"Horror of the Blood Monsters," or as it was on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, "Vampire Men of the Lost Planet" (paired on July 16 1977 with second feature "Doctor Blood's Coffin"), is a cherished member of the Al Adamson school of atrocious titles that nevertheless did excellent business through his Independent-International Pictures Corp. While his co-producer Samuel M. Sherman unerringly acknowledges that this is Adamson's worst, it still has its share of fans who truly appreciate 'good bad films,' and I myself believe that it's a step up from Jerry Warren's usual cut-and-paste work ("Face of the Screaming Werewolf," "Attack of the Mayan Mummy," "Invasion of the Animal People," "Curse of the Stone Hand"). Nearly all of Adamson's late 60s work consisted of movies shot in bits and pieces over a period of years, after losing the rights to "Blood of Dracula's Castle" to Crown International, forcing he and Sherman to form their own company to maintain control of future product, of which quite a few had been gathering dust- "Five Bloody Graves," "Blood of Ghastly Horror," "Hell's Bloody Devils," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "The Female Bunch," and this one. Adamson had purchased a 1965 black and white Filipino cheapie called "Tagani," and decided to incorporate its footage of prehistoric cave people (the Tubatan, which literally translates from Tagalog as 'vampire'), snake people (you can tell by their shoulders), claw people (hiding underwater), and winged bat people (played by furry midgets), into a smörgåsbord of odd science fiction clichés centering around a space flight using special effects culled from David L. Hewitt's ultra low budget 1965 release "The Wizard of Mars." The 'Wizard' himself, John Carradine, again takes the top spot, this time playing the 'infamous' Dr. Rynning, leading said expedition to that long distant planet, following a ludicrous introduction of dark alley vampires led by Adamson himself, wearing the same kind of plastic fangs you used to find in any five-and-dime. More than half the 85 minute film is in black and white, so to match with the new color footage Samuel Sherman decided to simply use red and blue tinting, the stock footage including shots from 1953's "Robot Monster," 1948's "Unknown Island" (2 tiny dinosaurs in a long shot), plus the usual battling lizards from 1940's "One Million B.C." The folks at the film processing lab could not believe that Sherman had promised to release such an abomination, so the resulting success must be chalked up to salesmanship and advertising. TV viewings under one title were interspersed with theatrical showings under the original, and after the phenomenal "Star Wars," a third release as "Space Mission to the Lost Planet." What it amounts to is truly the last gasp in 1950s-era spaceship clichés, mostly filmed before 1967's "Mission Mars," all of which disappeared from screens after "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968. While many believe that Al Adamson was a master of such reckless paste jobs, he only repeated this formula once more with 1977's "Doctor Dracula," again starring John Carradine, this one a barely released Paul Aratow feature called "Lucifer's Women," adding Dracula to its Svengali. The movies of Al Adamson certainly have their entertainment value, yet will never be mistaken for good cinema.
Review of Horror of the Blood Monsters
