Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be talking about a long time favorite of mine, the nineteen Mario Bava sci fi horror classic Planet of the Vampires. And I want to start off today by saying that I think perhaps this is the paragon example of a concept we've talked about on the show, that the rub the Fur movie, a movie that is more about audio visual texture than about the characters of the contents of the plot, and that that's absolutely the case here, because before we watched it again for today, I've probably watched Planet of the Vampires at least three or four times, a couple of times without sound on, but at least once with sound. And I honestly could not tell you much about what happens in this movie because whenever I watch it to the extent that I'm paying attention, and it's a movie I kind of love to half pay attention to, but uh, to whatever extent I'm paying attention, the part of the mind that is engaged is not the semantic executive of the forebrain. It is some kind of abyssile lizard consciousness that that is only in a realm of pure sensation and vibe. And what a vibe this movie is. The the sets, the lighting, the costumes are like a baroque organ fugue, just washing over your mind and body. Oh, I I agree absolutely on all counts, because first of all, obviously this is a beautiful looking film, a beautiful sounding film, which we'll get into as well. But also I'm in the same boat I this is the second time I've watched this movie this year. Um, I watched it, uh just under a year ago on an airplane and uh and and yeah, but before I rewatched it, I don't think I would have really been able to tell you what the plot was, aside from just the very basic strokes of of what is obviously visually happening on the screen. I mean, I think it really does not help with plot comprehension that I can't tell most of the characters apart. Yes, and I'm not even sure that's unintentional. I mean, I can recognize basically the main characters, the ones played by by Barry Sullivan and uh and Norma Bengal, but a lot of the other character. I mean, there are tons of just sci fi crew members walking around in these identical costumes, which I love. The costumes are one of the greatest things about this movie, but they sort of hide all of the actors identities and make it difficult to sort one character from another. So a guy walks into the frame wearing his his like leather space child outfit and holding a ray gun, and they say like, oh, hello, and I'm like, I don't know if this is the guy that was in the previous shot or not. Yeah, absolutely, there's there are a number of interchangeable guys in this film that they just kind of move in and out in the background. Sometimes they're they're playing important roles in the plot. But yeah, outside of the two principal actors that we named, I'm not really sure who anybody was at any given time unless they're really hammering it home for me. So for me, this movie is absolutely a vibe trip. It is a It is a huge mood. Uh that, and what's what goes on in the plot is not nearly as significant though if you do pay attention to what happens in the plot, there are some other interesting relationships to other films that you can map out, because while I don't think anybody would accuse Planet of the Vampires of being one of the best sci fi horror movies ever made, I think it does appear to have been a major inspiration point for several of the other greatest sci fi movies ever made, includeing Alien, Ridley Scott's original in seventy nine, which I think many would probably say is is definitely in like top three top five sci fi horror movies of all time, and it is impossible not to notice the overlap between this movie and Alien. But of course, with Planet of the Vampires coming much earlier, right right, and I believe Dan O'Bannon even uh made that connection as well. I think when people ask them about it, though if memory sirs, Ridley Scott was always like, I've never seen it, so I can't say, oh, sure, Ridley, Okay. Well anyway, I think you could play a really interesting game of comparing and contrasting the the cinematography of these two movies, which are maybe you could say, the main selling points in both cases. Uh. Whereas Ridley Scott has a very clean cinematography style, everything is very clear and in many ways very The textures are realist but of course beautifully composed, and the use of light and shadow and all that. But meanwhile, Mario Baba's movie looks like it takes place in a magical realm. Yeah, there is. Um, there is a stark on reality to to a number of you know, Mario Baba's pictures, and certainly that was the case with Black Sabbath, which we talked about previously on this show. But in in this film, yes, everything feels very detached from the Earth world, and and with good reason. I mean, for starters, this is only a mild spoiler. I think depends on how you look at it, I guess. But uh, these are human characters played by human actors, but they are not Karen humans. They are not from Earth. Uh. And ultimately we don't really see them doing much. We don't see artifacts of Earth among their possessions. Um, it's very stripped down. There's a lot of uniformity, not only too, you know how they're dressed, but also just there's a there's a sort of a tidiness and a sterility to their their lives and in the world that they've landed on. This abyssle Uh. Shadow realm. Yeah, it's just absolutely bonkers on a from a visual sense. And there's another thing I would say about the sets and the setting of this film, which is that though it's in many ways in line with things you would see in other sci fi of the era like Star Trek TV show, the original series and stuff, but there is a staginess to the sets that while they are while they are gorgeous and and uh intricately designed, they do not appear to be trying to evoke reality. Instead, they're more like the set you would see in a very well designed stage production, so it's like suggestive of real shapes and forms. I really enjoy comparing this film in my mind to a movie that came out the year prior n Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, because I mean, these are films on totally different ends of the spectrum in terms of of of just how well they're executed. Certainly from a visual uh standpoint, Uh, this film is beautiful. Santa Claus versus The Martians is uh, you know, it's it's amusing, it's funny, it's for kids. But but they're also comparable in a number of ways. You know, there's there is uniformity to create making your humans uh some some sort of a space species. Uh you have these in these using sets to create both uh spaceship environments and um uh you know, terrestrial environments. We might compare the alien world of this film to say, the the polar regions that are depicted in Santa claud versus the Martians. And then also they both rely on that old trick of having a some sort of a tripod landing gear on your spaceship, and that way you can have the model shot, but then you can also incorporate get into your set because your characters are walking amid the legs of the landing legs of the vessel. That's right, And there's a lot of good so there's fun model work but also good force perspective sets where there will be a like a miniature of clearly everything is actually just being shot pretty close to the camera, but there will be uh miniatures of things taking place in the background while characters are like descending across