Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970) User Reviews

For sheer guts, you can't beat Al Adamson

[frankfob · 3/10 · 27 December 2002]

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.

What a hoot!

[Red-Barracuda · 4/10 · 25 April 2007]

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.

Who really was the worst filmmaker anyway??? Al Adamson or Ed Wood ???

[elo-equipamentos · 4/10 · 24 July 2019]

I've this unique picture from Al Adamson, then I had to made a research in his career, now the doubt stays on in my mind, who really was the worst filmmaker for all time anyway, Adamson or Wood? Hard to find a proper answer, this picture starts very disconnected of the forthcoming facts, the opening scenes on vampires raid on earth, then without any plausible explanation a Rocket was launched through the space to find out another planetary system, to able to develop human life, having the odd John Carradine leading the travel, the cheap rocket, primitive control panels, pressures gauges, panels lightning are spreading all around, astronauts rakishly smoking on those unfashionable wooden chairs, the tons of stock footage were added to make this bad movie, however it's enough funny to my taste, I really love this trash pictures from the fifties and sixties, they are so bad, that are good to watch, a pleasant and enjoyable to wasting time, great Al Adamson!!

Resume:

First watch: 2012 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 4

Al Adamson, An Auteur of Collages

[silentgpaleo · 1 May 2000]

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)...

A Movie That Has Nothing to Do With Itself

[w00f · 1/10 · 16 June 2004]

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??????

Al Adamson's Masterpiece--Not!

[Widget-5 · 1/10 · 1 February 1999]

Ooo-kay. Try and follow this: it seems that there is a plague of vampirism running rampant on Earth, and scientist John Carradine is the only one who has a snowball's chance to save us. It seems there's this planet somewhere where vampires are known to exist, so John and a team of dunderheaded astronauts whoosh off to see if there's anything on this planet that might bring about a cure. Still with me? Okay. When Carradine and crew land their $1.95 toy spaceship on the distant planet, things get hopelessly goofy: the so-called "horror" of the Blood Monsters that inhabit this rock is portrayed almost completely by tinted stock-footage from an old Filipino caveman flick. These scenes contain: hopeless-looking bat-men that glide on wires, ridiculous lizard-men that couldn't make it into a Toho soundstage, and vampire-like cavemen wearing tusks from the local Filipino five-and-dime. Carradine and his hapless away-team are baffled by what's going on...needless to say, so is the audience. For those who desire quality cinema--avoid this like the plague. For the rest of us...don't miss.

Al Adamson does it again.

[Hey_Sweden · 5/10 · 9 June 2018]

The Earth is currently being over-run by space vampires. In an attempt to solve the problem at its source, a mission is launched to the distant planet that spawned the blood suckers. The team, including Dr. Rynning (John Carradine, a man who could seemingly never say "no" to a gig), Commander Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers), and comely female Linda (Britt Semand), discover a globe much like a prehistoric Earth, complete with dinosaurs, lobster-men, snake-men, bat-men, and warring caveman tribes.

Even at his best, low budget filmmaker Al Adamson was still basically making schlock. This is one of his most utterly shameless, taking copious stock footage (mostly from a 60s Filipino film called "Tagani", but also cribbing from "Robot Monster" and "One Million B.C."), adding really cheesy voice-over narration (by the legendary weird performance artist Brother Theodore) and his own clunky new footage. Adamson and company take the opportunity to have lots of fun with tinting ("Tagani" was shot in black & white), and the visual schemes are priceless. Ooh, now everything's red! Now everything's green! And now it's blue! And so on. The movie is overall so ridiculous that it is quite amusing and endearing in its own stunningly awful way. One highlight: Adamson regulars Robert Dix and Vicki Volante showing how people make love in the "future".

And to top it all off, the movie was re-released under a handful of other titles, all in the name of trying to maximize that profit.

Al appears in the opening minutes as one of the vampires.

Five out of 10.

An Appropriate Acronym, At Least!

[ferbs54 · 1/10 · 25 October 2007]

