Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is,
Speaker 1: of course an episode from the vaults. This is a
Speaker 1: classic episode that originally published five six, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: It is Mario Bava's nineteen sixty five sci fi classic
Speaker 1: Planet of the Vampires, frequently cited as one of the
Speaker 1: films to inspire Ridley Scott's Alien. So this is one
Speaker 1: of our favorites. Hope you enjoy. Dive right in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about a longtime favorite of mine,
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixty five Mario Bava sci fi horror cla
Speaker 3: Planet of the Vampires. And I want to start off
Speaker 3: today by saying that I think perhaps this is the
Speaker 3: paragon example of a concept we've talked about on the show,
Speaker 3: that the rub the Fur movie, a movie that is
Speaker 3: more about audio visual texture than about the characters or
Speaker 3: the contents of the plot. And that's absolutely the case
Speaker 3: here because before we watched it again for today, I've
Speaker 3: probably watched Planet of the Vampires at least three or
Speaker 3: four times, a couple times without sound on, but at
Speaker 3: least once with sound. And I honestly could not tell
Speaker 3: you much about what happens in this movie because whenever
Speaker 3: I watch it to the extent that I'm paying attention,
Speaker 3: and it's a movie I kind of love to half
Speaker 3: pay attention to. But to whatever extent I'm paying attention,
Speaker 3: the part of the mind that is engaged is not
Speaker 3: the semantic executive of the forebrain. It is some kind
Speaker 3: of abyssal lizard, conscient busness that is only in a
Speaker 3: realm of pure sensation and vibe. And what a vibe
Speaker 3: this movie is. The sets, the lighting, and the costumes
Speaker 3: are like a baroque organ fugue, just washing over your
Speaker 3: mind and body.
Speaker 1: Oh, I agree absolutely on all counts, because first of all,
Speaker 1: obviously this is a beautiful looking film, a beautiful sounding film,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into as well. But also I'm in
Speaker 1: the same boat. This is the second time I've watched
Speaker 1: this movie this year. I watched it just under a
Speaker 1: year ago on an airplane. And yeah, but before I
Speaker 1: rewatched it, I don't think I would have really been
Speaker 1: able to tell you what the plot was aside from
Speaker 1: just the very basic strokes of what is obviously visually
Speaker 1: happening on the screen.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it really does not help with
Speaker 3: plot comprehension that I can't tell most of the characters apart. Yes,
Speaker 3: and I'm not even sure that's unintentional. I mean I
Speaker 3: can reckgize basically the main characters, the ones played by
Speaker 3: Barry Sullivan and Norma Bingal, but a lot of the
Speaker 3: other character I mean, there are tons of just sci
Speaker 3: fi crew members walking around in these identical costumes, which
Speaker 3: I love. The costumes are one of the greatest things
Speaker 3: about this movie, but they sort of hide all of
Speaker 3: the actor's identities and make it difficult to sort one
Speaker 3: character from another. So a guy walks into the frame
Speaker 3: wearing his like leather Space Child outfit and holding a
Speaker 3: ray gun, and they say like, oh hello, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is the guy that was
Speaker 3: in the previous shot or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, there a number of interchangeable guys in
Speaker 1: this film that just kind of move in and out
Speaker 1: in the background. Sometimes they're playing important roles in the plot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, outside of the two principal actors that we
Speaker 1: named I'm not really sure who anybody was at any
Speaker 1: given time unless they're really hammering it home for me.
Speaker 3: So for me, this movie is absolutely a vibe trip.
Speaker 3: It is a huge mood and what's what goes on
Speaker 3: in the plot is not nearly as significant. Though if
Speaker 3: you do pay attention to what happens in the plot,
Speaker 3: there are some other interesting relationships to other films that
Speaker 3: you can map out. Because while I don't think anybody
Speaker 3: would accuse Planet of the Vampires of being one of
Speaker 3: the best sci fi horror movies ever made, I think
Speaker 3: it does appear to have been a major inspiration point
Speaker 3: for several of the other greatest sci fi movies ever made,
Speaker 3: including Alien, Ridley Scott's original in seventy nine, which I
Speaker 3: think many would probably say is definitely in like top
Speaker 3: three top five sci fi horror movies of all time,
Speaker 3: and it is impossible not to notice the overlap between
Speaker 3: this movie and Alien, But of course, with Planet of
Speaker 3: the Vampires coming much earlier.
Speaker 1: Right right, And I believe Dan O'Bannon even made that
Speaker 1: connection as well. I think when people ask about it, though,
Speaker 1: if memory serves, Ridley Scott was always like, I've never
Speaker 1: seen it, so I can't.
Speaker 3: Say, oh sure, Ridley, Okay, Well, anyway, I think you
Speaker 3: could play a really interesting game of comparing and contrasting
Speaker 3: the cinematography of these two movies, which are maybe you
Speaker 3: could say, the main selling points in both cases. Whereas
Speaker 3: Ridley Scott has a very clean cinematography style, everything is
Speaker 3: very clear and in many ways very The textures are
Speaker 3: realistic but of course beautifully composed, and the use of
Speaker 3: light and shadow and all that. But meanwhile, Mario Baba's
Speaker 3: movie looks like it takes place in a magical realm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a stark on reality to a number
Speaker 1: of you know, Mario Boba's pictures, and certainly that was
Speaker 1: the case with Black Sabbath, which we talked about previously
Speaker 1: on this show. But in this film, yes, everything feels
Speaker 1: very hatched from the Earth world, and with good reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, for starters, this is only a mild spoiler,
Speaker 1: I think depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Speaker 1: But these are human characters played by human actors, but
Speaker 1: they are not tearing humans. They are not from Earth,
Speaker 1: and ultimately we don't really see them doing much. We
Speaker 1: don't see artifacts of Earth among their possessions. It's very
Speaker 1: stripped down. There's a lot of uniformity, not only to
Speaker 1: know how they're dress, but also just there's a sort
Speaker 1: of a tidiness and a sterility to their lives and
Speaker 1: then the world that they've landed on, this abyssle shadow realm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just absolutely bonkers from a visual sense.
Speaker 3: And there's another thing I would say about the sets
Speaker 3: and the setting of this film, which is that though
Speaker 3: it's in many ways in line with things you would
Speaker 3: see in other sci fi of the era like Star
Speaker 3: Trek TV show, the Original series and stuff, but there
Speaker 3: is a staginess to the sets that while they are
Speaker 3: while they are gorgeous and intricately designed, they do not
Speaker 3: appear to be trying to evoke reality. Instead, they're more
Speaker 3: like the set you would see in a very well
Speaker 3: designed stage production, so it's like suggestive of real shapes
Speaker 3: and forms.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy comparing this film in my mind to
Speaker 1: a movie that came out the year prior, nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, because I mean, these are
Speaker 1: films on totally different ends of the spectrum in terms
Speaker 1: of just how well they're executed. Certainly from a visual standpoint,
Speaker 1: this film is beautiful. Santa Claus versus The Martians is
Speaker 1: you know, it's amusing, it's funny, it's for kids, but
Speaker 1: they're also comparable in a number of ways. You know,
Speaker 1: there is uniformity to create making your humans some sort
Speaker 1: of a space species. You have these using sets to
Speaker 1: create both spaceship environments and terrestrial environments. We might compare
Speaker 1: the alien world of this film to say, the polar
Speaker 1: regions that are depicted in Santa Claus Versus the Martians.
Speaker 1: And then also they both rely on that old trick
Speaker 1: of having some sort of a tripod landing gear on
Speaker 1: your spaceship, and that way you can have the model shot,
Speaker 1: but then you can also incorporate it into your set
Speaker 1: because your characters are walking amid the legs of the
Speaker 1: landing legs of the vessel.