clearly just a ramp that's hidden by some some rocks or spires or something in the foreground. And it's very good at while not actually looking realistic, sort of intoxicating lee, inviting you to suspend your disbelief. It is not something that looks real, but you're all in on the environment because it's playful. Yeah. Yeah, Baba leans into the unreality of everything. And also I would say that that Baba appears to to to only do the things that they can do really well on the screen, and you don't see this film attempting to do things that it cannot do all that well, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, because it absolutely excels at lighting and uh and and I mean lighting is at least half of everything here. I mean, because there are times where you can tell, Okay, in the background, yes this is this is some sort of a cardboard box with lights on it, but you don't notice it so much because of how it is, you know, how everything is lit um. And then just the integrity of the overall set. Yeah. Another thing I wanted to mention that I noticed on this rewatch was, as I said, several times I've watched the movie on mute with like music playing, or you know, while I was hanging out with people or something. Uh, And there's a very different experience when you actually watch it with the soundtrack not just because you hear the lines and understand what's going on in the plot, but also it creates another layer of a vibe, another bid for a different kind of sensory experience, which is I think the audio in this movie invites you to become hypnotized and go to sleep. There are many just types of slow, repetitive, low level sounds that going kind of drones and hums and soft beeps and the sounds of bubbling mud in the background and and things like that. Yeah. Absolutely with this film. Every time I have watched it or attempted to watch it, I have fallen asleep multiple times. Uh. And that's not a slam on this movie. That is not saying this movie is boring or it's not interesting. It's I think it's it's it's it's an exciting film in many respects, and it's beautiful to look at. But not only does it have this visual sort of hypnotic uh you know, pulsating feel to it, much like Get like other Baba films, uh this. Yeah, that the sounds here, both of them, the music, the the electrical the sort of the electronic sound effects, and then also just the straight up uh sound work in the in the movie are all weirdly captivating. I mean, on one level, and we'll will credit the musician in a bit here, but on one level, you do have some traditional mid sixties action movie music that occurs, but it occurs kind of sparingly, and for a lot of the rest of the film, we do have like a deep ambient vibe going on. Especially when they're on the ship. We get some nice ship humming going on, electrical sounds here and there, and then oh, I was especially on this watch, I was really impressed by um all the sounds of of of footsteps and running in the ship. There's this this metallic clanking sound that um that really resonated with me for some reason. Totally agree. In fact, in the very opening scene when we're first coming into the ship's command room, there is something that I at first thought was supposed to be a heartbeat, but then I later thought, well, it's either machinery or I think maybe it's just supposed to be the slow footfalls of Barry Sullivan's character as he wanders from station to station in this room looking over people's shoulders. Yeah, the footfalls are great. When they're on the ship. It's that metallic sound, and then when they're out of the ship, it's kind of this uh it's sand grating against metal sound. Um. And and then there are also some scenes with kind of plastic or rubber sheeting that also has this tremendous uh sound effect to it. And so I was thinking as I was watching this is like, Okay, I'm not really someone who experiences a s MR, but I feel like this movie gives me as close to the a s m R experience as as I can personally imagine. Oh wow, yeah, I'm the same boat. I'm not an a SMR person, but but I can see what you're saying. It is a movie that comes pretty close to inducing an altered state of consciousness on its own. Just watching it kind of lulls you and puts you. It's almost like it synchronizes your brain waves to a different kind of rhythm. Yeah. And and also Baba gives the scenes a lot of room to breathe, uh, which which I think also adds to this um, this tranquil feeling. Though at the same time, I don't want to overstate this movie and make it sound like it's Tarkovsky or something. I mean, like I in most ways, I would say the Planet of the Vampires is not a profound film, and it's also in most ways not a very exciting film, but it is a profound experience somehow, at least for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's yeah, it's certainly not trying to be anything profound either. It is it's setting out to be the most gorgeous uh and stylish space horror film that it can be in the mid sixties and getting to the elevator pitch for this one, I would say you could just basically basically sum up Planet of the Vampires by saying it is the granddaddy of all space horror films. You look at Alien event Horizes and all those, and then you look at the old portrait of Planet of the Vampires and you say, ah, they have its eyes. Yes. Uh. So the basic plot here, and we'll get into the more into the depths in a bit, but it concerns a pair of spaceships piloted again by non tearing humanoids, and these ships are responding to a signal from a shadowy world with a dying son. Uh. They end up getting stuck on the surface of sad shadowy planet. This planet turns out to be a world of mystery, death, undeath, possession and madness. Will they escape? You'll have to watch and find out. Tune in next time. Let's hear that audio. Planet of the vampires harboring a form of life worse than death. Planet of the bloodless creatures who take men's bodies but attack like vampires. I'll tell you this, If there are any intelligent creatures on this planet, there are enemies in this outer space world. The living dead try to escape into life service No, just his body, and I'm just one of many beings on this planet, and we're finding to survive. It's imperative that our race continue to exist. We arranged for several of you to kill each other so that we could take over your bodies. You are less chance. No, never will all of us give up our lives to save our own race. All right? Uh so this is our second Mario Bava film. But just to mention the basics here. Mario Bava, Italian director, legendary Italian director who of nineteen fourteen through nineteen eighty with an unmistakable obsessive and phantasmagorical emphasis on visual composition. Um, Like we've said before, a strong still just any screen grab from a Bava film is instantly identifiable, especially a certain distinctive use of colored gel lighting. Fond of shining up on someone's face with like a purple light or a set that's lit with like a green light or something. Yeah, like and you know he did black and white films as well, like sixties. Black Sunday is black and white though he's one of these directors. Once you see him working with color, how do you go to black and white? Black Sunday is great though, that's a that's a more darker, more serious sort of witchcraft witch hunting film. Yeah, most most of his films were more easily identifiable. Is is horror he did? He didn't just do harror. But