Queen of Blood

To be commended for casting a middle-aged woman as a seductive lady vampire; I would have love to have been a fly on the wall when Curtis Harrington told Florence Marly she was perfect for the part. With even less screen time than Max Schreck in 'Nosferatu' she's as memorably predatory but infinitely more alluring.

I saw this movie on late night TV as a teenager. It scared myself and my younger brother so much we never made it to the end. About 20 years later I caught it on TV again and though It didn't have the same impact, I could still see what made it so frightening to me back then. Atmosphere.

It's the year 1990 and scientific receive a distress call , a SOS , from an alien spaceship . As a ball contains a videolog of the events that caused their ship to crashland on Mars . After the crash-landed on Mars , Dr Farraday (Basil Rathbone) decides to send out a team of astronauts , including Allan Brenner (John Saxon) , Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper), Laura James (Judi Meredith) , among others, on a rescue mission. On the planet, they discover just one survivor , this is a green-skinned alien woman that is brought aboard, a peculiar vampire whom they call 'the Queen' and they decide to keep her under observation . The spaceship is ordered to bring back the alien creature . As the crew takes special care of her on the trip back to Earth but she is brought back with disastrous results , as at the end an astronaut is holding some alien eggs . New highs in blood chilling horror ! Hideous beyond belief...with an inhuman craving ¡

It's a formula terror space film with tension , thrills , chills, including some elaborate scares , twists , and results to be entertaining enough . This nifty sci-fi/horror has a thrilling plot , if simple and ordinary , similar to subsequent Sci-Fi- movies , as alien species makes contact with Earth through radio transmission, notifying of an imminent visit , a rescue team goes Mars and discover a strange extraterrestrial , but when one man is attacked and drained of his blood, the survivors are soon racing home , before they too become victim to the bloodsucker . At the beginning shows up some colorful paintings belonging to the artistry of John Douglas Cline, a popular artist in the 1960, forerunner of the Phoenix Art Group, and he founded the John Douglas Cline Gallery in Los Angeles. If you've ever seen the soviet film Niebo Zowiet don't be surprised if some scenes look familiar , the script was written around segments cut from that film . This was an ultra low budget production with decent special effects taken from two big budget Soviet productions , Encounter in space (1963), and Battle Beyond the Sun (1959), though Harrington estimated that most of the film was his. Producers Roger Corman and his brother Gene Corman made a similar operation, as economic as rip-off from a Russian film , with ¨Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet¨also starred by Basil Rathbone . And being released on a double-bill by AIP along with other B-Science Fiction pictures . Acceptable main and support cast , such as : the recently deceased John Saxon , the beautiful Judi Meredith , the great Sherlock's Basil Rathbone and the Czech actress Florence Marly as the beguiling green-skinned woman who was a personal friend of filmmaker Harrington. In the final shot, a cameo by Forrest J. Ackerman, at the time, Ackerman was the editor of the magazine "Famous Monsters¨. Queen of Blood has most often been compared to ¨Lifeforce¨ (1985) by Tobe Hooper and many films have received some inspiration from his feature ¨Queen of Blood¨, as the expensive ¨Alien¨ (1979) by Ridley Scott . Other movies that have been likened to Queen of Blood include ¨The Thing from Another World¨ (1951) by Christian Niby , ¨It! The Terror from Beyond Space¨(1958) by Edward L. Cahn , ¨Terrore nello spazio or Planet of vampires¨ (1965) by Mario Bava and other quickies or sequels as ¨Forbidden world¨(1981) by Allan Holzman or ¨Galaxy of Terror¨(1985) by Bruce Clark . The picture was regular but professionally directed by Curtis Harrington , and it was shot in seven to eight days . Harrington was a good craftsman in B-territory . In 1961 he made a strong and impressive feature-film debut with the nicely moody and quirky Night tide (1961) with Dennis Hooper. His follow-up features were a pleasingly diverse , idiosyncratic and often entertaining bunch , and included the delightfully campy Shelley Winters vehicles as Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972) , What's the Matter with Helen? (1971) ,the perverse The Killing Kind (1973) and the immensely fun Ruby (1977). Moreover , Harrington directed a handful of solid and satisfying made-for-TV offerings: The cat (1973), Killer bees (1974), The Dead Don't Die (1975) and the terror animal Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978) , as well as TV episodes from The Twilight Zone, The Colby , Dynasty , Wonder woman , Hotel , among others .

Basil Rathbone, Dennis Hopper and John Saxon star in this piecemeal sci-fi horror using a ton of great special effects from some Russian film, as far as I've read somewhere anyway. That doesn't detract from the fact that the special effects are great for their time, and really groovy to boot. In fact, things only slow down a bit when we get to the actual story line.

Some aliens announce that they'll be dropping by Earth for a visit and perhaps a pint or too, but their ship crashes on Mars. Rathbone, being the head honcho, dispatches Hopper and a crew to go and find any survivors. They don't find any, but a follow up ship containing Saxon lands on Mars' moon Phobos and finds a female survivor. He leaves his buddy behind and takes a rescue ship over to Mars, where he joins up with the rest of the crew, who then set off home with their green skinned, creepy looking cargo.

This alien, with her beehive hairdo, evil grin, and green skin, is rather creepy to begin with, but when her eyes start glowing and she chows down on a crew member things take off. It's scientific research (the Captain's wishes to keep feeding the alien blood so they can get her back to Earth to study) versus common sense (Saxon just wants to destroy the thing, and quite rightly too). What will prevail? And what will the survivors do with the surprises that the aliens left on the ship?

Keep in mind: This film is PG, and made in the sixties, so don't go expecting Alien. The first half is full of those funky special effects from that other film, and the latter half, although not as fun, still has that creepy, silent alien prowling around. Dennis Hopper looks to be still in his teens and John Saxon gets to say lines like "I've only got paper moon money". What more do you want?

Okay, gore and nudity, but what else?

Queen of Blood (1966)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Earth finally manages to make contact with an alien form but that form crashes on Mars so astronauts are sent to try and rescue any survivors. Allan Brenner (John Saxon) and Laura James (Judi Meredith) both have different opinions on the mission but soon they are fighting for their lives when the Queen alien (Florence Marly) turns out to be a vampire.

QUEEN OF BLOOD isn't your average horror film. If you're familiar with Curtis Harrington then you know he liked to go more towards the art house than the drive-in. His feature film NIGHT TIDE is one of the strangest horror movies that you'll ever see and QUEEN OF BLOOD is just as weird on many levels. I know a lot of people praise Mario Bava for PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and how he managed to turn a low-budget into a great looking production. I think Harrington really deserves the same credit because this movie certainly looks wonderful even if the film itself isn't a complete success.

What does work here are the terrific visuals. You've got the budget of your typical low-budget nature but Harrington makes sure you can't tell that by looking at the picture. I really loved the use of color throughout the film and especially the glowing reds. The colors certainly leap off the screen and manage to grab and hold your attention. Another plus is that we've got an excellent villain in the female vampire. I really loved her look with the green colors and there were some great scenes with the red blood just dripping from her that was quite effective.

Another plus is that we've got a good cast with both Saxon and Meredith doing a nice job with the lead roles. Marly is also quite good in the role of the vampire and we've got Basil Rathbone and Dennis Hopper in small roles. The film certainly does have some flaws including its story, which is rather unoriginal and there's no question that the psychedelic nature doesn't always work in regards to its story. Still, QUEEN OF BLOOD is an interesting picture visually and certainly worth watching.