Speaker 3: That's right, and there's a lot of good So there's
Speaker 3: fun model work, but also good force perspective sets where
Speaker 3: there will be a like a miniature of clearly everything's
Speaker 3: actually just being shot pretty close to the camera, but
Speaker 3: there will be miniatures of things taking place in the
Speaker 3: background while characters are like descending across a clearly just
Speaker 3: a ramp that's hidden by some rocks or spires or
Speaker 3: something in the foreground. And it's very good at while
Speaker 3: not actually looking realistic, sort of intoxicatingly inviting you to
Speaker 3: suspend your disbelief. It is not something that looks real,
Speaker 3: but you're all in on the environment because it's playful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Bava leans into the unreality of everything. And
Speaker 1: also I would say that that Baba appears to to
Speaker 1: only do the things that they can do really well
Speaker 1: on the screen, and you don't see this film attempting
Speaker 1: to do things that it cannot do all that well,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, right, Yeah, because it absolutely
Speaker 1: excels at lighting. And I mean lighting is at least
Speaker 1: half of everything here. I mean because there are times
Speaker 1: where you can tell, Okay, in the background, yes this
Speaker 1: is some sort of a cardboard box with lights on it,
Speaker 1: but you don't notice it so much because of how
Speaker 1: it is, you know, how everything is lit. And then
Speaker 1: just the integrity of the overall set.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another thing I wanted to mention that I noticed
Speaker 3: on this rewatch was, as I said, several times I've
Speaker 3: watched the movie on mute with like music playing, or
Speaker 3: you know, while I was hanging out with people or something.
Speaker 3: And there's a very different experience when you actually watch
Speaker 3: it with the soundtrack, not just because you hear the
Speaker 3: lines and understand what's going on in the plot, but
Speaker 3: also it creates another layer of vibe, another bid for
Speaker 3: a different kind of sensory experience, which is I think
Speaker 3: the audio in this movie invites you to become hypnotized
Speaker 3: and go to sleep. There are many just types of slow, repetitive,
Speaker 3: low level sounds that go on, kind of drones and
Speaker 3: hums and soft beeps and the sounds of bubbling mud
Speaker 3: in the background and things like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely with this film. Every time I have watched
Speaker 1: it or attempted to watch it, I have fallen asleep
Speaker 1: multiple times. And that's not a slam on this movie.
Speaker 1: That's not saying this movie is boring or it's not interesting.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's it's it's an exciting film in
Speaker 1: many respects, and it's beautiful to look at. But not
Speaker 1: only does it have this visual sort of hypnotic, you know,
Speaker 1: pulsating feel to it, much like I get like other
Speaker 1: Bava films. This, Yeah, the sounds here both then the music,
Speaker 1: the electrical sort of the electronic sound effects and then
Speaker 1: also just the straight up sound work in the in
Speaker 1: the movie are all weirdly captivating. I mean, on one level,
Speaker 1: and we'll credit the musician in a bit here, but
Speaker 1: on one level, you do have some traditional mid sixties
Speaker 1: action movie music that occurs, but it occurs kind of sparingly,
Speaker 1: and for a lot of the rest of the film,
Speaker 1: we do have like a deep ambient vibe going on,
Speaker 1: especially when they're on the ship. We get some nice
Speaker 1: ship hum going on, electrical sounds here and there, and
Speaker 1: then oh, I was especially in this watch, I was
Speaker 1: really impressed by all the sounds of footsteps and running
Speaker 1: in the ship. There's this metallic clanking sound that really
Speaker 1: resonated with me for some reason.
Speaker 3: Totally agree. In fact, in the very opening scene when
Speaker 3: we're first coming into the ship's command room, there is
Speaker 3: something that I at first thought was supposed to be
Speaker 3: a heartbeat, but then I later thought, well, it's either
Speaker 3: machinery or I think maybe it's just supposed to be
Speaker 3: the slow footfalls of Barry Sullivan's character as he wanders
Speaker 3: from station to station in this room, looking over people's shoulders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the footfalls are great when they're on the ship,
Speaker 1: it's that metallic sound, and then when they're out of
Speaker 1: the ship, it's kind of this sand grating against metal sound.
Speaker 1: And then there are also some scenes with kind of
Speaker 1: plastic or rubber sheeting that also has this tremendous sound
Speaker 1: effect to it. And so I was thinking as I
Speaker 1: was watching this, as like, Okay, I'm not really someone
Speaker 1: who experiences ASMR, but I feel like this movie gives
Speaker 1: me as close to the ASMR experience as I can
Speaker 1: personally imagine.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, I'm the same boat. I'm not an
Speaker 3: ASMR person, but I can see what you're saying. It
Speaker 3: is a movie that comes pretty close to inducing an
Speaker 3: altered state of consciousness on its own. Just watching it
Speaker 3: kind of lulls you and puts you. It's almost like
Speaker 3: it synchronizes your brain waves to a different kind of rhythm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also Bava gives the scenes a lot of
Speaker 1: room to breathe, which I think also adds to this
Speaker 1: tranquil feeling.
Speaker 3: Though at the same time, I don't want to overstate
Speaker 3: this movie and make it sound like it's Tarkowsky or something.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, in most ways, I would say The
Speaker 3: Planet of the Vampires is not a profound film, and
Speaker 3: it's also in most ways not a very exciting film,
Speaker 3: but it is a profound experience somehow, at least for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah. It's certainly not trying to
Speaker 1: be anything profound either. It is it's setting out to
Speaker 1: be the most gorgeous and stylish space horror film that
Speaker 1: it can be in the mid sixties, and getting to
Speaker 1: the elevator pitch for this one, I would say you
Speaker 1: could just basically sum up Planet of the Vampires by
Speaker 1: saying it is the grandaddy of all space horror films.
Speaker 3: You look at Alien, Event, Horizon, all those, and then
Speaker 3: you look at the old portrait of Planet of the
Speaker 3: Vampires and you say, ah, they have its eyes.
Speaker 1: Yes. So the basic plot here, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: the more into the depths in a bit, but it
Speaker 1: concerns a pair of space ships piloted again by non
Speaker 1: tearin humanoids, and these ships are responding to a signal
Speaker 1: from a shadowy world with a dying sun. They end
Speaker 1: up getting stuck on the surface of said shadowy planet.
Speaker 1: This planet turns out to be a world of mystery, death, undeath, possession,
Speaker 1: and madness. Will they escape you'll have to watch and
Speaker 1: find out.
Speaker 3: Tune in next time. Let's hear that audio.
Speaker 4: Planet of the vampires harboring a form of life worse
Speaker 4: than death. Planet of the bloodless creatures who take men's
Speaker 4: bodies but attack like vampires.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you this, if there are any intelligent creatures
Speaker 5: on this planet.
Speaker 4: There are enemies in this outer space world. The living
Speaker 4: dead try to escape into life.
Speaker 5: Sallus no justice body, and I'm just one of many
Speaker 5: beings on this planet inter survive. It's impressive that our
Speaker 5: race continued to exist. We arranged for several of you
Speaker 5: to kill each other so that we could take over
Speaker 5: your bodies. You are our last chance.
Speaker 4: No never, We'll all of us give up our lives
Speaker 4: to save our own race.
Speaker 1: All right, So this is our second Mario Bava film.
Speaker 1: But just to mention the basics here. Mario Bava Italian director,
Speaker 1: legendary Italian director who of nineteen fourteen through nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: with an unmistakable obsessive and phantasmagorical emphasis on visual composition.
Speaker 1: Like we said before, a strong still. Just any screen
Speaker 1: grab from a Bava film is instantly identifiable.
Speaker 3: Especially a certain distinctive use of colored gel lighting, like
Speaker 3: a fond of shining up on someone's face with like
Speaker 3: a purple light, or a set that's lit with like
Speaker 3: a green light or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know he did black and white films
Speaker 1: as well, like nineteen sixties. Black Sunday is black and white,
Speaker 1: though he's one of these directors once you see him
Speaker 1: working with color, how do you go to black and white?
Speaker 3: Black Sunday is great, though, that's a more darker, more
Speaker 3: serious sort of witchcraft witch hunting film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most of his films were more easily identifiable is horror.