I think there are only two films that he did I could be mistaken on this that that are classifiable as science fiction, and this is one of them. Some of his best known movies I think he would put in the jallow genre, like um Blood and Black Lace and uh, I think did he do Bay of Blood baby? Yeah, that's blood. My memory is blood and Black Lace is is pretty great looking and Bay of Blood I recall being ugly and not not making any senses a Bova movie and I didn't really like it. Blood and Black Lace, that's the one with Cameron Mitchell in it. Oh yes, yes, so Planet of the Vampire says all the touches that you might expect from Bava, brilliant gothic colors, characters staring through portals and windows, lots of doors and windows, like this is a film that loves space doors and the space doors are wonderful in it. People looking through glass at things and I always thought that was an interesting detail, like how much that happens in here? Yeah? Also bright blood, high style, and of course just great lighting. Now, this one is based on a novel, A novel by the author Renato uh Pastronniro who was born in nineteen three, and if I'm not mistaken, is still alive. And um, I don't know that any of his works have been translated into English. I looked around, I couldn't find any. I could be wrong, but he seems to have written um books in Italian for for a number of decades. There's some kind of note in the credits about this being based on something that appeared in a serial. Am I wrong about that? Or is this a standalone novel. Um, my understanding is the novel One Night of twenty one hours. But we have to remind ourselves that back in this time period sometimes novels would do this like uh, even like big works like novels from Frank Herbert might be serialized initially before they're published as a as a complete novel. So it was just a different publishing world back then. Uh, certainly in the US and I imagine in Italy as well. Now, the screenplay credits on the film, beyond the author we just mentioned, there are seven credits, including Baba himself and um, you know, the more the better, Um, you know, and if you want to read all of them, you can certainly look up the IMDb profile the But but I thought we mention a couple of them because they're like, I believe, a couple of our Italian screenwriters that Bob at least one that Boba had worked with on other films, a couple of I believe you're Spanish screenwriters. And then we also have two screenwriters come in for the English version. The first is ib Mel Corps who lived nineteen seventeen through Danish American writer with some impressive credits. He wrote and directed fifty nine is The Angry Red Planet uh and sixty four is The Time Travelers. He was a co screenwriter on Robinson Crusoe on Mars and sixty four. In his nineteen sixty five story The Racer, was adapted into the nineteen seventy five Corman produced Paul Bartell directed movie Death Race two thousand. Oh wow. Melkar was also one of the writers behind the hilarious nineteen sixty one Danish kaiju movie Reptilicus. I believe this one was covered on MST three k Okay. I don't think I saw that one more recent MST three Kiss Okay. Yeah, all right. The other screenwriter on the English version Louis M. Hayward, who lived nineteen twenty three two thousand two. Um had his hands in a number of bikini movie screenplays back in the day, but was also a producer on such films as both Dr fives movies, The Vampire Lovers, The Oblong Box, Which Finder General and more. All right, let's get into the cast. Uh So, as previously mentioned, one of the two principal characters, one of the characters that we actually can instantly identify, and this is in large part to the fact that, I mean he has a screen presence. He's has a lot of screen time, and he's an older actor. In this film is Barry Sullivan playing Captain Mark Markari Marquerie Mark and the Funky Crew. Yeah so uh. Barry Sullivan lived nineteen twelve through American actor of TV and film, active from the nineteen thirties up into the nineteen eighties. Um, he was never I think, a huge name, but he seems to have been like a very dependable hand in pictures, very very long stretch, sometimes as the lead, but oftentimes you know, as part of the extended cast. Some of his other notable films include Cause for Alarm and fifty one, The Bad and the Beautiful and fifty two and nineteen seven and four's Earthquake. M hm. He pops up twice on Night Gallery and he did at least one other horror movie, Pyro The Thing Without a Face nine English Spanish co production. What Piro The Thing Without a Face. That seems like two different titles jammed together. Ah Yeah, I haven't seen its like to it, but it looks like it has some sort of creature effect or makeup effect going on in it. I'm not even sure if it's if it's very Sullivan in the creature effect stuff, But at anyway, he's in this film and I think he's the lead. I don't know exactly what to say about Barry Sullivan in this movie, because on one hand, I feel inclined to be critical and call his performance extremely boring. But then again, I don't know what I would change about it. Like, I don't know how different this movie would be if you had a very exciting actor giving a more lively performance in this role, and it might actually undercut some of the other things I like so much about it. Yeah, I was having the same experience because at first I was thinking, like, oh, man, Barry Sullivan is such a bore, why couldn't it have been Cameron Mitchell, for example, in Control? But then as I started watching, As I continued watching it, um, I was really thinking, well, what would Cameron Mitchell have done differently? You know, this this character is what he is. He's he's very stoic. Um. You know, he's uh, he's dry, he's the he's in many ways sort of the typical uh, leading man hero that you would have in classic Hollywood films. He's a cool cucumber under pressure and yeah, he's kind of like the dad of the picture. Yeah, so yeah, I ultimately I'm going to land on saying Barry Sullivan is good in this if nothing else, you can addend that he can set him apart from all the other male characters in the film, because most of the other male characters are kind of interchangeable. Now, one character I always did recognize is the character Sonia played by Norma Bengal. Yeah. Yeah, it's very captivating screen presence, um, uh, beautiful eyes. Of course, she'd dressed in stylish space suits the whole time she lived. N W was a Brazilian actor and musician and later director and producer. Was a big star in Brazil, and that's where I think she was mostly active. Though naturally she appears in some Italian films as well, obviously because this is an Italian film. Uh, certainly outside of Brazil, this is her best known work and yeah, captivating. Um, even if I would say the you know, she's still uh subject to the the reduced ambient acting temperature of this movie. That's a good way of putting it. Yes, I would say the general temperature of the acting in this film is low and that affects everyone, whatever their individual charisma might be. And in other contexts, it's clear Norma Bingal has loads of charisma because she she also had a career as a singer, as I think you mentioned, and I was trying to find some of her music. Not a lot of it seems to be all that easy to access these days. But there's one record she put out that I must get a physical copy of if I can find it anywhere. It's a nineteen