Runtime: 78 minutes
Directed by: Curtis Harrington
Starring: John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Judi Meredith, Dennis Hopper, Florence Marly
From: AIP
John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and Dennis Hopper in a sci-fi/horror tale from Roger Corman involving a green vampire alien lady that uses footage from a random Soviet science fiction picture... I'm in!
This played on MGMHD last night but I viewed it this afternoon on Prime as I viewed something true crime on TV beforehand and chilled after that. It's a break that channel can still be viewed by me (even though I am not supposed to receive the channel, as stated in another review recently) as a few days ago my cable provider dropped the El Rey Network. While it will make watching future Santo movies all that more difficult-and changes what will be on my horror list this year-the channel was otherwise not viewed by me, other providers have dropped El Rey in the past and there's always Prime to see plenty of Shaw Brothers films. There is no shortage of potential genre movies to see the rest of this month and all of October so that is of no concern.
To provide further backstory, this was directed by Curtis Harrington; he also did Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (reviewed by me a few years ago; that movie is set in 2020, believe it or not) which was a mildly modified version of the Soviet movie Planet of Storms. Hilariously, both Voyage and this have the same opening credits background (weird abstract psychedelic paintings) and credits font. At least this time Harrington was credited with his name instead of as JOHN SEBASTIAN, as he was in Voyage. As it'd take too long to explain here, Corman did a similar thing with Battle Beyond the Sun-reviewed a few years ago-making a few changes to the Soviet Nebo Zovyot and COPPOLA was the one who added two bizarre monsters, one of which was shaped like a cucumber and had a mouth which looked a lot like something far too vulgar to mention here.
With that out of the way, onto this motion picture set in the far-flung future of... 1990. Saxon, Rathbone, Judi Meredith and Hopper all work at Not NASA; mysterious signals are retrieved from space, and just because, Rathbone is able to translate it. Aliens are going to meet them on Earth, only they crash on Mars. They get their ass to Mars, only to find a green vampire lady, who does the expected green vampire lady things. This is one of the movies that some speculate was an influence on Alien; that is possible, although Lifeforce has a stronger case in terms of what was inspired by Queen of Blood.
It is more sci-fi than horror and they are rather naive in not securing this alien right away; heck, Hopper thought it a good idea to share a water bottle with some extraterrestrial being they have no knowledge of! That is part of its campy charm; after all, how can I hate a film which had plenty of interesting visuals and the phrase “Dennis Hopper falls for a green vampire alien lady” can be used accurately? Queen of Blood uses plenty of footage from the USSR picture A Dream Come True (i.e. Mechte Navstretchu), not viewed by me before but it is on YouTube and due to to the visuals, one day that will be talked about here. Of course, the new and old footage looks noticeably different but c'est la vie. Like I just stated, campy charm.
For certain, this should not be the only John Saxon movie to be discussed in the next month and a half.
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