This time, we’ve got some fun ones. We’ll start of with some time-loop terror in “Manor of Darkness,” then watch some completely unnecessary, but still fairly entertaining rip-offs of old cartoons: “Mouse of Horrors,” “Shiver Me Timbers,” and “Bambi: The Reckoning” are all up this week. Lastly, we’ll squeeze in a classic sci-fi horror film with “Planet of the Vampires” from 1965.
Which one is our favorite? Tune in and find out– it may not be what you expect!
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Mainstream Films:
2025 Manor of Darkness
Directed by: Blake Ridder
Written by: Blake Ridder
Stars: Kim Spearman, Louis James, Sarah Alexandra Marks
Run Time: 1 Hour, 22 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Petty thieves meet evil forces when they pretend to be filmmakers and go to a giant manor to rob the place. It went in a direction we didn’t expect and built nicely as they tried to figure a way out. We both really enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man works in the basement until he hears a strange sound. What he hears finds him. Credits roll.
Laura talks to her mother, who needs surgery. Her brother, Chris calls, and he says he’s got something to make everything all right. Laura works at a coffee shop, and she experiences something strange one night. The same night, Chris also experiences some weirdness with Lisa, his girlfriend.
Lisa, for some reason, decides to tell Chris about her abusive family and how she ran away from home. Chris tells about what happened with Laura, eleven months ago.
Flashback time! Chris and Laura broke into a house. It’s not exactly what Chris told her, so Laura wants to leave. This is the house of Mrs. Wong, one of Chris’s old teachers who gave him a hard time– and she’s still home. When the woman gets up, she finds Laura and grabs a knife. As she recognizes Laura, Chris shoots her.
Back in the present, Laura gets a call; she’s lost her job. Chris and Lisa talk about his plan, and how Laura won’t cooperate with him. She goes to the restroom and sees something scary. When she comes out, Chris is talking to Andy, another criminal-type.
Some rich man is looking for a film crew to come into his house and film a documentary, and Chris wants to use the job as an excuse to break in and steal a fortune. We then get Andy’s backstory; he’s divorced but wants to be a good father. Later, he gets a scare in the shower. Laura decides at the last minute that she needs the money and will help in the caper.
Chris, Andy, Laura, and Lisa arrive at the old manor house and let themselves in, as arranged. They have no cell service there, which even Chris admits is a cliche. They all split up and explore the place.
Andy says he feels like he’s been here before. Laura and Lisa check out the basement while Andy and Chris check out the attic. The girls find a tied-up box in the basement that looks too tempting to pass up. They open the box and let out what appears to be the Smoke Monster from “Lost.”
In the attic, the guys find a dead body. Suddenly, Lukas, the owner of the house, and the man from the pre-credit sequence, returns home. He talks about “life after death” and his dead wife. He wants the “documentary filmmakers” to capture her spirit on film.
When they mention the dead body upstairs, Lukas picks up a knife and kills Chris and Laura. Andy goes next, leaving only Lisa, who is killed as well. There are flashes of another woman being forced to scrub and clean in the past, with religious imagery. No, they’re all fine, and we seem to have jumped back in time a few minutes. They all sense that something weird happened, but they’ve only just arrived at the house. Laura especially seems to feel some deja vu. Chris announces that there’s no cell service here at the old house. They all split up to explore the house (again).
The girls find the box in the basement, but it’s already untied and empty. The dead body in the attic is still there. Then Lukas arrives. He asks them if this is “the first time.” He stabs them all again.
We again cut to scenes of a man abusing his religious wife, who prays a lot.
At the door of the house, Laura knows they’ve all been here before, but the others don’t sense it. “We’re all gonna die… again.” Laura tries to leave, but it’s not that easy. All roads lead back to the manor.
She goes into the house and finds that Lukas has killed the other three. She tells him about it, and he knows that she opened the chest. He explains about “The Reset” and that he killed them so that they’d understand the problem. We get a flashback to Lukas and his wife moving into the house. He explains what it is that she released from that box. He has to kill her again to reset the time loop. He does and we see the abusive man and religious woman from the past again. This time, he kills her.
Laura, now reset, tells the others not to go into the basement and then hides the knives in a kitchen. She demonstrates her knowledge of the time loop to them. When Lukas comes in, Andy beats him to death. This results in Laura stabbing herself for another reset.