fifty nine Bossa Nova album. Uh, and I dug up a few tracks from. First of all, the album is called you Ready for the title it's oh Norma, but I think six or seven ohs in the UK, uh Norma. And the tracks I heard I thought were just great, very smooth and rough at the same time, like a like a pad of butter melting on a crocodile's back. Two thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, you sent me some links to this. There's a cover of fever On here that's quite nice. Um, there's some other tracks. Yeah. She does a song called Hobla La La. I've never heard that before, but it's great. Yeah. Yeah, so yes, the solid Bossa Nova performance in my opinion. I do take a little bossa nova from time to time. Um, does anybody out there have a copy of this record? If you are a listener of our show and you own oh Norma, you must write us contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. I want to know all about this, all right, so we'll come back to her, I'm sure. But other actors in this let's see, there's angel um Aranda. This is uh an actor playing the character Wes west Kint. Another wonderful name. These Mark Marqueri and Wes west Kent. We have to these are all you know, it's laying the seeds for the reveal that these are not Earth humans there from somewhere else where. They have different naming conventions. But anyway, this actor lived ninety four through two thousand, Spanish actor. He was also in nineteen fifty nine The Last Days of POMPEII and seems to have done a fair amount of Westerns and sword and Sandals sort of movies. I think this was a big time for sword and Sandal movies in uh In in Italy. Yeah. Now we have another female character in the film, another crew member. This is Tiona, played by the actor uh Evie Marandi, who was born in ninety one and I think is still with us, a Greek actress that was active from around nineteen nineteen four, did mostly thrillers and crime pictures. It also appears that she was in the Italian mass superhero film gold Face The Fantastic Superman from nineteen I liked her in this too, not just because she was a person I could actually recognize, but she's she's got cool, big hair, which compliments the costumes. Well, so the costumes. Maybe we'll get into this more when we get down to the costume designer credit. But the costumes have these colors that look like Dracula capes. Did Did you also make that connection? Um? I do when I You've pointed this out to me before, and um, and so I think about that when I look at the costume. But at the same level, I don't think I ever put that together myself looking at these costumes, and I would, I would, I would say it's not overt. It's not in a way very like WHOA what wacky space vampires? You know that I think they look pretty sleek. Well, it's also because these characters are not the vampire characters, they're the ones who are the victims of them. But yeah, they've got these very very high collars that like come up past the back of their hairline and over their jaws. Yeah. And then they have these kind of skull caps that they something that they wear sometimes, and they have helmets that they also wear sometimes. But then also when Sonia and uh Tiona, when they take their hel their their skull caps off, they both have just enormous beautiful mid sixties hair. Yeah, And so I think those like the tall collars on the characters are somehow well complimented by any actors that have big hair. Yeah, and boy do they have enormous hair. Now. Well, I guess that most of the rest of the male characters in the film are interchangeable, but I'm gonna mention a couple of them because they have connections to other films we've talked about. We have Stelio Condelli, who plays either a Rian named Brad or mud Um according to IMDb. And again I have to be honest, I do not know which character Brad or mud was. I don't remember, but Kendelli pops up in Hercules. This is the one with lufer Igno that we watched. He's also in Five Demons and seventy four's Nude for Satan. Wow, what a title do you think that got people into the theaters some theaters. Um. Now, we also have the actor Ivan Rassimof as a character named Carter or Dervy. And this guy is interesting because he lived two thousand three. Italian actor who played a lot of heavies. He was in Sergio Martinos All the Colors of the Dark from seventy two. He was in Baba's n seventy seven film Shock, and he played Lord Growl in the Humanoid that's the the off brand Darth Vader in the Star Wars knock off that we watched. Wow. Dervey Jones Locker. All right, well, let's get to some of the behind the scenes names here, just because this is this is very much like you said, the texture of the film is so important. We have to discuss some of the folks who brought that together. First of all, we have Geno Marianosi Jr. Who son of a of an Italian conductor and composer. Obviously the same name senior and Junior, but Junior worked in Italian and European film and TV. He also is credited with electronic effects on this film. And again, those electronic effects are are are not isolated, They are found throughout the picture and are marvelous. I think I got even a hint of there amen at times. Oh yeah, yeah. There's a lot of beeping consoles and machinery inside the ships. Uh. And a great scene where they discover some derelict artifacts and uh. And alien technolog g that has its own sound profiles like the remember the sonic or the high voltage sonic locks and keys and the twin tuning fork. Yeah. Yeah, anything interesting in this film, even halfway interesting, has a signature sound, and if you hear a sound, you're gonna hear it again, and probably like somewhere between four or five times minimum, which I think adds to this sort of hypnotic feel. It's like this is a movie that on some level is just playing with sound. But also my memory is that there's not a lot of music in this movie. I didn't take specific notes on this, but my general impression is there are a lot of scenes that have no music and there's just ambient environmental sound. Yeah, yeah, they're there are long stretches of ambient sound, which I love. There are a few spikes of more traditional action music, but then they're also like say, the in credit music is rather nice and is kind of a mix of these things. Like it's creepy, but it's not just pure electronic ambiance by a stretch. Now, we've been gushing over the sets and the and all in this film, so we should mention that the set decoration. Our direction credit goes to um Giorgio Giovanni, who lived through two thousand and seven. We've mentioned them before because they're credited on Baba's Black Sabbath the Evil I and was also art director on six is the Name of the Rose and six is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Oh interesting man Munchausen has I can see that connection. That also has some fantastic weird sets. Yeah, and I mean certainly the Name of the Rose from eight six is everything's very much based in a in a specific medieval environment, but beautiful sets in that movie as well. And in costume designer we have Gabrielle Mayer, who also did costumes on the stylish Mario Baba film Danger Diabolic from nine. I can see that connection. We we've been gushing about the costumes, but one thing that's worth admitting is there's not a great variety of costumes in this movie. Most of the characters for most of the movie are all wearing exactly the same thing. And yet I love these costumes. There these full