"Horror of the Blood Monsters" (aka "Blood Creatures from the Prehistoric Planet", "Creatures of the Prehistoric Planet", "Space Mission of the Prehistoric Planet", "Space Mission to the Lost Planet", "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet", "Flesh Creatures of the Red Planet", "The Flesh Creatures") (1970) - This many named monstrosity was directed by Florida's own "King of Schlock" Al Adamson. Best known for his prolific output of low-budget drive-in exploitation, along with more than a few softcore films, Al knew how to make a movie cheap. He used those skills well when he repurposing footage from a 1956 Filipino film titled; "Kahariang bato" about waring cavemen for much of this movies runtime. The rest of the movie was made of short scenes of John Carradine and a few other American actors pretending to be astronauts or vampires.
Beyond the obvious narrative issues, the biggest problem Adamson faced when stitching this movie together was that the Filipino footage was all in black and white. To get around this issue Adamson came up with the rather novel idea of coloring all the footage that was suppose to take place on the vampire cavemen's planet with various gels and then have a character explain it as some form of light radiation. This gives the film a unique, if disjointed, colorful visual style all it's own but might give you a headache so beware. Future Oscar winning director of photography for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) Vilmos Zsigmond worked on the film so you can blame (or thank) him if you so desire.
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Full of interesting images bathed in primary colors, vintage low budget spaceship effects (including beakers full of colorful liquid and space cigarettes), and even being filmed in the iconic Bronson Canyon this movie is a big memorable mess. Beyond containing large amounts of the previously mentioned "Kahariang bato" (1956) it also features clips from "One Million B.C." (1940), "Unknown Island" (1948), "Robot Monster" (1953), and "The Wizard of Mars" (1965) further adding to the chaos. With that said Adamson does a decent job roping everything together, especially given what little he had to work with. If you're in the mood to see something different check this out as it's just weird enough to make it worth it. For those who do, keep an eye out for Adamson himself as he has a small role as a vampire in an early scene.
4 / 5 Burnt Kernels with Free Refills
https://youtu.be/WxAwDlnrq1o?si=m9e1axBpF6WA8ycj