Astro-Vampire - Todesmonster aus dem All

Huh?

What?

Vampire cavemen? Sex replaced by flashing multi-colored light bulbs? Guys in dinosaur suits? A film half made of stock footage?

This isn't just bad, it's inexplicably bad. DO NOT WATCH THIS ALONE. Make sure to have a friend or two with whom you can swap wisecracks about this... this... HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS.

The end of this movie has nothing to do with the beginning. The middle has nothing to do with the end or the beginning. Not only does this planet change colors, but apparently at least one woman on it manages to change races, switching periodically back and forth between Filipino and Caucasian.

And remember, kids, the red radiation is the most dangerous to human life. Here, let me demonstrate with this spectrum gun.

WHAT THE HELL??????

HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS is Director Al Adamson's magnum opus. It concerns a global outbreak of vampirism, leading to a deep space mission to the planet of the plague's origin. We know this, thanks to the intense narration by "Brother" Theodore Gottlieb.

John Carradine explains the ensuing mission, which does little to prepare us for the lunacy that follows. Upon arrival, the astronauts watch "from afar" as clips from other movies are shown, supposedly having to do with whatever the hell is going on! Cavemen encounter snake-men, bat-men, and lobster-men, on their way to find sacred oil, while the astronauts "look on" from that other film.

This isn't so much a movie, as it is a test of will. Much like seeing how long one can endure being slowly baked in a kiln.

Otherworldly, discombobulating, and disconcerting, Adamson spared every expense, splicing and dicing this masterwork of garbled, drive-in fodder. Watch agog, as this miraculous mutation unfolds in all of its unbridled glory! This is cinema as God intended...

The line above may be a very kind way of summing up Al Adamson's career, but I feel bad for the guy. When I read a few years back that he had been murdered in his house, I thought,'Who would want to murder this fella?'I have yet to find that answer, and if anyone out there know if there was a trial, or any information on the death of Al Adamson, please contact me at my address.

I have seen a few of Adamson's films, and although his taste is questionable, his movies can tend to be mesmerising. This is sometimes a good thing at 2 in the morning when you are trying to go to sleep; not knowing what to expect, and even as you watch it, you're still not sure.

This is how I saw NIGHT OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS, or whatever the hell that title was. The film contains some of the most boring dialogue scenes since Jerry Warren, and the acting is uniformly wooden. The plot is a bit hard to explain, having something to do with a vampire plague on Earth that, in flimsy exposition, started in outer space. A rocketship and crew (headed by John Carradine) land on the Vampire planet, and encounter more dialogue and tinted Filipino footage.

The Filipino footage that Adamson culled appears to have been done in black-and-white, but since Adamson was making a color film, he came up with a cheap ploy to sell the concept of the tinted portion. It is radiation, explains one of the characters, and the audience is left in total disbelief. In fact, the most unbelievable part is the sets, made up of poorly-lit backdrops and cardboard. The sex scene is hilarious.

This cheesy movie must be seen by any lover of bad cinema, and people who remember what the drive-in was like, or would like to. All others beware, this film is UNCEASINGLY BAD.

Now, if only I could find out what happened to Al Adamson, (and his wife, Regina Carrol, for that matter)...

Ya gotta love Al Adamson. Only he would (1) take footage from a 20-year-old movie about gorillas in diving helmets ("Robot Monster"); (2) combine it with clips from a 30-year-old movie about elephants with hair mats glued to their sides ("One Million B.C."); (3) throw in parts from a God-knows-how-old Filipino movie about midget cannibals, half man/half lobster monsters and beer-bellied Chinese cavemen with snakes growing out of their shoulders (all of the aforementioned footage being in black and white); (4) spend $2.15 shooting new "connecting" footage (in color, no less) with an apparently--to be charitable--confused John Carradine and a bunch of actors who have trouble remembering their lines (among them a vapid blonde who is so incompetent that all her dialogue is dubbed in by someone else, and who doesn't even have the decency to make up for it by getting naked); (5) put it out under at least 10 different titles; and (6) try to pass each one off as a new movie. Go, Al!

This is Al's masterwork, the film by which he will always be remembered. Orson Welles had "Citizen Kane," Michael Curtiz had "Casablanca," Francis Coppola had "The Godfather," Al Adamson has "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet." You're in heady company, Al. You deserve it.

Ah, they don't make them like this any more.

Horror of the Blood Monsters is truly a crazy film. It's a biscuit-taking exercise in Z-Grade film-making of the variety that makes you say, 'I cannot believe they did this!'. It's a curious mixture of ineptness and experimentation that results in a somewhat unforgettable cinematic experience. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is entirely down to your tolerance for premier division crapola.

As has been stated many times, the film incorporates segments from a few old movies, including a Filipino caveman adventure and dinosaur film. These are linked together (loosely, to say the least) by sci-fi and horror sections, which in themselves don't seem to be connected very well either. In other words, it's a shambles. By, my word, it's a fun shambles to watch.

The story is half-hearted at best. The film-makers certainly didn't treat it with very much importance, so neither will I. Instead, I shall give a stream-of-conscious list of things that this movie contains….

We have vampires with plastic teeth. We have narration by a madman called Brother Theodore. We have a mission-control that is run by a man and a woman and a bloke with a clipboard. We have a chain-smoking space crew lead by an ancient doctor played by a (drunk?) John Carradine. We have a space-ship made out of a bottle of detergent, the interior of which consists of a table and two extremely uncomfortable looking wooden deck-chairs. We have special-effects of the special-needs variety – the outer space scenes would look unrealistic in an episode of The Clangers. We have an elephant with door-mats stuck to it, crap dinosaurs and space gazelles. We have crab-men, bat-men, snake-men and midgets. We have a war between good cavemen and vampire cavemen. We have a cave-woman who changes race depending on who she is on screen with at a given time. We have morally dubious brain-surgery, performed in order to allow for inter-stellar communications. We have epic battles of extremely badly choreographed proportions. We have a space age psychedelic sex machine. We have an alien atmosphere that changes colours constantly in order for the movie to incorporate old black and white footage seamlessly with the colour bits, or because of radiation or something. Generally speaking, we have a lot of things going on in this movie.

It's a laugh-riot.

It goes beyond so bad it's good – it's so bad it's experimental. I would say, celebrate it. It should cheer you up.