Speaker 1: He didn't just do horror. But I think there are
Speaker 1: only two films that he did I could be mistaken
Speaker 1: on this that are classifiable as science fiction, and this
Speaker 1: is one of them.
Speaker 3: Some of his best known movies I think you would
Speaker 3: put in the shallow genre like Blood and Black Lace.
Speaker 3: And I think did he do Bay of Blood bag? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's blood. My memory is Blood and Black Lace is
Speaker 3: pretty great looking and Bay of Blood are recall being
Speaker 3: ugly and not not making any sense as a Bava movie,
Speaker 3: and I didn't really like it.
Speaker 1: Blood in Black Lace, that's the one with Cameron Mitchell
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yes, so.
Speaker 1: Planet of the Vampires has all the touches that you
Speaker 1: might expect from Bava. Brilliant Gothic colors, characters staring through
Speaker 1: portals and windows, lots of doors and windows, like this
Speaker 1: is a film that loves space doors and the space
Speaker 1: doors are wonderful in it.
Speaker 3: People looking through glass at things, and I always thought
Speaker 3: that was an interesting detail, like how much that happens
Speaker 3: in here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, also bright blood, high style, and of course just
Speaker 1: great lighting. Now this one is based on a novel,
Speaker 1: a novel by the author Renato Pesternaniro who was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty three, and if I'm not mistaken, it's
Speaker 1: still alive. And I don't know that any of his
Speaker 1: works have been translated into English. I looked around, I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any. I could be wrong, but he seems
Speaker 1: to have written books in Italian for a number of decades.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of note in the credits about this
Speaker 3: being based on something that appeared in a serial. Am
Speaker 3: I wrong about that? Or is this a standalone novel?
Speaker 1: My understanding is the novel One Night of twenty one Hours.
Speaker 1: But we have to remind ourselves that back in this
Speaker 1: time period, sometimes novels would do this, even like big
Speaker 1: works like Dune novels from Frank Herbert might be serialized
Speaker 1: initially before they're published as a complete novel. So it
Speaker 1: was just a different publishing world back then, certainly in
Speaker 1: the US and I imagine in Italy as well. Now,
Speaker 1: the screenplay credits on the film, beyond the author we
Speaker 1: just mentioned, there are seven credits, including Bava himself. Oh
Speaker 1: and you know, the more the better, you know, And
Speaker 1: if you want to read all of them, you can
Speaker 1: certainly look up the IMDb profile. But I thought we
Speaker 1: would mentioned a couple of them because they're like I
Speaker 1: believe a couple of are Italian screenwriters that Bob, at
Speaker 1: least one that Bob had worked with on other films,
Speaker 1: a couple I believe for Spanish screenwriters. And then we
Speaker 1: also have two screenwriters come in for the English version.
Speaker 1: The first is ib Melcor who lived nineteen seventeen through
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. Danish American writer with some impressive credits. He
Speaker 1: wrote and directed fifty nine's The Angry Red Planet and
Speaker 1: sixty four as the Time Travelers. He was a co
Speaker 1: screenwriter on Robinson Crusoe on Mars and sixty four and
Speaker 1: his nineteen sixty five story The Racer was adapted into
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy five Corman produced Paul Bartel directed movie
Speaker 1: Death Race two thousand.
Speaker 3: Oh Wow. Melkar was also one of the writers behind
Speaker 3: the hilarious nineteen sixty one Danish kaiju movie reptilicous Ha.
Speaker 1: I believe this one was covered on MS two three
Speaker 1: k oh okay.
Speaker 3: I don't think I saw that one.
Speaker 1: More recent to MS two three k oh okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. The other screenwriter on the English version Louis M. Hayward,
Speaker 1: who of nineteen twenty through two thousand and two had
Speaker 1: his hands in a number of bikini movie screenplays back
Speaker 1: in the day, but was also a producer on such
Speaker 1: films as both Doctor Fibes movies, The Vampire Lovers, The
Speaker 1: Oblong Box, Which Finder General and more. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get into the cast. So this previously mentioned one of
Speaker 1: the two principal characters. One of the characters that we
Speaker 1: actually can instantly identify, and this is in large part
Speaker 1: do the fact that, I mean he has a screen presence,
Speaker 1: he has a lot of screen time, and he's an
Speaker 1: older actor in this film is Barry Sullivan playing Captain.
Speaker 3: Mar Marcari, Markery Mark and the Funky Crew.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: Barry Sullivan lived nineteen twelve through nineteen ninety four, American
Speaker 1: actor of TV and film, active from the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: up into the nineteen eighties. He was never, I think,
Speaker 1: a huge name, but he seems to have been like
Speaker 1: a very dependable hand in pictures, very very long stretch,
Speaker 1: sometimes as the lead, but oftentimes you is part of
Speaker 1: extended cast. Some of his other notable films include Cause
Speaker 1: for Alarm in fifty one, The Bad and the Beautiful
Speaker 1: and fifty two and nineteen seventy four's Earthquake. M He
Speaker 1: pops up twice on Night Gallery, and he did at
Speaker 1: least one other horror movie, Pyro The Thing Without a
Speaker 1: Face nineteen sixty four English Spanish co production.
Speaker 3: What did Pyro The Thing Without a Face? It seems
Speaker 3: like two different titles jammed together.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, so I can't really speak to it,
Speaker 1: but it looks like it has some sort of a
Speaker 1: creature effect or makeup effect going on in it. Not
Speaker 1: even sure if if it's Barry Sullivan and the creature
Speaker 1: of fact stuff, but at any rate, he's in this film,
Speaker 1: and I think he's the lead.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what to say about Barry Sullivan
Speaker 3: in this movie, because on one hand, I feel inclined
Speaker 3: to be critical and call his performance extremely boring, But
Speaker 3: then again, I don't know what I would change about it. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know how different this movie would be if
Speaker 3: you had a very exciting actor giving a more lively
Speaker 3: performance in this role, and it might actually undercut some
Speaker 3: of the other things I like so much about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was having the same experience because at first
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, oh, man, Barry Sullivan is such
Speaker 1: a bore. Why couldn't it have been Cameron Mitchell, for example,
Speaker 1: in this role. But then as I started wating, as
Speaker 1: I continued watching it, I was really thinking, well, what
Speaker 1: would Cameron Mitchell have done differently? You know, this this
Speaker 1: character is what he is. He's very stoic, you know,
Speaker 1: he's dry, the he's in many ways sort of the
Speaker 1: typical leading man hero that you would have in classic
Speaker 1: Hollywood films. He's a cool cucumber under pressure and yeah,
Speaker 1: he's kind of like the dad of the picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I ultimately I'm going to land on saying
Speaker 1: Barry Sullivan's good in this if nothing else, you can
Speaker 1: have doen it. He can set him apart from all
Speaker 1: the other male characters in the film, because most of
Speaker 1: the other male characters are kind of interchangeable.
Speaker 3: Now, one character I always did recognize is the character
Speaker 3: Sonya played by Norma Bingal.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, very captivating screen presence, beautiful eyes of course,
Speaker 1: dressed in stylish spacesuits. The whole time she lived. Nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five through twenty thirteen. She was a Brazilian actor
Speaker 1: and musician and later director and producer. Was a big
Speaker 1: star in Brazil, and that's where I think she was
Speaker 1: mostly active. Though Natural Issue appears in some Italian films
Speaker 1: as well. Obviously, because this is an Italian film, certainly
Speaker 1: outside of Brazil, this is her best known work and yeah, captivating,
Speaker 1: even if I would say, you know, she's still subject
Speaker 1: to the reduced ambient acting temperature of this movie, that's.
Speaker 3: A good way of putting it. Yes, I would say
Speaker 3: the general temperature of the acting in this film is low,
Speaker 3: and that affects everyone, whatever their individual charisma might be.
