On the Technicolor Globe

Weekend film-viewing round here included the new Radiance blu-ray of Mario Bava’s Terrore nello Spazio (Terror in Space), or Planet of the Vampires as it’s more commonly (and misleadingly) known. Bava and co. fared better with the AIP retitling of this one than they did a year later with Operazione Paura which the US distributors decided to call Kill, Baby, Kill. Bava’s haunted planet was released in the US on a double-bill with Die, Monster, Die, another how-low-can-you-go AIP title applied to the studio’s mangled adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. Bava’s film is filled with unearthly colours, and is a lot more worthwhile despite its minuscule budget. That giant skeleton is the precursor of the Space Jockey from Alien, as Dan O’Bannon eventually admitted after having spent years denying any influence.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The ghost at the window