body space leather or maybe fake leather, I don't know, vinyl or leather jumpsuits that have they're like black with yellow lining. And we mentioned that they have these very tall collars that come way up, like past the jaw, past the hairline in the back. And then sometimes these caps that go on that I believe have a kind of don't the cap The leather caps have a kind of widow's peak to them, like they come down a little bit in the forehead, almost like Dracula's hairline or something. Yeah they do, Yeah, they do, now that you mention it just tremendous. Is so good? Yeah, these costumes, for one thing, you see them a lot, and you don't really see any flaws in them. You don't see the costum nous shining through. And then also everyone has one and this gets into something I really liked about the film. Like anything that exists in the film, there's a sense of of mass production to it. So everyone has these costumes when sometimes they wear the helmet, but the rest of the time you see multiple helmets, all identical setting around. It's not just one space rifle like ray gun that they have, which is a great design by the way, and especially with the sound effects like sounds and feels clunky, uh and and steal, but everybody will have one at different times, you know, and then they're multiple one setting around on racks. We also see this with some uh time detonator devices. When they go to fetch one, there's like, you know, three dozen of them or something in the cabinet, and I don't know, there's something about that that felt like, I don't know if it was like a mid sixties thing and realizing like the future is mass production, like the Space Ages mass production, and therefore, you know, anything that these these characters have, they're gonna have a whole by each of them and they're all going to be alike. Yeah. The only thing that really differentiates the costumes for most of the movie is they will have these little insignias that seem to indicate rank, like the number of z s you have on your upper pectoral region is is like how what rank you are? I think now there is one section in the middle, and I don't think this is explained at all, But suddenly our two main characters, at least uh Snya and Uh and Markari are wearing different costumes, like they're wearing orange and gray jumpsuits instead of the traditional black and I And every time I watched it, I'm like, what, what's happening? Why are they? Why are you wearing different outfits? And these are fine jumpsuits, don't get me wrong, great jumpsuits. They look kind of like the Running Man uniforms. Yeah, but yeah, I was wondering, sort of off off hand. I was like, well, why did they change jumpsuits? The other one is getting laundered. This is the backup jump suit. I'm not sure, but it still Yeah. Oh and finally, Carlo Rombaldi, who lived twelve was the model maker on this A legend who worked on a number of films, noted for designing et and the mechanical head effects for the creatures in Alien. He was a creature creator on the Dune movie, so you know what that means. This guy was doing sandworms or guild navigators or maybe both. Oh did he make ederick for David Lynch. Maybe, um, I didn't look up specifics on that, but I mean, if you're creating creatures, they're like you basically have two to shoes from there. Uh. And that was Gus arguably the more extravagant design and effect. But he also worked on the never Ending Story, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Frankenstein, Adi Barbarella, uh, and many more, and sometimes he's just credited as Rombaldi. Oh you know you've made it when you can just go by one name. Yeah, Well that that's a heck of a resume because like basically every movie you named there has some pretty awesome models in it. All right, let's get let's get more into the plot of this baby. Okay, Well, I think this is one of those movies where it might be kind of dull to try to recap the plot in a more granular way. So this is one of the ones where I think it makes more sense to summarize the whole thing briefly and then focus on some details that stood out and maybe some interesting readings. So here's the sort of higher level plot rundown. You start with two deep space exploration vessels, the Galleot and the I think this is the Greek word argo, but I think they say argus in the movie, don't they. So the crew members of this one are technically argonauts. That would make sense. Yeah, so so Yeah, the Argus and the Galleot, and they receive a signal from a distress beacon on a previously unexplored planet called Aura, and the two ships attempt to land, but as they were approaching the planet's surface, the crew members aboard the Argus, with the exception of Barry Sullivan, only Captain Marcury is able to resist this. They all seemingly go mad or they become possessed or something, and there's an invisible force and that makes them start beating and choking each other. Yeah. Obvious shades of Event Horizon, which would of course come much later. Event Horizon, of course, was not shy about borrowing elements from other films. Yeah, And eventually Captain Marcury discovers that a sufficient physical jolt breaks the trance, and the possessed crew members are then beaten and returned to their senses one by one. So the Argus lands on the planet surface, which is an an infernal, chaotic terrain of these jagged rocks and inspire shapes, boiling bogs full of white mud, strange lights shining through the fog, and uh and these hues of purple and yellow that very much recall the verdu Lock. So it's another planet, but just Carpathian sorcery crackling through the atmosphere. And they discovered that the other ship, the Galleot, has also successfully landed nearby. They originally didn't know its fate, but they see it in the distance, and so several crew members make an expedition across a simmering lake of mud to check on the crew of the Galleot, and when they arrive, they find the crew all dead, apparently having murdered each other in the same kind of frenzy that sees the crew of the Argus. So they conduct field burials of the crew members that they can access. But there is one section of the ship, I think it's the command room of the ship where they can't get in. The door is locked from the inside, and several bodies remain in there. They look at them through the glass and they're like, okay, we have to go back to our ship to get a cutting torch to access the room. But upon returning, they find that the dead bodies have disappeared from the locked room, and so strange things start happening. Captain Marquery decides that they have to escape planet, but their ship can't take off because of damage, including damage to the so called meteor rejector, which I love. It's a phrase that has said many times in an object we look at over and over. It's like they got these two little tubes that are connected on the top, kind of like a pair of binoculars. But I believe the function of this device is to allow the ship to travel through space without being smashed by rocks. It rejects the meteors. Yeah, and it's a cool it's a cool looking bit of the static. Cool looking prop. Right, So they need some time for the engineer to finish repairs on the media rejector. Meanwhile, the surviving crew members start disappearing while out on watch and stuff, and some start giving reports that they've seen dead men from the galleat up and walking around. There's one part where this is confirmed because they open up