Speaker 3: And in other context, it's clear that Norma Bengal has
Speaker 3: loads of charisma because she also had a career as
Speaker 3: a singer, as I think you mentioned, and I was
Speaker 3: trying to find some of her music. Not a lot
Speaker 3: of it seems to be all that easy to access
Speaker 3: these days. But there's one record she put out that
Speaker 3: I must get a physical copy of if I can
Speaker 3: find it anywhere. It's a nineteen fifty nine Bossa Nova album,
Speaker 3: and I dug up a few tracks from it. First
Speaker 3: of all, the album is called you Ready for the title, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's Ooh Norma. I think six or seven o's in
Speaker 3: the ooga Ooh Norma. And the tracks I heard I
Speaker 3: thought were just great, very smooth and rough at the
Speaker 3: same time, like a pad of butter melting on a
Speaker 3: crocodile's back. Two thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you sent me some links to this. There's
Speaker 1: a cover of fever On here that's quite nice.
Speaker 3: Some other tracks, Yeah, she does a song called ho
Speaker 3: Ba La La. I've never heard that before, but it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so yes, solid Bossonova performance. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: I do take a little Bosonova from time to time.
Speaker 3: Does anybody out there have a copy of this record?
Speaker 3: If you are a listener of our show and you
Speaker 3: own Ooh Norma, you must write us contact it stuff
Speaker 3: to blow your mind dot com. I want to know
Speaker 3: all about this, all.
Speaker 1: Right, so we'll come back to her, I'm sure. But
Speaker 1: other actors in this, let's see, there's Angel Aranda. This
Speaker 1: is an actor playing the character Wes west Kent. Another
Speaker 1: wonderful name.
Speaker 3: These Mark Marcury and Wes west Kent.
Speaker 1: We have to these are all you know. It's laying
Speaker 1: the seeds for the reveal that these are not Earth humans.
Speaker 1: They're from somewhere else where. They have different naming conventions.
Speaker 1: But anyway, this actor lived nineteen thirty four through two thousand.
Speaker 1: Spanish actor. He was also in nineteen fifty nine's The
Speaker 1: Last Days of Pompeii and seems to have done a
Speaker 1: fair amount of westerns and sword and Sandals sort of movies.
Speaker 3: I think this was a big time for sword and
Speaker 3: sandal movies in Italy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now we have another female character in the film,
Speaker 1: another crew member. This is Tiona, played by the actor
Speaker 1: Evi Marandi, who was born in nineteen forty one and
Speaker 1: I think is still with us. A Greek actress that
Speaker 1: was active from around nineteen fifty nine through nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: seventy four, did mostly thrillers and crime pictures. It also
Speaker 1: appears that she was in the Italian mass superhero film
Speaker 1: gold Vase The Fantastic Superman from nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 3: I liked her in this too, not just because she
Speaker 3: was a person I could actually recognize, but she's got cool,
Speaker 3: big hair, which complements the costumes well. So the costumes.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll get into this more when we get down
Speaker 3: to the costume designer credit. But the costumes have these
Speaker 3: collars that look like Dracula capes. Did you also make
Speaker 3: that connection?
Speaker 1: I do when I You've pointed this out to me before,
Speaker 1: and and so I think about that when I look
Speaker 1: at the costume. But at the same level, I don't
Speaker 1: think I ever put that together myself looking at these costumes,
Speaker 1: and I would, I would. I would say it's not overt.
Speaker 1: It's not in a way where you're like, whoa wacky
Speaker 1: space vampires, you know, I think they look pretty sleek.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also because these characters are not the vampire characters.
Speaker 3: They're the ones who are the victims of them. But yeah,
Speaker 3: they've got these very very high collars that like come
Speaker 3: up past the back of their hairline and over their jaws.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they have these kind of skull caps
Speaker 1: that they that they wear sometimes, and they have helmets
Speaker 1: that they also wear sometimes. But then also when Sonya
Speaker 1: and Tiona, when they take their help their skull caps off,
Speaker 1: they both have just enormous beautiful mid sixties hair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I think those, like the tall collars
Speaker 3: on the characters are somehow well complimented by any actors
Speaker 3: that have big hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and boy do they ever enormous hair. Now. Well,
Speaker 1: I say most of the rest of the male characters
Speaker 1: in the film are interchangeable, but I I'm gonna mission
Speaker 1: to mention a couple of them because they have connections
Speaker 1: to other films we've talked about. We have Stilio Condelli,
Speaker 1: who plays either a character named Brad or Mud according
Speaker 1: to IMDb. And again I have to be honest, I
Speaker 1: do not know which character Brad or Mud was. I
Speaker 1: don't remember. But Candelli pops up in nineteen eighty five's Hercules.
Speaker 1: This is the one with Lufrigno that we watched. He's
Speaker 1: also in nineteen eighty five's Demons and seventy four's Nude
Speaker 1: for Satan.
Speaker 3: Wow, what a title do you think that got? People
Speaker 3: into the theaters.
Speaker 1: Some theaters. Now, we also have the actor Ivan Rasimov
Speaker 1: as a character named Carter or Dervy. And this guy's
Speaker 1: interesting because he lived nineteen thirty eight through two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, Italian actor who played a lot of heavies.
Speaker 1: He was in Sergio Martino's All the Colors of the
Speaker 1: Dark from seventy two. He was in Baba's nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven film Shock, and he played Lord Grau in the
Speaker 1: Humanoid that's the off brand Darth Vader in the Star
Speaker 1: Wars knockoff that we watched.
Speaker 3: Wow, Dervy Jones Locker.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's get to some of the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes names here. Just because this is very much
Speaker 1: like you say, the texture of the film is so important,
Speaker 1: we have to discuss some of the folks who brought
Speaker 1: that together. First of all, we have Gino Maronosi Junior,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty through nineteen ninety six, son of
Speaker 1: an Italian conductor and composer. Obviously the same name Senior
Speaker 1: and Junior, but Junior worked in Italian and European film
Speaker 1: and TV. He also is credited with electronic effects on
Speaker 1: this film, and again those electronic effects are not isolated.
Speaker 1: They are found throughout the picture and are marvelous. I
Speaker 1: think I got even a hint of theram and at times.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of beeping consoles and
Speaker 3: machinery inside the ships, and a great scene where they
Speaker 3: discover some derelict artifacts and an alien technology that has
Speaker 3: its own sound profiles like the you remember the sonic
Speaker 3: or the high voltage sonic locks and keys and the
Speaker 3: tuning fork.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, anything interesting in this film, even halfway interesting,
Speaker 1: has a signature sound, and if you hear a sound,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear it again, and probably like somewhere between
Speaker 1: four to five times minimum, which I think adds to
Speaker 1: this sort of hypnotic feel. It's like this is a
Speaker 1: movie that on some level is just playing with sound.
Speaker 3: But also my memory is that there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of music in this movie. I didn't take specific notes
Speaker 3: on this, but my general impression is there are a
Speaker 3: lot of scenes that have no music and there's just
Speaker 3: ambient environmental sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there are long stretches of ambient sound, which
Speaker 1: I love. There are a few spikes of more traditional
Speaker 1: action music, but then there are also, like to say,
Speaker 1: the end credit music, is rather nice and is kind
Speaker 1: of a mix of these things, like it's creepy, but
Speaker 1: it's not just pure electronic ambience by any stretch. Now,
Speaker 1: we've been gushing over the sets and all in this film,
Speaker 1: so we should mention that the set decoration art direction
Speaker 1: credit goes to Giorgio Giovanni, who lived nineteen twenty five
Speaker 1: through two thousand and seven. We've mentioned them before because
Speaker 1: they're credited on Bava's Black Sabbath the Evil Eye and
Speaker 1: was also art director on nineteen eighty six Is the
Speaker 1: Name of the Rose In nineteen eighty six is The
Speaker 1: Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Speaker 3: Oh, interesting man Munchausen has I can see that connection.
Speaker 3: That also has some fantastic weird sets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean certainly the Name of the Rose
Speaker 1: from eighty six is everything's very much based in a
Speaker 1: specific medieval environment, but beautiful sets in that movie as well.
