QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966)

 

(a.k.a. PLANET OF BLOOD. Director/co-screenwriter: Curtis Harrington. Based on Mikhail Karykov and Otar Koberidze’s story/film MECHTE NAVSTRECHU.)

 

Review

1990. Ambassadors of a mysterious alien race, enroute to Earth to establish relations with humans, crash-land on Mars. On Earth, the International Institute of Space Technology, created to “explore” Mars and Venus, sends a rescue mission for the aliens, with whom communications are hazy at best (along with their general appearance).

The crew of the Oceano are on their way to Mars when multiple complications occur, starting with a sunburst, which damages the Oceano’s system. Upon reaching Mars, the crew members find a lone survivor (a green-skinned, exotic-looking, and mute Alien Queen (her character end-credited as “?”, played by Florence Marly, DOCTOR DEATH: SEEKER OF SOULS, 1973). Several men, especially Paul Grant (Dennis Hopper, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, 1986), are dreamily, romantically drawn to her. After she drains one of her admirers of blood (offscreen), killing him, the remaining crew members decide to restrain, not kill her, because she’s a scientific specimen. . . an obviously bad decision, an opinion voiced by alarmed crew member Allan Brenner (John Saxon, TENEBRAE, 1982), who wants to destroy her.

QUEEN, with a fun, familiar twist or two, is a fast- and tightly paced (for its time) low budget movie, with an all-around solid cast and crew. Its look is sumptuous in an often color-drenched B-movie way (opening with John Cline’s exotic, science fiction-monstrous “title” paintings and stock spooky-theremin music by Ronald Stein, billed as Leonard Moran—Moran’s credits include SPIDER BABY, OR THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD, 1967). QUEEN’s look is further augmented (and made more atmospheric) by impressive special effects lifted from bigger budgeted and uncredited Russian films, BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN, 1959, and MECHTE NAVSTRECHU, 1963), fitting because QUEEN is a remake of MECHTE, English translation DREAM TOGETHER. (MECHTE was also titled DREAM COME TRUE in some countries.)

 

QUEEN’s other notable players and behind-the-scenes crew include:

Basil Rathbone (SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, 1939) as Dr. Farraday, head of the International Institute of Space Technology;

Judi Meredith (THE NIGHT WALKER, 1964) as Laura James, scientist and Allan Brenner’s romantic interest;

Don Eitner (KRONOS, 1957) as Tony Barrata, one of the crew members;

Forrest J. Ackerman (THE HOWLING, 1981, and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD II, 1988) as Dr. Farraday’s assistant (“minus his trademark glasses”, according to IMDb’s QUEEN OF BLOOD “Trivia” page). Ackeman, then-editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, holds something in the movie’s last shot;

Virgil Frye (GARDEN OF THE DEAD, 1972) as “Control Panel” (Frye’s first feature);

Gary Crutcher (GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, 1958) as an uncredited spaceship crew member;

Leon Smith (VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, 1965, also co-directed by Curtis Harrington) was VOYAGE and QUEEN’s set designer, then billed as "set decorator".

and

Vilis Lapenieks (VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET, 1965) was VOYAGE and QUEEN’s cinematographer.

QUEEN might be worth your time if you appreciate its above-noted qualities, particularly if you’re a fan of MARS ATTACKS! (1996; director: Tim Burton) and ALIEN (1979; director: Ridley Scott), the latter of which shares a similar, if darker, more primal, and feminist storyline.

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

According to IMDb: though Ronald Stein’s spooky theremin music sounds like it’s mixed with Louis Barron and Bebe Barron’s FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) “tonalities” it’s not.

Florence Marly reprised her role of “?” (her character’s end-credit in QUEEN) in a six-minute, 16mm sequel, SPACE BOY (1973). In SPACE BOY, her character is named Velarna, and Marly is billed as Florence Marly von Wurmbrand.

QUEEN’s running time is an hour and eighteen minutes, a good choice if you’re looking for a shorter movie to watch.

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

 

(Director: Christian Nyby and an uncredited co-screenwriter Howard Hawks. Co-screenwriter: Charles Lederer.)

Plot: An American Air Force crew and scientists discover an alien space craft and a frozen-solid alien in the Arctic. They bring the supposed corpse back to their nearby outpost, where the Thing─later described as a deadly “super carrot”─thaws, awakens, stalks and begins feeding on the outpost inhabitants and its dogs.