one of the graves that they dug and we can talk more about the graves in a minute, because I love them. And they find no nobody in there anymore. Eventually, apt in Markery and Sonia Sonia's Norma Bengaligan, they investigate a weird find. There is a derelict ship of unknown origin and around it are the skeletons of gigantic humanoid aliens. So the skeletons look human, but they would have been like fifteen feet tall or something. And they conclude that this ship and these aliens, whoever they are, were also lured to the planet by the distress beacon, the same one they responded to but ages ago, and we're probably killed by whatever forces attacking them now, so obviously direct connections to alien right here, Yeah, lured to a planet by a distress beacon, you set down and investigate. There is a derelict ship of unknown origin with some kind of alien corpse inside a skeleton that looks like it's been there for for centuries, and something on the planet killed the aliens who operated the ship. That that's the situation an alien and it's the situation and planet of the vampires. So it's a pretty strong similarity. And their visual similarities too, with like the way the skeleton looks stretched out like the engineer and alien and the skeleton in uh in the planet here uh. And so eventually two crew members who had previously been thought dead show up on the ship, and they are soon revealed to be not their original selves but dead bodies that have been reanimated and possessed by some kind of incorporeal beings native to the planet somehow like the native inhabitants of this planet Uh. It's almost suggested that because of the decline of their species, they've been reduced to a kind of ghost like or raith like like existence where they have no bodies of their own and must only and can only exist by occupying the more to vital bodies of of still living beings from a more vital planet. Yeah. Yeah, they're they're kind of like hungry ghosts. The planet Aura is dying because the sun is fading, and the distroy speaking was in fact designed to lure in aliens that they could possess and then steal their spacecraft to escape the planet and find greener past years elsewhere. So the remaining humans try to prevent this by blowing up the galleat, and they succeed there and eventually escape on the Argus with the only survivors being Marcury, Sonia and West the engineer. But spoiler for a twist coming. Marcury and Sonia announced to West that they are actually also possessed by the invisible vampires of Aura. And they give a little speech. They say, you know, they tell us, come along, merge with us. It's great, it's bliss and uh so West reacts by trying to destroy the ship. He attacks the media rejector once again and he's killed in the process. But without a meteor rejector, the vampire versions of Marcury and Sonia have no choice but to land at the nearest available planet. And they zoom in on the viewscreen and what is the planet? It is Earth. We see like North and South America, and so I guess, oh, or Earth is next? Yeah, this was This was very exciting, and I think I had actually forgotten about this twist from when I watched the film, um, just a little less than a year ago, and so I was, Yeah, I was. I was excited by the first of all the dark twist here. We've talked about some other films from this era and how at times it feels like they were very hesitant to in things on a on a on a bummer note or on a dark note. And this is certainly kind of a dark note because we have these these like psychic parasitic aliens that have now can't can't go to the technologically advanced planet. They have to come to this barbaric planet of Earth. And um we get the super zoom in and we see the city of New York all right, believe it's supposed to be New York, much in the same way that we see some zoom ins of New York City in Santa Claus versus the Martians. By the way, but um, I part of me was a little um disappointed that it was clear that this was a then modern day Earth that they were arriving at, because for a second there was thinking, oh, what if they're about to arrive at like truly um like a prehistoric day in um in in Earth's history or you know, very early on in human history. And maybe because they talk about when the aliens are pitching their whole like let us live inside you thing, they're kind of like, well, you just have to reduce your will a little bit. And it's it's not like a like a parasitism, it's they're kind of making the case that it's more like symbiosis, And I was thinking, like, wouldn't that have been a nice twist if they if it's kind of revealed that what we are is due to their interference, that like the you know, the mystery of human consciousness is wrapped up in the fact that as psychic aliens from another world infiltrated our species at some prior age and human evolution, we are the vampires. The vampires are our consciousness or something. Yeah, yeah, but I guess instead it's supposed to be like nineteen sixties New York and they're gonna show up there instead, which is fine, Which is fine, not a criticism, solid dancing. Yeah, we don't need to see the I'm glad they didn't try and actually film a sequel, but but yeah, this is a solid twist ending. I liked it a lot. Now, there was something I just briefly wanted to mention. I was looking at a chapter in a book called Horror in Space, Critical Essays on a Film sub Genre, edited by Michelle Brittany from and there's a chapter in this about space horror movies that are specifically quote undead planets in vampiric dream worlds in outer space. This is by an author named Simon Bacon. The top line title of the chapter is under the Influence. Now. It goes into a lot of complicated detail about like, uh postmodern theory of of hyper reality based on Boatyard and stuff, And I'm not going to go in depth on that. I just want to say that it's got a cool idea that basically that earth life and our natural society is in an in an industrialized world, a state in which we are constantly hyper aroused by technology and media all around us that are presenting us uh imagery and just a barrage of supernormal stimuli that creates a kind of Disneyland reality where the senses never come to rest, and as a result, we never experience something that feels like the real world, Like we are alienated from a sense of baseline, authentic reality by the fact that we are that we are in a constant state of hyper stimulation and arousal. And it contrasts that with what is often shown to be life up ord to spaceship in science fiction movies. So you can think about the slow tranquility of the scenes where characters are walking around in the command room as they're just flying through space. That that, of course space itself being without sound in it, that's a big part of it, you know, that that it's just a very calming void. And in fact, in a lot of these sci fi movies, characters literally go into a state of suspended animation. It's like an unnaturally tranquil condition where that hyper stimulated reality recedes and you can almost approach a more authentic and real version of connection to the physical environment by going into the void of space. So I thought that was interesting. But then the second half of it is that a lot of these space horror movies that involve a kind of vampiric entity in outer space, like a planet that wants to drain our life force or something like that, it often seems to work by taking those astronauts who have been