I believe I mentioned the mix up I had with this movie and Planet Of The Vampires (1965) in my Planet Of The Vampires review; for those who haven’t read it, or don’t plan to, I’m going to go into it again, with the memories I have of it now, circa 2024. I believe I saw Planet Of The Vampires first, but it wasn’t under that title, it was under its alternate The Demon Planet. I tried to watch it all the way through, but parts of it freaked me out, so I stopped and my mother put me and my brother to bed.

I saw Queen Of Blood during the afternoon, as it was part of The 4:30 Movie, a staple of New York, but living in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, right next door, we got some of what New York saw. Every once in a while normal programming would be preempted for a week so they could air some classic science fiction flicks, or sci-fi/horror, or even a Godzilla/Gamera marathon! This week long themed program started airing in my neck of the woods in the mid-70s I believe, putting me square in the middle of my single digits, and seeing any movie that young is destined to turn into a “memory movie” whether you like it or not.

What I remember was during Monday they’d advertise the week’s worth of flicks in a quick montage, and for a kid that young that montage was eye candy! I don’t remember what day Queen Of Blood came on, but like Planet Of The Vampires it too wasn’t aired under its original title, it was aired under its alternate Planet Of Blood. And Planet Of Blood’s opening title sequence was memorable, for it was a collection of eerie, otherworldly, painted, landscapes. But you can easily see how a child could confuse these movies in their memory as they grew up. The word, ‘Planet,’ is used too much in both their original and alternate titles, and I actually came across both flicks later in life, but confused one for other and vice versa! Those later-in-life revisits were also under their original titles. It wasn’t until the horror movie magazine Fangoria (original run—1979-2015) came along when I began to understand which title went with which movie, for I’d bump into mention of them in various articles.

But, going back to that first ever viewing of Queen Of Blood, as I said earlier, I wasn’t into horror flicks that young, but every so often I was bumping into science fiction films with horror elements in them, so I was kind of eased into that genre because of that. I found Queen Of Blood good, but eerie, and in the climax I couldn’t help but look away for fear blood was going to be shed and shown, so I listened to the last ten minutes or so.

As I got into my twenties I don’t ever recall bumping into either Planet Of The Vampires or Queen Of Blood ever again, making them relegated to fevered memories from childhood, and when I began formally collecting movies on VHS in 1989 none of the stores I frequented had either on tape. I didn’t end up finally seeing Planet Of The Vampires until it debuted on DVD in the early 2000s, and didn’t end up seeing Queen Of Blood again until it debuted on blu-ray in 2015.

Article from Fangoria #23 interviewing director Curtis Harrington. Click photos to enlarge & read. 

This is a Roger Corman produced (uncredited) film where a majority of it is composed of two soviet made science fiction films he bought; in his interview on the disc he says it’s from one of them, not two. He hired director Curtis Harrington to write a script around the footage, which for its time was quite impressive, and his interest went towards wanting to make something about a space vampire, and that space vampire had to be female to match the soviet footage.

I tend to forget this movie when it comes to remembering the films in the Space Vampire subgenre, not to mention that “Space Vampire” titled episode of the 80s SciFi show Buck Rogers In the 25th Century (1979-1981), but that’s a whole other review I have yet to do, and can’t until I one day acquire Kino Lorber’s blu-ray set, but, mark my words, that day is coming. At the top of that Space Vampire subgenre list is Lifeforce (1985), while the bottom of the list is occupied by the cheesy, tween film from Full Moon titled Teenage Space Vampires (1999) that I saw back in the early 2000s late one night by sheer accident, and weirdly kind of liked it, but again that’s discussion for a another time.

Queen Of Blood is set in Earth’s future, 1990, to be exact, and like most science fiction films from back then that tried to predict where we’d be technologically in “the future,” they pretty much got it wrong—well, maybe not so much wrong as they didn’t push the “future” far enough, but for filmmakers in 1966 they somehow felt we’d already have bases on the moon by 1990. I will give the movie credit for not going so far as to predict “flying cars.” About the only other thing they got wrong was how these moonbases are going to be used as jumping off points for mankind’s planned spaceflight to Mars and Venus, which they finally accomplish for the former within the movie’s runtime.

Before we ever get to the space vampire portion of the movie, that finally takes center stage around the 47-minute mark, we get a lot of planet hopping. But what kicks all this off is a signal Earth gets from an alien civilization eager to make contact with us, this is the crux for the Russian footage to come into play as we get impressive looks at this alien planet, and it’s inhabitants, but the inhabitants are mostly kept in partial shadow, making it easier for Harrington and Corman to duplicate some of the alien space suits used, and so we never quite get a good look at the “ambassador” this race is sending us for first contact, though we see enough to understand it’s a female.

On its trip the ship gets marooned on Mars, and sends out a “video log” vessel to Earth showing us what happened; it’s another excuse to use more of the Russian footage to show the “ambassador” getting on board, taking off and crashing. Once we learn of her plight it’s decided a rescue mission will be sent. Now, I can introduce you to the cast, three of which are noteworthy name actors: Basil Rathbone plays head scientist Dr. Farraday; the movie’s astronauts are John Saxon as Allan Brenner, Dennis Hopper as Paul Grant, Judi Meredith as Laura James, Don Eitner as Tony Barrata and Robert Boon as Anders Brockman. The three I’m talking about are Rathbone, Saxon and Hopper. Rathbone was known for playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of films from 1939 to 1946. I only know this because as a child my mother was a big fan of these movies. Saxon and Hopper have made a number of genre and non-genre flicks that have cemented their names in film history. Before I realized I had first seen Saxon in Queen Of Blood, I kept thinking for the longest time my first introduction to him was in the creature feature Blood Beach (1981). He’s also done a lot of TV which is probably how I really first became aware of him when I was a tot. Nowadays, most may recognize him as Nancy’s father, Lt. Thompson, from A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994). This Queen Of Blood role for Dennis Hopper could be categorized as a before-he-was-famous one, for Hopper’s been in a ton of films since; just Google his filmography and I’m sure you’ll recognize a title or two you’ve seen him in. For me: The Osterman Weekend (1983), Blue Velvet (1986), My Science Project (1986), Witch Hunt (1994), Space Truckers (1996); he’s also done TV and hit just about every genre in existence. Prior to this film he’d already worked with the director on the creepy mermaid film Night Tide (1961).

