An Alien Nightmare Drenched in Color

Read Time:11 Minute, 54 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Planet of the Vampires (Terrore nello spazio)
–

Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Year Released: 1965, 2026 Blu-ray
Runtime: 1h 30m Italian version; 1h 28m English version
Director: Mario Bava
Writers: Mario Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Román, Rafael J. Salvia; English adaptation by Ib Melchior and Louis M. Heyward. Based on a story by Renato Pestriniero.
Cast: Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Ángel Aranda, Evi Marandi, Stelio Candelli, Franco Andrei, Ivan Rassimov
Where to Watch: available November 11, 2026. Pre-order your copy here: www.radiancefilms.co.uk, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: How do you make an alien planet feel genuinely hostile when you have little more than a studio floor, some rocks, and an extraordinary command of colored light? Mario Bava answers that question in PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, a science fiction horror film whose appearance is every bit as memorable as its story. The premise sounds like a straightforward expedition into danger. Two spacecraft investigate a signal from the unexplored planet Aura, and the crews discover that something there can turn them against each other. Bava takes that modest setup and builds a place where the ground seems untrustworthy, the atmosphere conceals more than it reveals, and even the people standing beside you may no longer be who you think they are. It has all the ingredients of a pulp adventure, but the prevailing feeling is that nobody should have landed there in the first place.

The trouble begins before the explorers can make sense of their surroundings. Crew members become violent without understanding why, transforming what should be a coordinated scientific mission into an immediate struggle for survival. This is a clever way to establish the planet's threat without introducing a conventional monster. Danger isn't confined to whatever might be hiding beyond the ship. It can reach inside the crew, disrupt their judgment, and make their usual procedures useless. The frightening part is the absence of a reliable distinction between an external attack and an internal collapse. These people have equipment and training, yet neither gives them much control once Aura begins interfering with their behavior.

Barry Sullivan plays Captain Mark Markary, who has the unenviable job of holding together an expedition that becomes less understandable with every discovery. Sullivan brings the recognizable authority of a traditional screen commander to a film increasingly determined to dismantle that certainty. Mark wants explanations and workable decisions, and his position supplies a useful contrast to the irrational forces around him. Norma Bengell's Sanya and Ángel Aranda's Wess are important members of the surviving group, with Evi Marandi's Tiona among the expedition's other faces. These aren't elaborately developed psychological portraits. The movie relies more on the predicament and the atmosphere than on intimate character histories, which can leave the supporting crew less individually memorable than the world threatening them.

For Bava, though, that world is the real attraction. Aura looks like somewhere dreamed up for the cover of a sensational paperback and then stubbornly brought to life. Clouds of vapor crowd around craggy terrain, vivid lighting breaks through the darkness, and the astronauts' black leather uniforms give the expedition an almost gothic elegance. The landscapes don't pretend to be convincing documentary representations of another planet. They're theatrical, sometimes extravagantly so, with a visual logic closer to a nightmare than to a NASA mission. What might have looked cheap under a less imaginative director becomes a deliberately unnatural environment. Bava knows precisely how much of a set to reveal and how much to let the darkness finish for him.

That approach draws on techniques familiar from Bava's horror work, particularly his ability to make color a source of unease rather than simple decoration. BLACK SUNDAY established his command of gothic menace, and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE demonstrated how boldly colored spaces could acquire a threatening personality. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES transfers that sensibility to an ostensibly futuristic setting. An alien landscape and a haunted castle don't seem all that different when the terror comes from being surrounded by an environment you cannot comprehend. The important shift is not that the director has abandoned horror for science fiction. He's discovered that a distant planet offers another way to trap people in a place that seems to conspire against them.

The film's English title is also wonderfully misleading exploitation marketing. Anyone expecting capes, fangs, and blood-drinking aristocrats has come to the wrong world. The threat is closer to possession and the appropriation of human bodies, turning a familiar supernatural fear into an extraterrestrial one. In that respect, the title tells you more about how the film was sold than about what Bava was making. The original Italian title, TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO, describes its broader ambitions more plainly. But PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES has the kind of lurid appeal that belongs to this era of genre cinema, and there's no reason to pretend that such an outrageous name isn't part of its enduring personality.

The movie's visual inventiveness doesn't completely erase its dramatic shortcomings. Some exchanges are functional rather than revealing, and the crew spends a fair amount of time investigating developments the audience already knows are dangerous. The characters occasionally resemble figures being moved around an elaborate set instead of individuals whose choices are shaping the story. That limitation matters because paranoia grows stronger when distinct personalities can be mistrusted. Nevertheless, Bava's emphasis on uncertainty gives even relatively straightforward movement through the landscape a disturbing purpose. The spectacle of exploration gradually gives way to the suspicion that every discovery makes escape less likely.

The mixture of European Gothic tradition and space-age adventure is especially compelling when the film treats death as something less permanent than the astronauts expect. Without giving away its particular discoveries, the narrative approaches the body as something that can become a tool for an intelligence with entirely different needs. That idea touches on a fear that goes beyond an attack by a recognizable creature. It raises the fear of losing control over what makes someone human. It also creates an unsettling contrast with the explorers' scientific confidence. They're prepared to study an unfamiliar world, but they're remarkably unprepared for the possibility that the world may be studying them, with purposes that don't acknowledge their autonomy.

The cultural shadow of ALIEN hangs over any modern discussion of PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES. The similarities in distress signals, hazardous exploration, ominous extraterrestrial environments, and discoveries connected to another civilization are difficult to overlook. Yet reducing Bava's film to an early sketch of Ridley Scott's later achievement does both movies a disservice. The comparison helps show how science fiction horror developed, but resemblance isn't proof of direct creative borrowing in every instance. Bava's picture belongs to its own combination of Italian genre filmmaking and midcentury pulp illustration. It deserves attention for the images and anxieties it creates, not merely because familiar elements surfaced again in more expensive productions.