 

Review

Based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1948 story “Who Goes There?” (a rework of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness), THING is an influential, waste-no-time science fiction horror film that makes simple-but-excellent use of chiaroscuro (courtesy of cinematographer Russell Harlan), great camera shots, a fast-moving and smart-minded plot, an underlying sense of humor, and fun, solid acting. James Arness’s makeup as the titular creature is more Frankenstein’s Monster than shapeshifter (like it is in Campbell’s story) because of THING’s limited funding─in Campbell’s tale, the Thing has seaweed-like hair, three crimson eyes, a puckered mouth and blue skin.

THING‘s genre-true achievements are  highlighted by Dimitri Tiomkin’s spare, spooky (and science fiction-familiar) score, as well as mood-appropriate art direction by Albert S. D’Agostino (THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944) and John Hughes, billed as John J. Hughes. There’s also a bit of PG-rated, light-hearted kink, involving two characters and rope!

Kenneth Tobey (HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, 1996) played Capt. Patrick Hendry─in THE NAKED MONSTER (2005, his last film) he played another character with the same name. Other notable cast members include Margaret Sheridan (I, THE JURY, 1953) as Nikki Nicholson, scientific secretary, and Hendry’s romantic interest; Robert Cornthwaite as thorny lead scientist Dr. Arthur Carrington─like Kenneth Tobey, he re-used his character’s name from THING in THE NAKED MONSTER (2005). Douglas Spencer (THIS ISLAND EARTH, 1955) played sarcastic news reporter Ned Scott.

THING is one of my favorite films in its subgenre, a love that filmmaker/composer John Carpenter shares, as evidenced by his television-background use of it in HALLOWEEN (1978) and his 1982 THING remake, titled THE THING.

THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976)

 

(Director/screenwriter/special visual effects: Bert I. Gordon)

Review

A mix of H.G. Wells’s 1904 science fiction novel THE FOOD OF THE GODS AND HOW IT CAME TO EARTH and Cy Endfield’s 1961 film adaptation of Jules Verne’s notably different 1874 novel THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, this 1976 film starts with a heavy-handed voice-over provided by Morgan (Marjoe Gortner, MAUSOLEUM, 1983) telling viewers how he and two football-player buddies went deer-hunting on a Canadian island where they’re attacked by mutated animals. Thankfully, Morgan’s voice-overs merely bookend FOOD (1976).

One of Morgan’s hunting buddies (Davis) is stung to death by man-sized wasps (that look like flying, winged shadows). Morgan and his other friend (Brian) escape, talk to a local woman (Mrs. Skinner, played by Ida Lupino). Skinner, who has mutant chickens and a rooster in her garage, tells Morgan about a weird, white liquid that bubbles out of the earth and how she fed it to her chickens and rooster─the same liquid that might be responsible for the oversized wasps.

Later that evening, Mr. Skinner (John McLiam), back from the mainland, gets a flat tire on his VW Bug and is attacked by a mischief of car-sized rats. More animal-related assaults and deaths follow, including several attacks on Jack Bensington (Ralph Meeker) and his fed-up assistant (Lorna, played by Pamela Franklin)─Bensington owns a company that hopes to strike a deal to distribute the white goo (labeled Food of the Good, FOTG, by the Skinners) for cattle growth.

Then the animals attack en masse! Everything gets crazy violent, lots of arguing, planning, and animal-repelling ensues. More characters die horribly. The familiar ending is solid, believable and (still) timely.

Gordon’s ecological thriller is cheesy, golden turkey fun. There’s a lot to admire about FOOD, released as a PG-rated film (by today’s standards, it’s probably closer to an R). Gordon, known for his big-monster pictures and FX work, wrote and directed this tightly edited movie (e.g., the first ten minutes of FOOD has two giant creature-related deaths). The characters are barely sketched, and the actors are mostly solid in their over-the-top acting (especially Lupino, who make FOOD more fun than it would otherwise be). The practical creature FX are obviously fake in parts, but it makes the film more fun in a nostalgic way. Adding to the enjoyment of these scenes are the sound effects (swarming rats sound like a mix of wild cats, pigs, and something else I couldn’t identify) as well as the suspenseful soundtrack (the latter provided by Eliot Kaplan).

If you have a sense of humor, appreciate solid Seventies B-movies and aren’t sensitive to obviously fake animal deaths (rats were shot with high-intensity blood squirts), this might be your cinematic cheese jam for an hour and a half.

THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020)

 

(Director/screenwriter: Leigh Whannell)

Storyline

Cecilia’s tyrannical ex kills himself and leaves her his wealth. She thinks his suicide is a hoax, a way to get her back. As events unfold, Cecilia─perceived as overwrought by others─struggles to reveal her ex’s sly and cruel plot.

