Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

Probably one of the more haunting experiences and viewings as a child I remember because often it was aired at alternative times by it's previous venture, "Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet". I remember feeling confused as to the differences, but by far, "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" presents the better use of the original Russian footage. The closing scenes with the women surrounding their "new god" the lava-destroyed robot, "John", are simply eerie in contrast to the previous scenes from the 1962 Russian film. The voice-over dialog by Mamie Van Doren, while "hokey" in parts, sets the mood perfectly. To appreciate this film for what it is, one needs simply to view it ALONE...in the quiet dead of night. It gets under your skin and stays there. One of the more noteworthy and curious (in my opinion), albeit "lessor known" of Corman's "cut and paste" classics.

Although Planet Of Prehistoric Women's mother film Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet had some interesting aspects to it, this one is a total dud. Unless of course all you want to see is Mamie Van Doren and those scantily clad Venusian babes. All of them Playboy playmates or could qualify for same.

Honestly if the earth people knew what was on Venus, they'd be rushing pell mell to get to the shrouded second planet.

This film is a re-edited version of the first film with some added footage of Mamie and her clan. It seems as though the earth astronauts have killed the flying reptile the Venusians worship as a god. Causing a theological revolution on the place.

Unless you like Mamie and those twin weapons of mass destruction she sports, I'd pass this one up.

Like many of the reviewers, I watched this after the "Prehistoric Planet" film. I was astonished that there were no changes to any of the previous footage, other than the Bogdanovich voice over and the disappearance of Faith Domergue (Marcia). What has been added is a set of blonde women who hold sway on Venus and worship a Pterodactyl. They have scallop shell bras and hip hugger pants with bell bottoms made of a sheer material. I do remember that Mamie Van Doren was really quite a good looking lady and these really are some attractive women. But they never really speak. They are telepathic. They are there to show that they actually caused much of what happened to the Astronauts in the previous movie. This had to be made for the drive-in crowd to neck and ignore, simply to fill space on a triple feature. It certainly wasn't worth much time and effort.

There's not too much going for this movie. It has a poor plot and poor acting. At the start of the movie, the special effects seem promising but even this quickly disappears and reverts to much lower standards. It seemed to me that the film is far behind the quality of special effects available in 1968. It seemed to be several years behind the times. The actual quality of the film is even poor. The so called prehistoric women did not in the least look prehistoric. To me they just looked very strange. I didn't find this movie to be very interesting and would go as far as calling it boring. I've seen a lot worse but this film is definitely near the bottom of my list and is one that I would not recommend.

Director Peter Bogdanovich had to start somewhere; following second unit work on Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels," Corman allowed the hardworking novice an opportunity to do a feature film utilizing the exact same Russian stock footage used by Curtis Harrington for his 1965 "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet," a 1962 entry titled "Planeta bur" (Planet of Storms). It's no stretch to assume that the first-time director just didn't have his heart in his work, as all of his newly shot footage features a dozen bikini-clad models not required to speak, everything narrated by Bogdanovich himself. There is no integration between the alien mermaids and the Russian characters, so the whole thing just sits there, aimlessly meandering from one crisis to another. Granted, I had just viewed Curtis Harrington's work on his "Voyage," so all the Soviet footage was already familiar to me, but at least Harrington had Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue actually communicating with the Russian astronauts, their scenes already dubbed into English. The blame here simply lies with Roger Corman, who felt the need for another retread rather than something truly original. "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" carries a 1967 copyright, and at least Corman was satisfied enough to grant Bogdanovich the freedom to do a feature starring Boris Karloff, who supposedly owed Roger two days work on a previous contract; we can all be grateful that the result was the superlative "Targets," shot in Dec 1967, an achievement that even "The Last Picture Show" couldn't top (some may feel free to disagree). Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater aired "Prehistoric Planet" only 3 times, "Prehistoric Women" 4 times (maybe it was the bikinis), all from July 1969 to July 1972.