She explains the situation, and they mostly believe her, but they still want to remain here to find the money. Lukas arrives, as always, and Laura quickly fills him in. He finally explains what they’re up against, and it’s not good.
They all prepare themselves for battle in their own unique ways. Suddenly, the lights go out. Lisa finds herself outside, running from something nasty. Chris is locked in the attic with the body, which gets up and turns into Mrs. Wong, the dead teacher. Andy runs into a sex-crazed version of Laura, who kills him. Laura runs into her mother in the basement, but she knows that’s not real and stabs the woman. Laura dies again, this time at Lisa’s hand, and it all resets again.
This time, they all tie up Lukas as night falls outside. Laura goes to stab Lukas, but since her eyes are shut, she somehow stabs Chris instead. The smoke goes back in the box in the basement. We then get a flashback to what happened with Lukas and his wife when they moved in and kept having to stab each other.
Laura holds a diamond in her hand, she found the treasure and paid for her mother’s surgery. Andy gets his family back. Lisa is sad.
Six months later, a different couple gets invited to the manor and are told to go right on in. They soon find a tied-up box in the basement. Then Chris walks in, he welcomes them to the manor…
Brian’s Commentary
Why were all the characters experiencing bloody scenes of terror before they came to the house? There’s no indication from the trailer that this is a time-loop movie. Still, it’s well done and is paced nicely, which is hard for a time-travel film. The things that happen aren’t really explained at all; we know what happened, we just don’t really know why. It’s pretty good!
Kevin’s Commentary
The manor was a great setting. Cool big place. It seemed low budget with a bit of an indie vibe, but I thought they made the most of it, and it was very effectively done. Their growing frustration with the time loop built nicely.
The cast is good, the camera work and music is effective (kept making me think of John Carpenter’s music from the original “Halloween” at times), and the script is clever. I liked it and would recommend it.
2025 Mouse of Horrors
Directed by: Brendan Petrizzo
Written by: Harry Boxley, Mac Gottlieb
Stars: Lewis Santer, Stephen Staley, Chris Lines
Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
An inhuman mouse hybrid is on the prowl for body parts and victims, with much of the action taking place at a carnival - an excellent setting. The pacing is a bit off and so is the sound, but it’s watchable and gory. We thought it was very mid overall, with both of us giving it a dislike.
Spoilery Synopsis
Two girls are out at the docks. They’ve gone to the wrong place and gotten lost. They’re here to meet a rich doctor with a boat, and what they find isn’t what they expected. They find the boat, but there’s no one there. Out of nowhere, a giant rat stabs Molly and chases Dana through the shipyards and into a closed-down amusement park. As he kills her and laughs, the credits roll.
A man tells his daughter, Chloe, a story about being attacked by flies at the beach. We see the killer is watching them from afar. He’s written a book about “The Mouseboat Massacre” but he doesn’t have an ending for it yet. She goes off with her friend to a bar to meet her other friends, a group of obnoxious teens that the killer can pick off one by one later. They call Dana and Molly, but they don’t answer their phones.
Chloe tells the story about the Mouse thing as we see the Mouse killing a jogger with a chain. A mad doctor created a giant mutated mouse that was crossed with a murderous prisoner. His goal was to collect body parts of women for another experiment. The group decides to sneak into the closed-down amusement park for some fun.
Meanwhile, at the amusement park, Pooh bear has women in a cage, and it looks like a scene from “Pooh: Blood and Honey” Apparently, Pooh and the Mouse are working together to gather body parts for Dr. Rupert. It’s the crossover nobody expected! The doctor whines about the Mouse bringing him male body parts. How is he supposed to make the perfect bride with the wrong kind of body parts?
The Mouse kills a bar owner at about the same time the kids get started at the amusement park. The Mouse shows up and kills the first pair of teens, electrifying one of them with the bumpercars (I don’t think they work like that). He catches and dismembers another girl on the teacup ride. He stabs another on the sidewalk. Another guy falls into a swimming pool full of carnivorous jellyfish (what?).
Several of the girls run from the Mouse straight into the workshop of Dr. Rupert, the creator of the Mouse and the Bear. He explains the whole thing with the Mouse’s creation.
Chloe’s father goes to her mother’s house to look for her since there’s a killer on the loose. For some reason, the Mouse shows up at their house right there and then. The Mouse and the mother play darts, and that goes badly for only one of them. Dad runs away to the fair while the Mouse drags Kim away. Dad and Chloe meet up.