Speaker 1: And then costume designer we have Gabrielle Mayer, who also
Speaker 1: did costumes on the stylish Mario Bava film Danger Diabolic
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 3: I can see that connection. Now we've been gushing about
Speaker 3: the costumes, but one thing that's worth admitting is there's
Speaker 3: not a great variety of costumes in this movie. Most
Speaker 3: of the characters for most of the movie are all
Speaker 3: wearing exactly the same thing. And yet I love these costumes.
Speaker 3: There are these full body space leather or maybe fake leather,
Speaker 3: I don't know, vinyl or leather jumpsuits that have their
Speaker 3: like black with yellow lining. And we mentioned that they
Speaker 3: have these very tall collars that come way up, like
Speaker 3: past the jaw, past the hairline in the back. And
Speaker 3: then sometimes these caps that go on that I believe
Speaker 3: have a kind of don't The leather caps have a
Speaker 3: kind of widow's peak to them, like they come down
Speaker 3: a little bit in the forehead, almost like Dracula's hairline
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah they do, Yeah, they do, now that you mention.
Speaker 3: It, just tremendous. Is so good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, these costumes, for one thing, you see them a lot,
Speaker 1: and you don't really see any flaws in them. You
Speaker 1: don't see the costuminess shining through. And then also everyone
Speaker 1: has one and this gets into something I really liked
Speaker 1: about the film. Like anything that exists in the film,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of mass production to it. So everyone
Speaker 1: has these costumes when sometimes they wear the helmet, but
Speaker 1: the rest of the time you see multiple helmets, all identical,
Speaker 1: setting around. It's not just one space rifle like ray
Speaker 1: gun that they have, which is a great design by
Speaker 1: the way, and especially with the sound effects like sounds
Speaker 1: and feels clunky and steal, but everybody will have one
Speaker 1: at different times, you know, and then there are multiple
Speaker 1: ones setting around on racks. We also see this with
Speaker 1: some time detonator devices. When they go to fetch one,
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, three dozen of them or something
Speaker 1: in the cabinet, and I don't know, there was something
Speaker 1: about that that felt like, I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was like a mid sixties thing and realizing like the
Speaker 1: future is mass production, like the space Age is mass production,
Speaker 1: and therefore, you know, anything that these these characters have,
Speaker 1: they're going to have a whole bunch of them and
Speaker 1: they're all going to be alike. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The only thing that really differentiates the costumes for most
Speaker 3: of the movie is they will have these little insignias
Speaker 3: that seem to indicate rank, like the number of z's
Speaker 3: you have on your upper pectoral region is like, how
Speaker 3: what rank you are?
Speaker 1: I think. Now there is the one section in the
Speaker 1: middle and I don't think this is explained at all,
Speaker 1: But suddenly our two main characters, at least Sonya and
Speaker 1: and Marcari are wearing different costumes, Like they're wearing orange
Speaker 1: and gray jumpsuits instead of the traditional black, And every
Speaker 1: time I watch it, I'm like, what what's happening? Why
Speaker 1: are you wearing different outfits? And these are fine jumpsuits,
Speaker 1: don't get.
Speaker 3: Me wrong, great jumpsuits. They look kind of like the
Speaker 3: Running Man uniforms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I was wandering sort of off hand.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, why did they change jumpsuits? The
Speaker 1: other one is getting laundered. This is the backup jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but it's still as if they explain it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh and finally, Carlo Rambaldi, who lived nineteen twenty five
Speaker 1: through twenty twelve, was the model maker on this A
Speaker 1: legend who worked on a number of films, noted for
Speaker 1: designing et and the mechanical head effects for the creatures
Speaker 1: in Alien. He was a creature creator on the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four Dune movie, So you know what that means.
Speaker 1: This guy was doing sandworms or guild navigators or maybe both.
Speaker 3: Oh did he make Edric for David Lynch.
Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't look up specifics on that, but I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're creating creatures, they're like, you basically have two
Speaker 1: to shoes from there, and that was it's arguably the
Speaker 1: more extravagant design and effect. But he also worked on
Speaker 1: The Never Ending Story, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Frankenstein,
Speaker 1: eighty Barbarella, and many more, and sometimes he's just credited
Speaker 1: as Rembaldi.
Speaker 3: Oh you know you've made it when you can just
Speaker 3: go by one name. Yeah, well that's a heck of
Speaker 3: a resume, because like basically every movie you named there
Speaker 3: has some pretty awesome models in it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get let's get more into the plot
Speaker 1: of this baby.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I think this is one of those movies
Speaker 3: where it might be kind of dull to try to
Speaker 3: recap the plot in a more granular way. So this
Speaker 3: is one of the ones where I think it makes
Speaker 3: more sense to summarize the whole thing briefly and then
Speaker 3: focus on some details that stood out and maybe some
Speaker 3: interesting readings. So here's the sort of higher level plot rundown.
Speaker 3: You start with two deep space exploration vessels, the Galiot,
Speaker 3: and I think this is the Greek word argo, but
Speaker 3: I think they say argus in the movie, don't they.
Speaker 1: So the crew members of this one are technically argonauts.
Speaker 3: That would make sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the Argus and the Galliot, and they receive
Speaker 3: a signal from a distress beacon on a previously unexplored
Speaker 3: planet called Aura, and the two ships attempt to land,
Speaker 3: but as they're approaching the planet's surface, the crew members
Speaker 3: aboard the Argus, with the exception of Barry Sullivan, only
Speaker 3: Captain Marcury is able to resist this. They all seemingly
Speaker 3: go mad, or they become possessed or something. There's an
Speaker 3: invisible force that makes them start beating and choking each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, obvious shades of Event Horizon, which would of course
Speaker 1: come much later. Event Horizon, of course, was not shy
Speaker 1: about borrowing elements from other films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And eventually Captain Marcery discovers that a sufficient physical
Speaker 3: jolt breaks the trance, and the possessed crew members are
Speaker 3: then beaten and returned to their senses one by one.
Speaker 3: So the Argus lands on the planet's surface, which is
Speaker 3: an infernal, chaotic terrain of these jagged rocks and spire shapes,
Speaker 3: boiling bogs full of white mud, strange lights shining through
Speaker 3: the fog, and these hues of purple and yellow that
Speaker 3: very much recall the Verdulach. So it's another planet, but
Speaker 3: just Carpathian sorcery crackling through the atmosphere. And they discovered
Speaker 3: that the other ship, the Galiat, has also successfully landed nearby.
Speaker 3: They originally didn't know its fate, but they see it
Speaker 3: in the distance, and so several crew members make an
Speaker 3: expedition across a simmering lake of mud to check on
Speaker 3: the crew of the Galiat, and when they arrive, they
Speaker 3: find the crew all dead, apparently having murdered each other
Speaker 3: in the same kind of friends that sees the crew
Speaker 3: of the Argus. So they conduct field burials of the
Speaker 3: crew members that they can access. But there is one
Speaker 3: section of the ship, I think it's the command room
Speaker 3: of the ship where they can't get in. The door
Speaker 3: is locked from the inside, and several bodies remain in there.
Speaker 3: They look at them through the glass and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we have to go back to our ship to get
Speaker 3: a cutting torch to access the room. But upon returning
Speaker 3: they find that the dead bodies have disappeared from the
Speaker 3: locked room, and so strange things start happening. Captain Marcury
Speaker 3: decides that they have to escape the planet, but their
Speaker 3: ship can't take off because of damage, including damage to
Speaker 3: the so called meteor rejector, which I love. It's a
Speaker 3: phrase that is said many times in an object we
Speaker 3: look at over and over. That's like, got these two
Speaker 3: little tubes that are connected on the top, kind of
Speaker 3: like a pair of binoculars. But I believe the function
Speaker 3: of this device is to allow the ship to travel
Speaker 3: through space without being smashed by rocks. It rejects the meteors.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's a cool looking bit of the satic.
