Episode 77: Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970)

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And its time for an-udder John Carradine crap-a-rama!!!
:=8D
Yes, ol’ John Carradine is back, playing yet another crotchety old coot, this time in Vampire Men of the Lost Planet, aka Horror of the Blood Monsters, aka about 57 other titles. This one is a classic: it’s a vampire movie! It’s a space movie! It’s a Filipino caveman movie! It’s 3 stinky treats in 1!! Come check out the latest episode of Indie Film Cafe, where yer old pal the MooCow, Moody, and actress Sarah Adkins howl their way through this weird, stinky Al Adamson classic!

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In the first part of this chilling opus, an annoying narrator (Brother Theodore from Letterman) waxes melodramatically about the vampire culture on earth, as we watch a bunch of half-doped “vampires” attack some stage extras with toothpicks instead of teeth. Then, we are whisked to Mission Control, run, apparently, only by 1 man and a woman with lots of cleavage (Vicki Volante). Then we see our plucky astronaut team, lead by the irritable Mr. Carradine, who obviously needed some ruffage, as well as Dr. manning (Robert Dix), Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers), loveable schlub Willy (Joey Benson), and eye candy Linda (Britt Semand). Their model toy rocket ship “lands” in the middle of a Filipino caveman moovie, where they help the good cave, including Lian (Jennifer Bishop) people fight the bad cave people…sort of. It is heavily implied that the bad cave people, the Tubati, are somecow the genetic progenitors to the vampires back on earth – even though they have no problem wandering around in the sun and have snake heads popping out of their shoulders (heh??), while the ones back on earth stay in the dark and have no such snake accoutrements.

But its the “special effects” are the real eye candy here: most impressive is the Chromatic Radiation, which changes the film’s color from blue to yellow to green to whatever gel the cameraman chose to shoot with at the time (Oh, Vilmos Zsigmond…). What happened is that director Al Adamson (Blood Orgy of the She Devils, Satan’s Sadists, Dracula VS Frankenstein) got his grimy paws on a copy of the Filipino flick (Tagani), which was shot in 1956 as a black & white caveman fantasy, and then added the space travel bits in color in 1966, then added the weird color hippy vampire opening in 1970. To cover the fact that he was slapping together bits and pieces, he came up with the idea to use color tints over the film to cover the transitions between the bits to make it seem perfectly natural, figuring, rightly, that the necking, drugged out kids at the drive-in would neither notice or care.

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Watch quickly for an elephant with carpeting glued to it’s hide, several wandering water buffalo, a couple of saw-toothed iguanas, furry bat people who fly on strings, lobster people who attack with claws, pre-historic midgets who attack with bows….the list goes on and on. All of this is mashed together with a campy sci-fi space flick and a late 60’s hippy vampire flick! This is Al Adamson at his weirdest.

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Yea gods, well the votes are in and the Indie Film Cafe kids figure this one pretty well takes the stinky cake. Yer old pal the MooCow and snuggly Sarah Adkins both gave Horror of the Blood Monsters scores of 8, while Moody decided he’d seen worse and only offered a 6 – that’s a Stinky Total of 22 on the Stinkometer, and a Stinky Average of 7.3! on the Ladder of Stink, this strange Al Adamson flick sits just below Crater Lake Monster and just above Grizzly Rage. Not too shabby!

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Trailerage is right HERE. And here is a kewl 1970 TV spot. Watch for free on the Tube of You! You can git yer hooves on the dvd or vhs version at Uncle Amazon, Monsters in Motion, Classicmoviesdvd.com, and sometimes Wally World. Copies will also pop up from time to time, like a Tubati, on Ebay. But for the really big spender, check out the huge, massive, unbelievable 32 remastered moovie blu ray cowllection for $426 schlamoleons right HERE!!! You cud git yer hooves on all 32 essential Al Adamson stinkers in glorious blu ray – who wouldn;t want that?? Also check out the must-see documentary about the life, career, and sad death of Al Adamson on Prime. Get the nifty moovie poster HERE. Its also at the moviepostershop.com udder one of its many alternative titles, in this case Space Mission to the Lost Planet. And Cinematerial.com seems to have a bunch of them! Ladies tee shirts can be found at this Brit site, and kids sizes can be found HERE. TeePublic.com has an awesome coffee mug, while HERE on Ebay you can get two difference sizes of mugs!

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Weird and wonderful in its own stinky way, Horror of the Blood Monsters is a moost-see for anyone who loves to watch ridiculous horror crap, especially if they love the swingin’ 60’s! The Indie Film Cafe kids say check it out!
;=8)