Suddenly, Dr. Rupert shows up, calling for Chloe. His boys really want her, and he threatens to kill her friends if she doesn’t come after them. Chloe insists they go after Kim.
Kim is actually still alive in the doctor’s workshop being tormented by Pooh. Everyone plays hide and seek in the lab. Rupert scolds the boys for their incompetence and then sets them against each other, with the bride as a prize. Chloe’s father knocks out Rupert and lets Chloe run off.
The Mouse and Pooh fight each other for a very long time, but in the end, the Mouse always wins.
Next we see the Mouse eating cheese and dancing on the deck of a steamboat. Pooh shows up, and the battle continues. Suddenly, Pooh is eaten by the worst CGI shark either of us have ever seen.
Suddenly, it’s daytime, and the Mouse is chasing Chloe around the amusement park. She stabs him in the mouth and runs to find Kim and Rupert. Chloe shoots Rupert without delay.
Chloe and Kim smash the tank holding the rest of “The Bride” ending that threat.
Brian’s Commentary
Why they didn’t call this “Steamboat Willie vs Pooh” I’ll never understand.
This one wastes no time; I was bored even before the opening credits.
The sound is awful. Some people, I could hear just fine, and others seemed to mumble everything they said. The actress who plays Chloe was so mushmouthed that we needed to turn the subtitles on.
There are some very similar plot points to 2024’s “The Mouse Trap,” even beyond just the Steamboat Willie connections. Actually, other than the killer being a well-dressed mouse, there’s no real Disney connection (not that the original Steamboat Willie had any kind of real story either). This Mouse is clearly an Art the Clown wannabe, doing all the mime-y things. I was also reminded of “The Jester” by his character’s mannerisms.
It’s got no real plot other than teens being killed one by one. The CGI is some of the worst I’ve ever seen attempted in a released film.
It’s pretty bad.
Kevin’s Commentary
The crossover with Pooh and the Frankenstein elements were unexpected.
I wasn’t impressed with the pacing or the sound quality, but there were some entertaining moments. The Mouse and his pantomime are great, he reminded me a bit of The Joker with a dash of Art The Clown. That was a bright spot.
You know the gore is good when the subtitles have things like “Flesh squelching.”
The lack of enough story made it seem long and tedious after a while.
Pooh’s death was the most rushed, unexpected awful CGI effect ever - it vaguely looked like a shark attack out of the blue. And then the final CGI scene of smashing the bride’s tank. Ugh.
I was going to say I liked it more than disliked it, but by the end I had changed my mind.
2025 Shiver Me Timbers
Directed by: Paul Stephen Mann
Written by: Paul Stephen Mann, E.C. Segar
Stars: Amy Mackie, Miami Parrington, Brendan Nelson, Ross Dillon
Run Time: 1 Hour, 13 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s 1986 and Halley’s Comet has brought meteors with it, one of which turns Popeye into a big killer. A group of friends camping, along with a few other folks, have a terrible night because of it. We didn’t think it was very funny or particularly scary. It tries, but neither of us thought it was very good.
Spoilery Synopsis
In April 1986, a girl finds a severed hand, which leads to a whole crime scene. Credits roll.
We heard about the return of Halley’s Comet after 76 years. Earlier that day, Olive Oyl and her family are going on a trip and almost run over a weird-looking man with a pipe. “Well blow me down,” he says. He’s weird and talks about the meteor shower tonight.
Castor Oyl, his girlfriend, and sister arrive at the campground, and Olive immediately catches a couple of punks beating up a homeless man who is ranting about “killer meteors” and “the comet is evil!”
Castor talks to his friend about how smart Olive is; she’s been admitted to MIT but doesn’t seem too interested in that. There’s a lot of boring talk between the two. Some more of Castor’s friends show up, and they brought the drugs.
We cut to the old man with the pipe fishing on the water as the meteors start to pass overhead. A tiny one lands right in his pipe, and he just goes on smoking; it’s full of radiation. The old man falls over and starts to mutate.
Popeye has gotten a lot bigger and meaner. He punches a punk in the face and his head explodes.
Over at the campfire, Stevie tells a story from another life, which turns out to be a scare prank. The surviving punk shows up raving about a giant sailor but they laugh him off. Trent and Lizzie retire to their tent. Stevie goes off to the outhouse to take a dump as Popeye approaches, now using the punk’s legbone as his new pipe. He crushes Stevie’s head and then literally poops down his neck.