Speaker 3: Cool looking prop, right, So they need some time for
Speaker 3: the engineer to finish repairs on the media rejector. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the surviving crew members start disappearing while out on watch
Speaker 3: and stuff, and some start giving reports that they've seen
Speaker 3: dead men from the galleat up and walking around. There's
Speaker 3: one part where this is confirmed because they open up
Speaker 3: one of the graves that they dug and we can
Speaker 3: talk more about the graves in a minute because I
Speaker 3: love them, and they find nobody in there anymore. Eventually,
Speaker 3: Captain Marcury and Sonia Sonya's Norma bengal Agan. They investigate
Speaker 3: a weird find. There is a derelict ship of unknown
Speaker 3: origin and around it are the skeletons of gigantic humanoid aliens.
Speaker 3: So the skeletons look human, but they would have been
Speaker 3: like fifteen feet tall or something. And they conclude that
Speaker 3: this ship and these aliens, whoever they are, were also
Speaker 3: lured to the planet by the distress beacons, same one
Speaker 3: they responded to but ages ago, and were probably killed
Speaker 3: by whatever force is attacking them now.
Speaker 1: So obviously direct connections to Alien.
Speaker 3: Right here, Yeah, lured to a planet by a distress beacon,
Speaker 3: you set down and investigate there is a derelict ship
Speaker 3: of unknown origin with some kind of alien corpse inside
Speaker 3: a skeleton that looks like it's been there for centuries,
Speaker 3: and something on the planet killed the aliens who operated
Speaker 3: the ship. That that's the situation in Alien and it's
Speaker 3: the situation in Planet of the Vampires. So it's a
Speaker 3: pretty strong similarity and their visual similarities too, with like
Speaker 3: the way the skeleton looks stretched out like the engineer
Speaker 3: in Alien and the skeleton in Planet Here. And so
Speaker 3: eventually two crew members who had previously been thought dead
Speaker 3: show up on the ship, and they are soon revealed
Speaker 3: to be not their original selves but dead bodies that
Speaker 3: have been reanimated and possessed by some kind of incorporeal
Speaker 3: beings native to the planet somehow like the native inhabitants
Speaker 3: of this planet. It's almost suggested that because of the
Speaker 3: decline of their species, they've been reduced to a kind
Speaker 3: of ghost like or wraith like existence where they have
Speaker 3: no bodies of their own and must only and can
Speaker 3: only exist by occupying the more vital bodies of still
Speaker 3: living beings from a more vital planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of like hungry ghosts.
Speaker 3: The planet Aura is dying because the sun is fading,
Speaker 3: and the Distress Beacon was in fact designed to lure
Speaker 3: in aliens that they could possess and then steal their
Speaker 3: spacecraft to escape the planet and find greener pastures elsewhere.
Speaker 3: So the remaining humans try to prevent this by blowing
Speaker 3: up the galleat, and they succeed there and eventually escape
Speaker 3: on the Argus, with the only survivors being Marcury, Sonia
Speaker 3: and Wes the Engineer. But spoiler for a twist coming,
Speaker 3: Marcury and Sonia announce to West that they are actually
Speaker 3: also possessed by the invisible vampires of Aura, and they
Speaker 3: give a little speech they say, you know, they tell Wes,
Speaker 3: come along, merge with us. It's great, it's bliss, And
Speaker 3: so Wes reacts by trying to destroy the ship. He
Speaker 3: attacks the media rejector once again and he's killed in
Speaker 3: the process. But without a meteor rejector, the vampire versions
Speaker 3: of Marcury and Sonia have no choice but to land
Speaker 3: at the nearest available planet. And they zoom in on
Speaker 3: the viewscreen and what is the planet? It is Earth.
Speaker 3: We see like North and South America, and so I
Speaker 3: guess or Earth is next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is very exciting, and I think I'd actually
Speaker 1: forgotten about this twist from when I watched the film
Speaker 1: just a little less than a year ago, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I was excited by the first of all the dark
Speaker 1: twist here. We've talked about some other films from this
Speaker 1: era and how at times it feels like they were
Speaker 1: very hesitant to end things on a bummer note or
Speaker 1: on a dark note, and this is certainly kind of
Speaker 1: a dark note because we have these like psychic parasitic
Speaker 1: aliens that now can't can't go to the technologically advanced planet.
Speaker 1: They have to come to this barbaric planet of Earth.
Speaker 1: And we get the super zoom in and we see
Speaker 1: the city of New York. I believe it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be New York, much in the same way that we
Speaker 1: see some zoom INDs of New York City in Santa
Speaker 1: Claus versus the Martians, by the way, but part of
Speaker 1: me was a little disappointed that it was clear that
Speaker 1: this was a then modern day Earth that they were
Speaker 1: arriving at, because for a second there was thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: what if they're about to arrive at truly like a
Speaker 1: prehistoric day in Earth's history, or you know, very early
Speaker 1: on in human history. And maybe because they talk about
Speaker 1: when the aliens are pitching their whole like let us
Speaker 1: live inside you thing, they're kind of like, well, you
Speaker 1: just have to reduce your will a little bit, and
Speaker 1: it's it's not like a parasitism, it's they're kind of
Speaker 1: making the case that it's more like symbiosis. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, like, wouldn't that have been a nice twist
Speaker 1: if they if it's kind of revealed that what we
Speaker 1: are is due to their interference, that like the You know,
Speaker 1: the mystery of human consciousness is wrapped up in the
Speaker 1: fact that psychic aliens from another world infiltrated our species
Speaker 1: at some prior age and human evolution.
Speaker 3: We are the vampires. The vampires are our consciousness or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I guess instead it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: like nineteen sixties New York and they're going to show
Speaker 1: up there instead, which is fine. Which is fine, not
Speaker 1: a criticism. It's still solid dancing. Yeah, we don't need
Speaker 1: to see this. I'm glad they didn't try and actually
Speaker 1: film a sequel, but yeah, this is a solid twist ending.
Speaker 1: I liked it a lot.
Speaker 3: Now, there was something I just briefly wanted to mention.
Speaker 3: I was looking at a chapter in a book called
Speaker 3: Horror in Space, Critical Essays on a film subgenre, edited
Speaker 3: by Michelle Brittany from twenty seventeen, and there's a chapter
Speaker 3: in this about space horror movies that are specifically quote
Speaker 3: undead planets in vampiric dream worlds in outer space. This
Speaker 3: is by an author named Simon Bacon. The top line
Speaker 3: title of the chapter is under the influence. Now it
Speaker 3: goes into a lot of complicated detail about like postmodern
Speaker 3: theory of hyper reality based on Bouderyard and stuff, And
Speaker 3: I'm not going to go in depth on that. I
Speaker 3: just want to say that it's got a cool idea
Speaker 3: that basically that earth life and our natural societies in
Speaker 3: an industrialized world, a state in which we are constantly
Speaker 3: hyper aroused by technology and media all around us that
Speaker 3: are presenting us imagery and just a barrage of super
Speaker 3: normal stimuli that creates a kind of Disneyland reality where
Speaker 3: the senses never come to rest and as a result,
Speaker 3: we never experience something that feels like the real world,
Speaker 3: like we are alienated from a sense of baseline, authentic
Speaker 3: reality by the fact that we are that we are
Speaker 3: in a constant state of hyperstimulation and arousal. And it
Speaker 3: contrasts that with what is often shown to be life
Speaker 3: aboard a spaceship in science fiction movies. So you can
Speaker 3: think about the slow tranquility of the scenes where characters
Speaker 3: are walking around in the command room as they're just
Speaker 3: flying through space. That of course space itself being without
Speaker 3: sound in it, that's a big part of it. You
Speaker 3: know that it's just a very calming void. And in fact,
Speaker 3: in a lot of these sci fi movies, characters literally
Speaker 3: go into a state of suspended animation. It's like an
Speaker 3: unnaturally tranquil condition where that hyper stimulated reality recedes and
Speaker 3: you can almost approach a more authentic and real version
Speaker 3: of connection to the physical environment by going into the
Speaker 3: void of space. So I thought that was interesting. But
Speaker 3: then the second half of it is that a lot
Speaker 3: of these space horror movies that involve a kind of
Speaker 3: vampiric entity in outer space, like a planet that wants
Speaker 3: to drain our life force or something like that, it
Speaker 3: often seems to work by taking those astronauts who have
Speaker 3: been rendered kind of tranquil and more in touch with
Speaker 3: a real baseline reality by their space travels and trying
Speaker 3: to put them in these states of hyper excitement and
Speaker 3: arousal once again.