That legacy is particularly interesting because the film's resources were limited, yet its ideas don't feel small. Bava uses miniatures, controlled environments, and carefully selected details to suggest more than he can physically show. The resulting scale isn't always realistic, but realism was never the most persuasive quality of a Mario Bava science fiction film. The artifice is visible and often delightful. These spaces look constructed because they are constructed, and their heightened nature contributes to the strange sensation of watching humans walk into an alien imagination. A more naturalistic production might have been technically impressive but would have lacked this film's distinctive personality.

Radiance's limited-edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray release gives that visual identity a significant preservation context. The edition uses a 4K restoration from the original negative supervised by Bava's son Lamberto, with work undertaken at Fotocinema in Rome in collaboration with CSC Cineteca Nazionale. HDR and Dolby Vision presentations are included, along with the Italian and English versions, listed at approximately ninety and eighty-eight minutes, respectively. Those differences make this more than a straightforward repackaging of a familiar cult title. The availability of both versions acknowledges that international distribution and alternate edits are part of the film's history. Preserving those variations is worthwhile in its own right, especially for a production whose identity has long crossed languages and markets.

The supplements also place the film inside a broader conversation about its director and the relationship between horror and science fiction. Tim Lucas's archival commentary brings the perspective of a writer deeply associated with Bava scholarship. Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger's documentary explores the film's gothic connections, while an archival Lamberto Bava interview adds another perspective on the filmmaker. The reconstructed seventeen-minute Super 8 version, distributed as PLANET DER VAMPIRE, is an especially curious inclusion. A reminder that movies once circulated not just in theatrical prints and home-video editions but in heavily shortened formats intended for very different viewing circumstances. Trailer commentaries from Joe Dante and Josh Olson, along with promotional galleries, round out a selection that takes the work seriously without stripping it of its exploitation history.

A limited-edition book of eighty pages offers new writing and archival materials, and a separate twenty-page booklet contains a new translation of Renato Pestriniero's short story ONE NIGHT OF 21 HOURS, the literary source behind the movie. That pairing is perhaps the most meaningful collector addition because it invites readers to consider the distance between a written premise and Bava's intensely visual interpretation. Production histories and critical essays can be valuable, but putting the source story alongside the film gives viewers another point of comparison. The accompanying printed material reinforces Radiance's interest in presenting a release that can be explored rather than simply shelved, without turning the extras into a substitute for engaging with the movie.

There's also something fitting about revisiting this particular film through a boutique-label edition. For years, much of the appeal of international genre cinema came from finding strange titles in imperfect copies and discovering that a visually audacious movie could exist outside the most familiar Hollywood histories. Restoration and careful contextualization change how that history is encountered, but they needn't erase the pleasure of discovering something gloriously peculiar. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is still a film with unusual costumes, visibly artificial landscapes, and a story that sometimes moves more stiffly than its ideas deserve. None of those qualities prevent it from being a fascinating example of what a strong visual imagination can accomplish.

The most lasting impression isn't futuristic technology or a scientific explanation. It's the sensation of stepping onto Aura and realizing that its beauty offers no reassurance whatsoever. Bava makes a place that is gorgeous to look at and terrifying to inhabit, then sends a group of confident explorers into it with very little protection against what they find. The film's reputation as an influence on later science fiction horror is understandable, but its identity is already complete without those comparisons. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES looks like no sensible destination for a rescue mission, and that's exactly why it's worth visiting from the safety of your own screen.

Bonus Materials:
4K restoration of the film from the original negative under the supervision of Lamberto Bava and carried out at Fotocinema in Rome in collaboration with CSC Cineteca Nazionale, presented in HDR/Dolby Vision
4K UHD and Blu-ray presentation of the Italian (90 mins) and English (88 mins) versions of the film
Uncompressed mono audio
Archival audio commentary by Tim Lucas, author of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark (2014)
A documentary feature exploring Planet of the Vampires, Mario Bava, and the connection between gothic and science fiction. Co-directed by Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger; featuring interviews with Guy Adams, Xavier Aldana Reyes, Alexandra Benedict, Johnn
Archival interview with Lamberto Bava
Super 8 Version – a reconstruction of the cut-down version distributed as Planet der Vampire (17 mins)
Joe Dante and Josh Olsen trailer commentaries – the filmmakers provide a short overview of the film (2013)
Trailers
Press and image gallery from the Tim Lucas / Alan Y. Upchurch collection
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition 80-page book featuring new writing by Kyle Anderson, Martyn Conterio, Barry Forshaw, George Daniel Lea and Jerome Reuter plus archival materials
Limited edition 20-page booklet featuring a new translation of Renato Pestriniero’s original short story
A collection of six exclusive postcards featuring promotional material
Limited Edition of 5,000 copies presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases for each film and removable OBI strip, leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Please visit https://linktr.ee/overlyhonestr for more reviews.

Follow me on Letterboxd, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also find my social media accounts on most platforms by searching for 'Overly Honest Reviews'.

I’m always happy to hear from my readers; please don't hesitate to say hello or send me any movie questions.

[photo courtesy of RADIANCE FILMS, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

DISCLAIMER:
At Overly Honest Movie Reviews, we value honesty and transparency. Occasionally, we receive complimentary items for review, including DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl Records, Books, and more. We assure you these arrangements do not influence our reviews, as we are committed to unbiased, sincere evaluations. We aim to help you make informed entertainment choices regardless of our relationship with distributors or producers.

Amazon Affiliate Links:
This site also contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may receive a commission. This affiliate arrangement does not affect our commitment to honest reviews and helps support our site. We appreciate your trust and support as you navigate these links.