Planet of the Vampires

aka Terrore nello spazio

1965
Starring
Barry Sullivan as Captain Mark Markary
Norma Bengell as Sanya
Ángel Aranda as Wess
Evi Marandi as Tiona
Stelio Candelli as Brad
Franco Andrei as Bert
Fernando Villena as Dr. Karan
Directed by Mario Bava

It’s the future, and man is conquering space! Man is also conquering fashion, and wearing outfits entirely out of leather with gigantic collars. Not just normal giant collars, these collars are popped up, just like those Frat boys you see wandering around town with their polo shirt collars up. If this is the future of fashion, the human race is doomed. The fashion is brought up first and foremost, because this movie has incredible visuals that still hold up forty years later. The visuals inspired countless other science fiction films, some so blatantly you’ll view those classics with a new suspicious look, wondering what other things they ripped off. Director Mario Bava also directed Danger: Diabolik, famous for being the last MST3Ked movie. Now, you’d think Planet of the Vampires would be crawling with vampires. I am afraid I have some bad news for you folks, there are NO vampires in this film. Zero. None, Nada. No Space Vampires, No Salt Vampires, no Turkish Ripoffs of Salt Vampires. We do have aliens, and animated dead bodies controlled by the aliens, so the correct term would be either Planet of the Zombies or Planet of the Ghosts who Possess People. Another correct term would be the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation named Power Play. I don’t want to say Star Trek ripped this movie off, but with the many other things blatantly stolen from this film, it would be unsurprising that Trek went with the flow.