Speaker 1: All right, So it's almost like through space travel they
Speaker 1: have disconnected from the artificial world, become more in line
Speaker 1: with the underlying reality, kind of achieved sort of a
Speaker 1: space Buddha hood. They're being like sucked back into the
Speaker 1: into into into the material world, into the world of
Speaker 1: again all this super normal stimuli, a world of desire
Speaker 1: and ravenous hunger.
Speaker 3: Yes, And to use a very cliched example, it's like,
Speaker 3: by going into space, you essentially are able to unplug
Speaker 3: from the matrix. And then there are all these movies that,
Speaker 3: in some way or other, there's a there's a monster
Speaker 3: in space, and what it wants you to do once
Speaker 3: you come within its influence is to kind of use
Speaker 3: you use your body or use your brain to itself
Speaker 3: plug into your matrix that you've just gotten out of.
Speaker 1: All right, And so the argument here is these distant
Speaker 1: worlds are kind of a way of holding the mirror
Speaker 1: up to Earth itself, to what our actual society and
Speaker 1: culture and media is doing to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I like that. I like a good academic
Speaker 1: read on on pictures line like this, where clearly and
Speaker 1: clearly they weren't intending to really make any statements, and
Speaker 1: this sort of thing with the Planet of the Vampires
Speaker 1: no more than event Horizon was trying to.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I guess the argument in favor of theories like this
Speaker 3: would be that there is sort of common thoughts that
Speaker 3: people are having in a kind of inarticulated or subconscious
Speaker 3: way that are coming through in these works of art
Speaker 3: and entertainment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the myth is popular because the myth
Speaker 1: is doing something that it's stirring certain thoughts, and sometimes
Speaker 1: there's a uniformity to the thoughts that are stirred by
Speaker 1: the myth, and so yeah, it's all fair game to
Speaker 1: analyze exactly what is the collective experience of this story.
Speaker 3: Now, to jut off in a totally different direction, I
Speaker 3: want to mention how Rachel and I totally went down
Speaker 3: a labyrinthine rabbit hole trying to figure out the font
Speaker 3: of the opening credits of Planet of the Empowers, because
Speaker 3: whatever it is, it's first of all beautiful, I love
Speaker 3: the design, and second it seems to have made it
Speaker 3: or something like it seems to have become recently popular
Speaker 3: in the publishing industry. Rachel was looking at the screen.
Speaker 3: She said something like, I've read three books in the
Speaker 3: past year that had to cover with this font on it,
Speaker 3: and so we kind of turned into that guy in
Speaker 3: Zodiac trying to track all this down, and much like Zodiac,
Speaker 3: the Mad Investigation had an inconclusive result. Turns out these
Speaker 3: books don't actually use all exactly the same font as
Speaker 3: the movie or as each other, but they all kind
Speaker 3: of look similar, and that look is an elegant sans
Speaker 3: Sarah or only barely Sarah to all caps font that
Speaker 3: is a bit like hand lettering, and it emits fumes
Speaker 3: of retro Hollywood. I think the closest real font we
Speaker 3: found too, it was called Lydian and you so you
Speaker 3: can look that up and get a close approximation, but
Speaker 3: not exactly. And then after the whole thing, I realized,
Speaker 3: in fact, this text might not even be a standard
Speaker 3: type set at all, might just be hand painted lettering.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but either way, it's gorgeous and it
Speaker 3: looking at these credits it made me want to wear
Speaker 3: sunglasses indoors and like walk around the block with a
Speaker 3: campari on the rocks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, sometimes I feel like I
Speaker 1: suffer from font blindness and ultimately can't tell some of
Speaker 1: these fonts from each other. But this is this is nice.
Speaker 1: These are nice fonts. I'll give you that.
Speaker 3: Also, can we talk about how spacious the command room
Speaker 3: in this ship is.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's enormous. It's like a it's like a TV
Speaker 1: church set or something.
Speaker 3: You know, it's bigger than my house. There's gigantic, like
Speaker 3: there is just tons of open floor space with nothing
Speaker 3: in it, And I think about how that contrasts to
Speaker 3: a lot of other movies where the command room is
Speaker 3: very cramped. It's like seats right next to each other
Speaker 3: and these consoles directly in front of them. That this
Speaker 3: command room is like a warehouse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, yeah, you can compare this to say Alien,
Speaker 1: where everything is very cram and you certainly don't have
Speaker 1: wide open spaces in which characters could conceivably dance with
Speaker 1: one another. I imagine some filmmakers of the day were
Speaker 1: probably asking, why is there not a dance number in
Speaker 1: this Well.
Speaker 3: But there is a well choreographed fight scene in this
Speaker 3: big room.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And you know, I have to say I
Speaker 1: was kind of shocked to hear myself thinking this, but
Speaker 1: I dug the fight choreography in this film. Like it's
Speaker 1: a lot of times from this era that the action
Speaker 1: as a little cowboy asque, you know, when you're looking
Speaker 1: at US and European films. But there's something about the
Speaker 1: physicality in this that it feels like it's the right level.
Speaker 1: There's a scuffle kind of late in the film that's
Speaker 1: pretty well put together, and there's a moment early on
Speaker 1: when like the crew members are going crazy where one
Speaker 1: character there are a couple characters on screen, and then
Speaker 1: a character runs in from off screen with tremendous speed,
Speaker 1: attempting to clobber or grapple somebody. And I think this
Speaker 1: is the scene is accentuated by the sound of those
Speaker 1: metallic footfalls in the ship. But it's like wop, and
Speaker 1: there he is, and uh, yeah, it feels very real. Now.
Speaker 3: Another scene that stands out to me every time, and
Speaker 3: I know it stood out to you as well, that
Speaker 3: we've got to talk about is the scene where the
Speaker 3: buried crew members rise from the grave.
Speaker 1: Yes, so again it's you get it's not really revealed
Speaker 1: at this point, I think, but you certainly get the
Speaker 1: inclination that, yeah, these are not normal Earth humans because
Speaker 1: they're burial practices. Their field burials are weird. It involves
Speaker 1: not just digging a pit, but in across at the
Speaker 1: top of it. No, they dig out a hole, They
Speaker 1: wrap the body in plastic, place the plastic wrap body
Speaker 1: in the hole, cover said hole or ditch with metal plating,
Speaker 1: and then erect a weird metal obelisk at the head
Speaker 1: of the grave.
Speaker 3: The obelisk looks like a cowtools version of a pocket
Speaker 3: knife saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's wonderfully weird, like it doesn't match
Speaker 1: up with with human religions and funeral traditions, so it's
Speaker 1: just like early on you're just like, what are what
Speaker 1: are they doing? Why? Why is this what they do?
Speaker 1: And yeah, it adds and it's enough like an actual
Speaker 1: grave and grave traditions that we can connect with it
Speaker 1: and we can connect with the undead stuff to follow.
Speaker 1: But it's it's also just weird and inhuman it's it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: But the really I'm not sure exactly why this is,
Speaker 3: but the thing that makes the scene where the bodies
Speaker 3: come out of the grave perfect for me is the
Speaker 3: clear plastic they're draped in because they rise up, they
Speaker 3: don't just like cut through it and then stand up.
Speaker 3: They stand up with the with the plastic sheeting still
Speaker 3: wrapped around them and ooh, it's it's chilling and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of my favorite scenes in the
Speaker 1: whole picture because of course we have this hellish lighting
Speaker 1: behind the entities as they rise, so it's you know,
Speaker 1: we already have this very apispheric feel to the environment.