Our two leads are Allen and Laura, but the astronauts chosen for the rescue mission are Laura, Paul and Brockman as mission commander, leaving Allen and Tony on the moon with Farraday. A rocky journey it is, but they make it to Mars and locate the downed alien vessel that has one dead alien aboard. No “ambassador.” Working theory, she got away in a rescue vessel, which might be somewhere else crashed on the planet. Now, Allen and Tony are up. They need to launch a surveillance satellite to circle Mars, to do that they have to hop over to one of Mars’ moons, Phobos, for that launching. Once that’s done they take their rescue ship on a short jaunt to Mars to meet back up with the rest of the crew, since their main ship won’t have enough fuel for that part of the voyage. Everything goes as planned until they notice an alien ship on Phobos and come to the conclusion the “ambassador’s” ship actually got off Mars and crashed here! A quick search of the vessel gets the alien “ambassador” discovered, unconscious she’s taken back, but the rescue ship only holds two. Tony decides to stay, but have no fear, he doesn’t end up a casualty, all he has to do is ration his food for a week until another ship can reach him and get his ass off Phobos. It’s actually a good thing he wasn’t part of the main cast, since the alien vampire manages to eventually wipe out everyone else but Allen and Laura.

Now, we finally get to the part of the movie that made an impression on me. With everyone on Mars—Allen, Laura, Paul and Brockman—they get acquainted with their female alien ambassador (Florence Marly). This character has no dialogue whatsoever, but Marley puts in a decidedly creepy performance. Her skin is green, she has a weird hairstyle and is dressed in a jumpsuit. Paul spends the most time with her, showing her how to drink through a straw, but she shuns any Earthly food he tries to give her. Earlier, upon regaining consciousness, she gave a creepy, warm, smiling welcome to the men, but frowned once Laura came into view, speculating by the others she doesn’t get along with her own gender. I like the ambiguity surrounding the alien vampire, all the humans ever know about it is what they can ascertain after each killing it makes. And poor Paul is the first to go. He’s on first watch, and while dictating some observations into the computer he hears what sounds like buzzing, investigating he can’t find the source, plus the chair the alien’s been in is suddenly vacant. Once she gets close to him we see her eyes glow, displaying a hypnotic power that allows Paul to succumb easily. He’s found in his chair the next morning, dead with a horrible, bloody wound on his wrist, and the alien is found sleeping deeply on one of their beds, with signs of blood on her lips.

Now they know what she feeds on—blood! Allen wants her instantly dead! Brockman goes into a spiel of how she shouldn’t be killed; she needs to be taken back and studied, etc., etc. What he decides is they have plasma in storage, and as they journey back to Earth they give it her to in a sippy cup basically, and this appeared to work, no one else was murdered, but eventually they ran out, and now it’s Brockman’s turn to push up interstellar daisies and it’s his death that seered itself into my mind, not because it was gory (there’s little to no gore in this film at all, just that one shot of Paul’s wrist), but the creepiness of her stalking towards him. That buzzing starts up again, Brockman spots her way at the end of the ship, he blinks and she’s not there, blinks again and she’s somehow closer. Marley’s creepy performance adds a lot to this scene. Brockman manages to grab a gun, but her glowing hypnotic eyes as she gets close ends any resistance and he’s found dead the next morning by Allen and Laura!

There’s a theory one of them lays out she may be some kind of evolved insect!

Allen comes up with a good plan, at least it looked good at the time, as he ties the alien vamp to a bed, but when she wakes that night she displays a new power, again using her glowing eyes, but this time burning through the ropes constraining her. Laura manages to wake in time to catch her sucking on Allen’s wrists and almost a fight ensues, but it ends before it even begins when Laura just slightly scratches her back, the alien vamp sees her own blood and freaks out! They find her later laying back on her bed, dead, having simply bled to death. Allen surmises she was a hemophiliac—that, maybe, she was royalty, a queen, or something.

The twist as they get ready to touch down on Earth is she hid eggs all over the ship, more theories from Allen—yeah, she was a queen, sent to Earth to lay her eggs and, perhaps, use mankind as a food supply for her race! Can you believe they don’t destroy them?! Scientists board the ship, take her body and the eggs, and the last scene is Farraday’s aide (Forrest Ackerman) holding a tray of the pulsating things for the camera to sit on. Shiver.

Queen Of Blood (1966, aka Planet Of Blood) made its first appearance on DVD in 2011 through MGM’s MOD (Manufacture On Demand) program; though it was lackluster, being of all things, full frame. It finally made the transfer to HD when Kino Lorber Studio Classics acquired it in 2015, unfortunately that release is no longer in print. If you have the dough, though, third parties are selling it on Amazon here!

VIDEO/AUDIO/SUBTITLES: 1080p 1.85:1 High Definition Widescreen—2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio—No Subs

Transfer looked great! Especially, the colors!

EXTRAS INCLUDED . . .

  • Interview With Film Historian Robert Skotak (21:34)
  • Interview With Roger Corman (6:27)
  • Theatrical Trailer (1:26)