The campers talk about movies. “Critters” has just come out, and they’re talking about a potential sequel to “The Terminator” and “Video Nasties.” While Trent and Lizzie have sex in their tent– with Popeye bloodily joining in.
Olive and Monique go for a walk and watch the meteors. They soon find one on the ground. Monique gets shot through the head by an evil meteorite. Meanwhile Castor and his girlfriend find what’s left of Stevie. The surviving trio finds Popeye sitting by their campfire. One of them has to go for the car keys in their camp, so Olive creeps on hands and knees hoping Popeye doesn’t notice. It’s suspenseful as she gets into a tent and tries not to make noise. He hears, and yanks her out, but Castor distracts him. Then the chase is on.
The girls run to the car, but they find it in flames from an apparent meteor strike. They remember hearing about an abandoned factory nearby and run toward that. Castor is there, but so is Popeye, and soon, she’s the only one left alive. Popeye dunks Castor into a canister of glowing radioactive ooze.
Olive makes it to the factory, where she runs into a man with a wheelchair and shotgun. The old man decides it’s time to share an old war story. He goes outside and Popeye gets him.
Out of nowhere, the other punk from earlier reappears, grabs the meteorite from Popeye’s pipe, and beats him with it. He doesn’t live long, but it gives Olive time to grab the meteorite from the ground and run off.
Unfortunately, it’s really hot and melts her hand completely off. That’s OK, because the crazy old man had built the largest buzz-saw in history and it’s got a handy arm-plug for her to use. She comes out of the barn and buzzes Popeye into a juicy mess. Still, Popeye puts up a big fight before dying.
Olive and Castor’s girlfriend survive their order. Soon, the police are there examining everything.
A few weeks later, the whole story is on the radio that a cleaned-up Olive is listening to while she works on a prosthetic. We hear that Popeye’s body has gone missing and there are more murders just like his up in New York. We see that Olive is preparing for a rematch with her new turbo hand…
Brian’s Commentary
The film couldn’t quite decide which scenes were happening during the day and which were at night. Sometimes, they alternated between the two in the same scene.
This is the lowest-budget and clearly the worst of the three “Popeye” movies that came out this year. “Popeye’s Revenge” and “Popeye The Slayer Man” were both better, although “better” might be a marginally relative term.
It’s listed as a horror comedy, but it’s really not very funny at all; it’s just kinda lame throughout. Watch it if you feel you must, but it’s not great.
Kevin’s Commentary
Haley’s Comet means meteors too in this universe, and who knew that a meteor shower literally meant meteors showering down to the ground?
I yam disappointed by this effort. Like Brian says, it was the weakest of the Popeye trifecta that have recently been spewed from the bowels of public domain. I’m going to go with almost painfully bad on this one.
2025 Bambi: The Reckoning
Directed by: Dan Allen
Written by: Felix Salten, Rhys Warrington
Stars: Roxanne McKee, Russell Geoffrey Banks, Samira Mighty
Run Time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Bambi is all grown up and mutated, and he’s had enough of the humans. The focus here is on a mother and son who become targets after a vehicle crash, but there are also some other subjects of his rage along the way. It’s short and it moves well. We didn’t expect to be as entertained as we were.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open a fairy tale book and get some voiceover narration. We watch an animation of Bambi’s mother getting shot. We get an overview of a very hard life for the local deer population. The factory polluted the waters, and Bambi gets mutated. Credits roll.
We open on a trio of hunters in the dark woods. We cut to Xana and her son Benji on a drive to Benji’s dad’s family. The driver is really chatty, and Benji gets carsick. Suddenly, a giant deer charges their car, knocking it off the road and flipping it entirely. The deer then jumps up and down on the car, causing it to crush the driver. Xana and Benji get out and run for safety.
Mary stands in the backyard chanting “Bambi” repeatedly. Her family is inside talking about the old woman’s dementia. Xana and Benji come to the door; this is grandma’s house. Harriet and Andrew argue about whether they should go try to help the driver or not, and Joshua decides to go out looking. Meanwhile, the hunters, who work for the evil factory, find the taxi, but the driver is nowhere to be found.
As Mary sketches pictures of an angry deer, the three hunters hear something in the woods and pull out their guns. They shoot Joshua by mistake.