writ dird kind of tranquil and more in touch with a real baseline reality by their space travels and trying to put them in the states of hyper excitement and arousal once again. All right, So it's it's almost like through space travel they have disconnected from the artificial world, become more in line with the underlying reality, kind of achieved sort of a space Buddha hood. But now they're being like sucked back into the into into into the material world, into the world of again all the supernormal stimuli world of desire and ravenous hunger. Yes, And to use a very cliche example, it's like, by going into space, you essentially are able to unplug from the matrix. And then there are all these movies that in some way or other, there's a there's a monster in space, and what it wants you to do once you come within its influence is to kind of uh use you use your body or use your brain to its elf plug into your matrix that you've just gotten out of. All right, And so the argument here is these distant worlds are kind of a way of holding the mirror up to Earth itself, to what are our actual um society and culture and media is doing to us. Yeah, so I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like a good uh academic read on a pictures like this. You know, uh, we're clearly and clearly they weren't intending to really make any statements and this sort of thing with the Planet of the Vampires, uh no more than event Horizon was trying to Yeah, I guess the argument in favor of theories like this would be that there is sort of common thoughts that people are having in a kind of inarticulated or subconscious way that are coming through in these works of art and entertainment. Yeah, I mean, the myth is popular because the myth is doing something that it's stirring certain thoughts, and sometimes there's a uniformity to the thoughts that are stirred by the myth, and so yeah, it's all fair game to analyze exactly what is the collective experience of this story. Now to jut off in a totally different direction, I want to mention how how Rachel and I totally went down a labyrinthine rabbit hole trying to figure out the font of the opening credits of Planet in the Fires, because whatever it is, it's first of all beautiful, I love the design, and second it seems to have made uh it or something like it seems to have become recently popular in the publishing industry. Or Rachel was looking at the screen, she said something like, I've read three books in the past year that had to cover with this font on it, and so we kind of we kind of turned into that guy in Zodiac trying to track all this down and pin and and much like Zodiac, the Mad investigation had an inconclusive result. Turns out these books don't actually use all exactly the same font as the movie or as each other, but they all kind of look similar. And that look is an elegant uh sans serif. We're only barely serah to all caps font that is a bit like hand lettering, and it emits fumes of retro Hollywood. I think the closest real font we found too, it was called Lydian and you so you can look that up and and get a close approximation, but not exactly. And then after the whole thing, I realized, in fact, this text might not even be a standard type set at all, might just be hand painted lettering. I'm not sure, but either way, it's gorgeous and it looking at these credits it made me want to wear sunglasses indoors and like walk around the block with a campari on the rocks. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, you know, I sometimes I feel like I suffer from font blindness, uh, and ultimately can't tell some of these fonts from each other. But this is this is nice. These are nice fonts. I'll give you that. Also, can we talk about how spacious the command room in this ship is. Oh, it's enormous. It's like, um, it's like a TV church set or something. You know, it's bigger than of my house there. It's gigantic, the like there is just tons of open floor space with nothing in it. And I think about how that contrasts to a lot of other movies where the command room is very cramped. It's like seats right next to each other and these consoles directly in front of them. That this command room is like a warehouse. Yeah. Yeah, you can compare this to say Alien, where everything is very cramped and you certainly don't have wide open spaces in which characters could conceivably dance with one another. Um. I imagine some filmmakers of the day, we're probably asking why is there not a dance number in this well? But there is a well choreographed fight scene in this big room. Oh yeah, And you know, I have to say I was I was kind of shocked to to to hear myself thinking this, But I dug the five choreography in this film, Like it's a lot of times from this era that the action is a little cowboy ask, you know when you're looking at US and European films. Um, But there's something about the physicality in this that it feels like it's the right level. There's a scuffle kind of late in the film that's pretty well put together, and there's a moment early on when like the crew members are going crazy where one character there are a couple of characters on screen and then a character runs in from off screen with tremendous speed, attempting to like clawber or grapple somebody. And I think this is the scene is accentuated by the sound of those metallic foot footfalls ship but it's like dat whap and there he is, and yeah, it feels very real. Now. Another scene that stands out to me every time, and I know it stood out to you as well, that we've got to talk about is the scene where the buried crew members rise from the grave. Yes, so again it's you get it's not really revealed at this point, I think, but you certainly get the inclination that, yeah, these are not normal Earth humans because their burial practices, their field burials are weird. Um. It involves not just digging a pit, but across at the top of it. No, they dig out a hole, they wrap the body in plastic, place the plastic wrap body in the hole, cover said hole or ditch with metal plating, and then erect a weird metal obelisk at the head of the grave. The obelisk looks like a cow tools version of a pocket knife saw. Yeah, and it's it's wonderfully weird, like it doesn't match up with with human religions and funeral traditions, so it's just like like early on you're just like, what, who are what are they doing? Why? Why is this what they do? And and yeah, it adds a and it's it's enough like an actual grave and grave traditions that we can connect with it and we can connect with the undead stuff to follow. But it's it's also just weird and inhuman it's it's wonderful. But the really I'm not sure exactly why this is, but the thing that makes the scene where the bodies come out of the grave perfect for me is the clear plastic they're draped in because they rise up. They don't just like cut through it and then stand up. They stand up with the with the plastic sheeting still wrapped around them, and oh it's it's it's chilling and it's beautiful. Yeah, this is one of my favorite things in the whole picture, because of course we have this hellish lighting behind the entities as they rise, so it's, uh, you know, we already have this very atmospheric feel to the environment. You know, they're rising up when this this plastic or rubber sheeting, and we get the wonderful sound effects of that rubber or plastic stretching and being ripped. Like when I look at the still I can hear the