 

Review

This excellent, every-shot-matters and occasional-gore thriller is one of my favorite 2020 films. Part of the reason for this is the superb acting, especially on the part of lead actress Elizabeth Moss (MAD MEN, 2007-15) who effectively embodies the trauma and eventual hope of a long-suffering abuse victim (Cecilia Cass). Cinematographers Stefan Duscio (UPGRADE, 2018, also directed and scripted by Whannell) and Daniel Grant maintain the cold, dark-tint-contrasted-with-antiseptic-brightness look that adds to the relentless, steady-build-up, psychologically intense mood of the film. Unlike UPGRADE, an underrated technology-themed thriller, INVISIBLE (rightfully) was a critical and box office hit, one that rings true to its themes of abuse, human nature, and technology. Its end-shot echoes the style of Alfred Hitchcock’s dramatic character-in-the-foreground scenes, while Benjamin Wallfisch’s score─in this scene Bernard Herman-esque─heightens the emotional rollercoaster of INVISIBLE. Great film, this.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956)

 

(Director: Don Siegel. Screenwriter: Daniel Mainwaring and an uncredited Richard Collins, based on Jack Finney’s Collier’s magazine serial.)

Review

INVASION opens with Dr. Hill (an uncredited Whit Bissell, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, 1954), called by a fellow City Emergency Hospital practitioner (an uncredited Dr. Harvey Bassett, played by Richard Deacon, PIRANHA, 1978) to deal with a shouting, panicked Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy, PIRANHA, 1978). Bennell is from the nearby town of Santa Mira. (The fictional Santa Mira would later, not coincidentally, be the site of horror in Tommy Lee Wallace’s 1982 film HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH.)

Once Dr. Hill gets Bennell to sit down and talk with him, the present-day “Framing Sequence” ends, INVASION’s images segue (with Bennell’s voiceover) into the frantic doctor’s tale. It begins “last Thursday” when Bennell’s receptionist/nurse (Sally Withers, played by Jean Willes) called him back from an out-of-town medical convention. The reason: a flood of panicked appointment-seekers at his office. Some of Bennell’s patients are claiming that their loved ones, although they appear and act normal, are not their loved ones─their family members have become something else, something unsettling. . . with an underlying coldness in their manners.

At first, Bennell thinks it’s a psychiatric matter. He’s also pleasantly distracted by the presence of his recently returned lost love (Becky Driscoll). They’re about to sit down for dinner at their oddly empty favorite restaurant (Sky Terrace Playroom), when Bennell gets a message that married friends, Jack and Thedora “Teddy” Belicec, need his help right away. He and Becky rush over to the Belicecs’, and what they see there makes it evident that something disturbing and cold has Santa Mira in its grip (mind those cuckoo clocks!). . .

Filmed in three or four weeks, this tightly written and shot gem with its frenetic, paranoid 1950s chiaroscuro and a few small twists is a fleet hour-and-twenty-minute work, one that builds steadily in its first quarter and goes full-tilt-racer after that. (McCarthy, whose Bennell runs a lot, later said he was exhausted during filming, especially in his iconic highway scene.)

Don Siegel (DIRTY HARRY, 1971) works his usual practical, shot-economical charm in INVASION, aided by screenwriters Daniel Mainwaring (OUT OF THE PAST, 1947) and Richard Collins (CULT OF THE COBRA, 1955). Giving INVASION its terrifying visual feel, cinematographer Elsworth Fredericks (WORLD WITHOUT END, 1956) and editor Robert S. Eisen provide stark contrasts between comforting, daylit Santa Mira and its nighttime terrors, before mixing the elements of both to terrific effect─their work is heightened by Carmen Dragon’s melodramatic score, and the efforts of the rest of the behind-the-scenes crew.

The onscreen talent is also impressive.

Kevin McCarthy is good as the easy-going-now-ranting Dr. Miles J. Bennell. Dana Wynter is equally worthwhile as his lost love, Becky. Carolyn Jones (THE ADDAMS FAMILY, 1964-6), blond with short, curly hair, is believable as Theodora “Teddy” Belicec, as is King Donovan (who plays her husband, Jack).

Other notable players include: Virginia Christine (THE MUMMY’S CURSE, 1944) as Wilma Lentz, who thinks her uncle is not her uncle; Tom Fadden (EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, 1977) as Uncle Ira Lentz; Sam Peckinpah (later an iconic director) as Charlie, the gas man in Bennell’s basement; and an uncredited Robert Osterloh (GUN CRAZY, 1950) as “Ambulance Driver in Framing Sequences.”

This version of INVASION is one of my all-time favorite alien irruption movies─it’s short, sharp (even with its early-on white picket fence pleasantness) and all-around well-made, with no wasted scenes or lines.