Back at the house, Bambi smashes in through the window and terrorizes the people inside. Everyone runs out to Andrew’s camper, but Harriet can’t outrun the massive deer, who gores her with his antlers. As they drive away, the deer pursues them. Finally, they break away.
The hunters arrive at Grandma’s house and look at the damage. They find Harriet, more or less still alive, ripped in half, and finish her off.
The camper comes to a log in the road, and moving it turns out to be a disaster. They end up driving several miles at high speed with Andrew tied to the back of the bumper, bouncing all the way. Harrison hides, but Bambi soon finds him, and he gets what he deserves when he learns that Bambi has friends...
Grandma wanders off, and Xana and Benji go after her. The old woman repeats “Death. Death.” and we see just how stupid Benji really is as he lights up a torch. This shows them all the bones of Bambi’s victims. They’re in his nest! The deer reappears, and the three run straight to the hunters and tell them the story. They all drive to the hunters’ place, where they run into Simon, Benji’s father.
As Xana and Simon argue, he admits he knows all about the company dumping chemicals. Michael, the leader of the hunters, points his gun at Xana; he has no intention of helping them. Xana finds Joshua and the driver’s bodies, so she knows it as well.
Benji watches as the other two hunters carry out a baby deer in a cage to use as bait. Benji releases the baby, and Bambi takes care of the two hunters.
Bambi comes face to face with Mary, but suddenly, the whole base explodes when she shoots a pressurized gas canister. Xana, Benji, and Simon come face to face with Michael. Bambi shows up, still burning from the explosion, and takes care of Michael for them.
Simon and Xana fight over the satellite phone. She wants to call the police, but he knows he’s going to jail for the illegal dumping if she does. He runs off, leaving his ex-wife and child alone with the monster. They grab the fawn and hand it over to the big deer.
Michael returns from somewhere and shoots Bambi repeatedly. Mary comes out of nowhere and shoots him in the back.
Simon, making his getaway, sees something moving in the backseat. It’s one of Bambi’s little rabbit friends. This one has seen too much Monty Python and does “the thing.” Simon dies.
As Bambi lay dying, the little fawn is sad. Time for a sequel?
Brian’s Commentary
This is based on the 1923 book “Bambi, A Life In The Woods,” not the much more well-known 1942 Disney cartoon.
The creature effects are less than stellar, but the overall story moves along nicely and doesn’t slow down or get boring. I haven’t seen a horror movie with a stupid kid putting everyone else in extreme danger in quite a while; I thought it was a trope that had been forgotten.
Overall, this was way better than I expected. Not great, but better than expectations.
Kevin’s Commentary
This wasn’t just an angry deer, it was an angry monstrous deer - gigantic, fast, strong, and fanged. Thanks to a chemical being dumped in the woods that mutated him. It was impressive how some of the people managed to damage each other in the process dealing with Bambi.
The carnivorous, crafty bunnies were a nice touch too. It wasn’t just Bambi who mutated, it was all the little forest creatures.
I was dreading going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised with how entertaining it was. Dumb, but entertaining.
1965 Planet of the Vampires
Directed by: Mario Bava
Written by: Renato Pestriniero, Ib Melchior, Alberto Bevilacqua
Stars: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda
Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After a crash landing on an alien planet, fixing their ship and taking off again is only one of the problems a crew has to deal with. It’s not quite vampirism despite the title, but the dead rise and there are alien issues. There are some horror elements for sure, but it’s mostly science fiction. The retro-futurism is dialed up to 11 and it’s got a decent story. All in all, we’d call it entertaining fun.
Spoilery Synopsis
We zoom in on a spaceship and then see what’s inside. The bridge crew is all decked out in high-necked black leather uniforms that are a cross between the X-Men and Leather Daddies. They’re picking up strange signals from a point on a nearby planet. Captain Mark Markary calls the other ship, and Mark’s brother starts to say something when the ship loses contact.
Suddenly the gravity goes crazy and everyone experiences 20g as they approach the nearby planet. Somehow, they regain control enough to land on the desolate planet. When they recover, Mark’s crew wakes up and attacks each other.
The ship’s doctor staggers outside, and the atmosphere clears his mind. He doesn’t know why he behaved that way. Mark and Wess inspect their ship outside, and everything looks normal; it was an excellent landing, even if they can’t remember doing it. They find the other ship on their sensors, but can’t tell how badly it’s damaged.