sound. That's how strong it is. Um And I think it I think one of the things that works here is that on some level, I don't know if they intended this, but it's almost like it is a rebirth and it's in the plastic or rubber is like a birth call that must then be ripped from the creatures before they can go forth, and you know, cause their mischief. Do you remember the scene later this is another undead reveal where they're the crew members who come back and they're acting like that, Oh yeah, we're sorry, we were still alive. We were just somewhere else. Um And you need to let us onto the ship now. And there's a moment where one of their vests gets knocked open, like the leather jumpsuit comes open, and you see his torso and it's just like gouged out and rotting, and he quickly covers it back up. And somehow that felt like it was on the same frequency as the as the clear plastic Yeah, yeah, absolutely, now, um it was some other shot. I mean, this is a film that's just filled with beautiful shots, so we can't give you due diligence to all of them, but some of the ones I loved. I loved how uh there are scenes where characters are talking to each other through essentially little screens. Um, but at least some of these, not all of them, but I think some of these were created by simply having the character stand on the other side of of a like a plastic bubble um which uh, which works really well. I don't know. I just again, it's something coming back to Baba, Like Baba excels at having characters look through windows at each other or at the camera, and so here we have the technological version of that. You remember the face through the window in the Verdilac. Yeah, yeah, so definitely something to look for anytime you watch a Bava film. Now, how about that alien spaceship though, once we get to board that, oh, there's all sorts of wonderful stuff. So this is the scene where we're very Sullivan and uh Norma Bengal are wearing the gray and orange jumpsuits instead of the black and yellow ones, and they are I think it is I'm pretty sure I believe that is right. Yeah, And so they go to investigate the sterilic ship and inside there are these gigantic skeletons and there's purple lighting everywhere. Things appear to be draped in I don't even know what it is. It looks again, I guess, like clear plastic, but it doesn't read that way in the scene. It reads more like some kind of organic film that has been deposited there. And they're trying to understand the like the tools and the technology of the sterile spaceship, and they don't actually figure it all out. I mean, they do get locked inside for a moment and they think they're going to suffocate, and they have to figure out how to operate one of the one of the keys, the electronic keys that will open the door. But the problem is that you can't. Their puny bodies can't handle these keys that they like get shocked by them. Yeah, and there's this wonderful sequence where they're moving through Uh. I guess it's like several um port holes. It's like concentric circles and it has a spiral feel to it the way that it's framed. Uh, this is you know, one of the more beautiful shots in the whole picture. That's their entrance into the space the alien spaceship, and then of course they have to exit that way as well. Um. And like I think I said earlier, anytime a door is opening in this uh this movie. Yeah, it's just I'm just enraptured. Like the doors on the the on the main spaceships, but also the doors on the alien spaceships like they have a real weight to them. They feel like clunky and thick. Yeah, just was totally I totally bought in on all the sets in this film. This movie makes me want to compose a list. I think I need to consult consult with the audience here. Top ten all time uh planet surface sets in sci fi movies? What what are your favorites. Oh wow, like clearly sets not and not actual environments not on locations. Yeah, that does complicated. I mean I do like a planet surface set that's more stagy in the way that this is as opposed to just like finding a weird landscape actually outdoors on Earth and using that that that can be cool too in a more realistic movie. Both both work or can work. Like I know, I've talked about this on the show before. Oh what's it called? The sequel to Prometheus, the Alien Covenant. Alien Covenant a great example of a terrible movie that I just really like for some reason despite it being bad. I recognize it's bad, but it just it just works for me. Um and the I mean, the planet surface sets in that movie are great, though they're all I think outdoor sets. Well, I would not say that Aithan Covenant is terrible. I would say that Alien Covenant is a buffet, and you don't have to load your plate up with everything from the buffet, just focus on the the tasty dessert treats. It is a buffet. If a buffet included um, nachos, pizza, sushi, beef, tartar uh and uh and cevich a all in the same place, so you don't have to load your plate up with all those things. But where were you going with that? Something about location? Oh no, I was just talking about how it's a great example of I mean, beautiful planet surface. But they're just like I think, mostly shot actually on Earth surface. They're just cool looking locations outdoors on Earth. Oh yeah. And of course Star Wars, the Star Wars franchise has long been grade at this, like find a unique environment and uh and it feels totally believable as an alien desert or a or a forest moon. All right, well we're gonna go ahead and uh and call it there. Um. I will say real quick, if you want to watch this movie for yourself, it is widely available. Um as of this recording, you can stream it on Prime is just part of your Prime membership. That's how I watched it. Um. It's widely available on DVD and Keno Laarber put out a very nice blue ray of this movie. Is that is that what you watched it on? Joe? Do you have the blue Yeah? I have the blue ray? Yeah, so um so yeah, check those out. Definitely worth seeing in the the highest visual quality you can you can do and I also have to say, yeah, the first time I watched it, I watched it on my iPhone, um on a on an airplane, and that was fine. But I enjoyed it much more on the big screen. Like some some films you can you can watch in your iPhone and you're not losing a lot like uh, but but this, this is this is one that I think you need a nice big screen presentation. And hey, if you fall asleep while watching it, don't be ashamed. That's that's part of the vibe. That's just the movie doing its work. Um oh, speaking of rubbing the Fur, Uh, we've we've we've said it enough. It's going to take on a physical reality. Keep an eye on our merch store. We're working on some rub the Fur emerge. Uh well, we'll see how it comes together. Uh, let's see what else to mention? Oh yeah, if you if you like the website letterboxed, you can check out the profile for a Weird House Cinema. There it's just Weird House. Uh so sign up there, follow us there if that's your thing. Let us know what you think. Um I could right now. It's just a list of the films that we've covered but if people are interested and interested enough in it, we could do a little more there. Um we'll see and uh yeah, this is Weird House Cinema every Friday. In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but one day a weequally we like to set all that aside and just focus in on a weird and wonderful film such as this one. Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.