Speaker 1: They're rising up in this this plastic or rubber sheeting,
Speaker 1: and we get the wonderful sound effects of that rubber
Speaker 1: or plastic stretching and being ripped. Like when I look
Speaker 1: at the still I can hear the sound. That's how
Speaker 1: strong it is. And I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that works here is that on some level, I don't
Speaker 1: know if they intended this, but it's almost like it
Speaker 1: is a rebirth and it's in the plastic or rubber
Speaker 1: is like a birth call that must then be ripped
Speaker 1: from the creatures before they can go forth, and you know,
Speaker 1: cause their mischief.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the scene later This is another undead
Speaker 3: reveal where they're the crew members who come back and
Speaker 3: they're acting like that, oh yeah, sorry, we're still alive.
Speaker 3: We were just somewhere else and you need to let
Speaker 3: us onto the ship now. And there's a moment where
Speaker 3: one of their vests gets knocked open, like the leather
Speaker 3: jumpsuit comes open, and you see his torso and it's
Speaker 3: just like gouged out and rotting. Yeah, and he quickly
Speaker 3: covers back up. And somehow that felt like it was
Speaker 3: on the same frequency as the clear plastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Now, oh, some other shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a film that's just filled with beautiful shots.
Speaker 1: So we can't give, you know, due diligence to all
Speaker 1: of them, but some of the ones I loved. I
Speaker 1: loved how there are scenes where characters are talking to
Speaker 1: each other through essentially little screens. But at least some
Speaker 1: of these, not all of them, but I think some
Speaker 1: of these were created by simply having the character stand
Speaker 1: on the other side of a of a like a
Speaker 1: plastic bubble, which works really well. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just again, it's something coming back to Bava, Like Bava
Speaker 1: excels at having characters look through windows at each other
Speaker 1: or at the camera, and so here we have the
Speaker 1: technological version of that.
Speaker 3: You remember the face through the window in the Verdilac.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So it's definitely something to look for anytime
Speaker 1: you watch Upava film. Now, how about that alien spaceship though, Oh,
Speaker 1: once we get to board that, oh, there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of wonderful stuff.
Speaker 3: So this is the scene where Barry Sullivan and Norma
Speaker 3: Bengal are wearing the gray and orange jumpsuits instead of
Speaker 3: the black and yellow ones, and they or I think
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I believe that is right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And so they go to investigate the Stereolic
Speaker 3: ship and inside there are these gigantic skeletons and there's
Speaker 3: purple lighting everywhere. Things appear to be draped in I
Speaker 3: don't even know what it is. It looks again, I guess,
Speaker 3: like clear plastic, but it doesn't read that way in
Speaker 3: the scene. It reads more like some kind of organic
Speaker 3: film that has been deposited there. And they're trying to
Speaker 3: understand the like the tools and the technology of the
Speaker 3: Stereolic spaceship, and they don't actually figure it all out.
Speaker 3: I mean, they do get locked inside for a moment
Speaker 3: and they think they're going to suffocate, and they have
Speaker 3: to figure out how to operate one of the one
Speaker 3: of the keys, the electronic keys that'll open the door.
Speaker 3: But the problem is that you can't. Their puny bodies
Speaker 3: can't handle these keys that they like get shocked by them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's this wonderful sequence where they're moving through
Speaker 1: I guess it's like several portholes. It's like concentric circles.
Speaker 1: It has a spiral feel to it the way that
Speaker 1: it's framed. This is one of the more beautiful shots
Speaker 1: in the whole picture. That's their entrance into the space
Speaker 1: the alien spaceship, and then of course they have to
Speaker 1: exit that way as well. And like I think I
Speaker 1: said earlier, anytime a door is opening in this movie,
Speaker 1: it's just in I'm just enraptured. Like the doors on
Speaker 1: the on the main spaceships, but also the doors on
Speaker 1: the alien spaceships, like they have a real weight to them.
Speaker 1: They feel like clunky and thick. I just was totally
Speaker 1: I totally bought in on all the sets in this film.
Speaker 3: This movie makes me want to compose a list. I
Speaker 3: think I need to consult consult with the audience here.
Speaker 3: Op Ten, all time planet surface sets in sci fi movies?
Speaker 3: What are your favorites?
Speaker 1: Oh? Wow, Like clearly sets in not actual environments, not
Speaker 1: all locations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that does complicate it. I mean I do like
Speaker 3: a planet surface set that's more stagy in the way
Speaker 3: that this is as opposed to just like finding a
Speaker 3: weird landscape actually outdoors on Earth and using that that
Speaker 3: can be cool too in a more realistic movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, both both work or can work.
Speaker 3: Like I know, I've talked about this on the show before. Oh,
Speaker 3: what's it called? The sequel to Prometheus, The Alien Covenant
Speaker 3: Alien Covenant a great example of a terrible movie that
Speaker 3: I just really like for some reason despite it being bad.
Speaker 3: I recognize it's bad, but it just it just works
Speaker 3: for me and the I mean, the planet surface sets
Speaker 3: in that movie are great though they're all I think
Speaker 3: outdoor sets.
Speaker 1: Well, I would not say that Alien Covenant is terrible.
Speaker 1: I would say that Alien Covenant is a buffet, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to load your plate up with everything
Speaker 1: from the buffet. Just focus on the tasty dessert treats.
Speaker 3: It is a buffet if a buffet included nachos, pizza, sushi, beef, tartar,
Speaker 3: and savice all in the same place, so.
Speaker 1: You don't have to load your plate up with all
Speaker 1: those things. But where are you going with that? Something
Speaker 1: about locations?
Speaker 3: Oh no, I was just talking about how it's a
Speaker 3: great example of I mean, beautiful planet surface sets, but
Speaker 3: they're just like I think, mostly shot actually on Earth's surface.
Speaker 3: They're just cool looking locations outdoors on Earth.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And of course Star Wars. The Star Wars
Speaker 1: franchise has long been graded this like find a unique
Speaker 1: environment and it feels totally believable. As an alien deser
Speaker 1: heerd or a Forest Moon. Right, all right, well we're
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and call it there. I will say
Speaker 1: real quick, if you want to watch this movie for yourself,
Speaker 1: is widely available as of this recording. You can stream
Speaker 1: it on Prime is just part of your Prime membership.
Speaker 1: That's how I watched it. It's widely available on DVD,
Speaker 1: and Keno Lorber put out a very nice blu ray
Speaker 1: of this movie. Is that is that what you watched
Speaker 1: it on?
Speaker 5: Joe?
Speaker 1: Do you have the blue Yeah?
Speaker 3: I have the Blue ray?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So so yeah, check those out. Definitely worth seeing
Speaker 1: in the the highest visual quality you can you can do.
Speaker 1: And I also have to say, yeah, the first time
Speaker 1: I watched it, I watched it on my iPhone on
Speaker 1: a on an airplane and that was fine, But I
Speaker 1: enjoyed it much more on the big screen. Like some
Speaker 1: some films you can you can watch in your iPhone
Speaker 1: and you're not losing a lot like but but this,
Speaker 1: this is this is one that I think you need
Speaker 1: a nice big screen presentation.
Speaker 3: And hey, if you fall asleep while watching it, don't
Speaker 3: be ashamed. That's that's part of the vibe.
Speaker 1: That's just the movie doing its work. Oh, speaking of
Speaker 1: rubbing the fur. We we've said it enough. It's going
Speaker 1: to take on a physical reality. Keep an eye on
Speaker 1: our merch store. We're working on some rub the Fur
Speaker 1: emerge ice. Well, we'll see how it comes together. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else to mention. Oh yeah, if you like
Speaker 1: the website letterboxed, you can check out the profile for
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. There. It's just weird House. So sign
Speaker 1: up there, follow us there if that's your thing. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think I can. Right now, it's
Speaker 1: just a list of the films that we've covered, but
Speaker 1: if people are interesting and interested enough in it, we
Speaker 1: could do a little more there. We'll see And yeah,
Speaker 1: this is Weird House Cinema every Friday. In the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind podcast feed we're primarily a science podcast,
Speaker 1: but one day a weekly we like to set all
Speaker 1: that aside and just focus in on a weird and
Speaker 1: wonderful film such as this one.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
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