Mark and several of the men go outside and explore the alien, rocky terrain. They get to the other ship, the Galliott, and immediately find a couple of corpses outside; they fought and killed each other. Mark comes to the conclusion that this was all planned… by someone. When they look in through the windows, it appears that they’re all dead inside.
Mark and the others go back to their own ship, the Argos, for tools, and leave Eldon at the other ship to guard the bodies. As soon as they leave he starts hearing voices.
When Mark and the others return, all the bodies are gone, as is Eldon. Also, whatever happened to the signal the ship had been receiving for the past two years? The signal is gone now. The Argos’s solar batteries are drained, so they may not even be able to take off again when the time comes.
Outside, the dead crawl out of their graves and rip off their plastic shrouds. Mark dictates a “captain’s log” but stops when he sees Wess stagger into the ship. Wess tries to disconnect the meteor rejector, but he doesn’t know why when he comes to his senses again. The meteor rejector on the other ship was destroyed– why?
One of their own men, Bert, is killed, and with his dying breath, he accuses Captain Sallis, one of the dead men from the other ship. As everyone discusses the situation, dead Bert opens his eyes and starts to listen. Tiona sees him moving and faints; then the crew buries Bert.
The crew finds the wreckage of another ship, and this one’s been here a long time. They find the skeletal remains of some kind of huge alien. Mark and Sanya go inside, and some of the machinery is still active. They start randomly pushing buttons and hear a recording of what the aliens sounded like. Then the doors close, and they’re trapped inside. They eventually figure out how to open the door again, but when they do, the guard outside, Carter, is gone.
On their return, Tiona reports seeing more of the dead up and walking around. Mark sees Sallis and Keir, two of the men assumed to be dead from the Galliott. Captain Sallis tells his story, and it’s all believable.
Tiona, on the other hand, insists that they are really dead. She insists they open up the graves and check, and they are, in fact, empty.
Meanwhile, Sallis and Keir head straight to the meteor rejector and disable it. When Mark and the others catch Sallis, he admits that he’s not Sallis. Sallis is possessed by another being just using the body. They’re the ones who forced the crew to fight and kill each other so they would have bodies to inhabit. They also sent the signal that brought the humans here. Mark calls them a “breed of parasites,” and Sallis doesn’t like that comparison. They want to go to a more inhabited planet, and they’re holding the meteor rejector hostage. The alien inside Sallis says they can willingly let them in while they are still alive, and it would be a symbiotic relationship, but the humans don’t like that idea.
Mark decides to blow up the Galliott and take off anyway. He and Sonya go over there and find all the dead working on the ship, getting it ready to blast off. With the meteor rejector, they just might be able to do it. They run into Toby, Marks’s brother, and he’s one of the aliens as well now. Mark shoots him dead again.
The living and the possessed have a battle over the Galliot and snatch their meteor rejector while Wess is finishing up repairs on the Argos.
Mark and Sonya run back to their ship and take off immediately. They reinstall the meteor rejector. Wess points out that out of eighteen people, only three are left. Not long afterward, Wess notices that Mark is acting strangely and comes to the conclusion that the captain is possessed as well. He tells Sonya, who picks up a gun on the way to confront Mark. Turns out, both Mark and Sonya are possessed. They intend to go back home and infect the whole planet.
Wess runs to the control room and smashes the meteor rejector, dying in the process. Mark says they’ll never be able to reach home now, but they can make it to this primitive planet the inhabitants call Earth…
The final twist being that the heroes we were rooting for were aliens too.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s no “Forbidden Planet,” but the sets and costumes are on the same par. It’s said to be one of the original influences for “Alien” as well, and several shots and ideas are very similar.
The spaceships are miniatures filmed way too close up, and they don’t look good at all. The planet, while colorfully lit like an episode of “Star Trek,” is hazy, smoky, and effectively creepy and alien. The creatures are more possessed-zombies than actual vampires, but they’re still “undead.”
It’s dated in a 1960’s sci-fi way, being too colorful and sharp, but otherwise, it’s really very good.
Kevin’s Commentary
The space effects aren’t great, but the retro-futurism of the sets, props, and costumes is awesome. I’d barely call it horror, heavily science fiction. Science fiction done the way it was in the 1960s. The story is decent, the cast does a convincing job, and I can see where it might have planted the seeds of “Alien” and some other films that came after this one.
I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before, and I’m glad that I did. I was entertained.
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