly where it wanted to go.
It’s a wonderfully nasty little sting in the tail. The sort of ending that would become commonplace in science-fiction horror over the following decades, but feels remarkably cynical for 1965.
Sure, it’s obviously dated. The dialogue is theatrical, some of the performances are broad, and every control panel looks like it was assembled after someone robbed Woolworths’ Christmas aisle. But the atmosphere remains exceptional, the imagery is genuinely memorable, and its influence on the genre is impossible to miss.
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