HORROR
OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS (1970)Director: Al Adamson
Image Entertainment
HORROR
OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS (1970)Here is one of the many Al Adamson
excursions made in bits and pieces over a period of years. This one is different
in that it uses various scenes from a mid 60s black & white Filipino monster
movie originally called "Tagani." Al liked the film so much that he
purchased the rights and brought it to the U.S. The problem was that by the
time it came to releasing it, the drive-ins were demanding color films, so new
color footage was shot, highlights from the "Tagani" film were tinted
(which the advertising deemed "Spectrum-X") and the rest is history.
The plot is something like this: incidents of vampirism are plaguing the Earth and this is illustrated by a bunch of actors (including the director himself!) stalking victims in the streets with dime store fangs during Brother Theodore's over-baked narration. John Carradine then phones in his performance from the seat of a spaceship as he escorts his crew to a distant planet, looking for a cure. The inside of the ship is passable (and only just), but seeing a paper cutout to represent it in flight, and then a toy model with a puny flame to indicate its landing, can only induce the strongest of belly laughs.
When
the astronauts land and exit their ship, they witness the Filipino footage,
tinted different colors with a serviceable explanation that it has something
to do with the atmosphere (tinted dinosaur footage from other U.S. films are
likewise tossed into the mix!). The Filipino-shot scenes are actually quite
impressive and deal with a number of battling caveman tribes (some which are
dubbed by Paul Frees!), including long-toothed vampires, bat demons that fly
(heavily made-up dwarves on wires), lobster men that live in the water, and
a race of snake-men (well, men with small snakes coming out of their shoulders--kill
the snake, and you kill the man). In an attempt to connect the Yankee thesps
with the foreign action, Jennifer Bishop (THE FEMALE BUNCH) is a beautiful and
friendly Amazonian tribe girl, and stuntman John "Bud" Cardos doubles
as a longhaired vampire man. Overall, the result of the patchwork is an eccentric
piece of B-movie cinema, and it's easy to see why this is one of Adamson's most
popular films.
Since the film jumps from color to tinted black and white footage, it's hard to assess the picture quality, but HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS has never looked better. When you do see real color, it's pretty vibrant, and there are only minor scuffs on the source print. The audio is perfectly acceptable, and the full frame transfer only does disservice to the film's original aspect ratio on several occasions.
A
full commentary with producer Sam Sherman is included on a second audio track,
and even though this was recorded several years for the never-released Roan
Group laserdisc, it's still fresh and informative. Sherman reveals many interesting
facts about the production, including how actors Robert Dix and Vicki Volante
filmed scenes as far back as 1966, and were then brought back in 1970 to try
to make the plot more logical (and have space age sex!). He also disputes the
common belief that there were numerous titles for the film when in actuality,
there were only three (the others being VAMPIRE MEN OF THE LOST PLANET for TV
and SPACE MISSION OF THE LOST PLANET for a post-STAR WARS re-release). Sherman
also covers just about every other detail about the film's production, and his
commentary is tight, thorough and quite enjoyable.
Other extras include the original
showy theatrical trailer (also narrated by Brother Theodore), a 2002 copyrighted
trailer for the unreleased "Tagani" film in its true black and white
appearance, tantalizing trailers for BEAST OF BLOOD, BRAIN OF BLOOD, THE BLOOD
DRINKERS, BLOOD (CURSE) OF THE VAMPIRES, BRIDES OF BLOOD, MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD
ISLAND and a black & white teaser trailer for a live spook show called "House
of Terror." (George
R. Reis)