As soon as I saw Al Adamson's credit as producer and director at the beginning of "Horror of the Blood Monsters" (1970), I knew I was in for a rough ride. Adamson is the man responsible for "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (1971), easily one of the worst films I'd ever seen, and I still hadn't forgiven him for that awful evening. In this one, Adamson's buddy John Carradine and his crew of dorky associates blast off from Earth, are damaged by a solar something-or-other, and land on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs, vampires, lobstermen, batmen and cave people. Unfortunately, all the "good" stuff has been ineptly spliced in from a B&W Filipino vampire/caveman film called "Tagani" (1965), a film that, compared to Adamson's, looks a model of cinematic professionalism. The planet is also affected by "chromatic radiation," so that the inserted B&W scenes could be variously tinted red, yellow, blue or green. To add to the nonsense, Adamson cuts back to Earth in total non sequitur to show us how people will make whoopy in the future; something to do with orgasmatron-type electrodes they wear to bed. Anyway, this film is truly a labor to sit through; another Adamson abomination. You know it's bad when you find yourself wishing that you were watching the original Filipino caveman movie, without all the stoopid sci-fi claptrap that Adamson & Co. added later. Infinitely more entertaining are the extras on the DVD that I just watched, including trailers for "Tagani" itself AND six other Filipino horror films; some of the wildest, most amazing coming attractions I've ever seen. The makers of "Tagani" should have sued Adamson for turning what looks like an interesting film into some true cinematic torture. Rent this one out at your own mental peril! You'll notice that the acronym for this film is HOT BM: appropriate, given the steaming pile of crap that it is!

Proof that bad sci-fi was NOT confined to the 1950s and 60s!

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 10 July 2008]

Well, if I wanted to say something nice about this film, I guess the color and quality of the DVD print were good. Sadly, that's probably about all I can say that's positive about this dud! By 1970, most of the ultra-schlocky sci-fi films were a thing of the past. However, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS proves that this genre of bad films was still alive and twitching! The film begins with a horribly narrated segment about vampires. Then, rather abruptly, the film switches to an outer space film. Given the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs, you'd think they'd have some impact on how the film portrays space travel, but this isn't the case with this bizarro throwback from 50s sci-fi films. The set is exactly like these 50s films--with nothing resembling a real space ship and all the appearance of a cheap set. Additionally, the crew are hilariously inappropriate--with the clichéd busty woman, a very old man with heart trouble (John Carradine) and some men who spend much of their time ogling the lady.

Now I have compared this film to earlier low-budget sci-fi films, but this isn't totally fair. At least most of these previous films TRIED to look realistic--this film has the worst special effects for space I have ever seen. It really appears as if the budget was not more than $.79! For outdoor scenes on the vampire planet where they land, magenta-colored filters were used--though later they abruptly became green filters, red and then yellow filters! They also encounter several silly creatures. One looked like Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street--in reality, an elephant wearing a fur skin! Others were the usual small lizards running around on tiny sets. Then, some rather random caveman video is included--that is, until you find out they are VAMPIRE CAVEMEN!!!! Oddly, in the middle of all this, the film abruptly switches back to Earth several times to show a couple making love "the new way" (complete with lots of electronic equipment). These scenes aren't really explicit nor are they "hot"--just random and pointless. At one point, the lady voices her dissatisfaction with his performance--I couldn't agree more! Then, of course, it's back to the vampire planet for more 1,000,000 BC-style entertainment. Much of the caveman material isn't blended at all into the plot and it just goes on and on and on. Watch them fight again and again--mostly in an effort to pad out the film. Possibly the most interesting action that takes place in all this were the fights between the cavemen and the crab-human-bug hybrids as well as the fight between the cavemen and bat-monkeys. These fights were unintentionally pretty funny and at least offered a mild diversion.

Sadly,though, no matter how inept this film is, generally it's very dull and not even worth seeing so you can laugh at its ineptness. A truly bad and silly film--worthy of any Top 10 Worst list!

weird patchwork film is interesting to lovers of the strange

[dbborroughs · 5/10 · 13 August 2008]

What do you get if you take a black and white Filipino caveman film and add new color scenes explaining that the caveman stuff is actually on a far off planet? You get this movie a wild and weird scifi film about vampires from space. Another patchwork job by Al Adamson for Sam Sherman, this film kind of works in its own twisted sort of a way. To be certain the new earth bound material of vampires here on earth doesn't really work, but the cavemen stuff which explains the source of the infection (okay I'm going out on a limb here) is interesting in a "so bad its good" meets "so weird its compelling" sort of way. I've actually gone back to see this film willingly several times over the years because its just so damn odd. I have no idea if thats a recommendation, hell I don't know if I even really like the film, but it is sort of a one of a kind movie. Worth a look for the truly adventurous.

"I feel so helpless just sitting here watching." Having just watched Horror of the Blood Monsters I know how she feels, absolutely terrible.

[poolandrews · 1/10 · 29 August 2005]

Horror of the Blood Monsters starts out by giving the impression that it's a Vampire film with some inane stupid narration (by someone called Brother Theodore apparently, uncredited) that claims Vampires are widespread on Earth & are slowly taking over the human race. These Vampires were created when alien Vampires landed on Earth centuries ago from the 'Spectrum Solar System' & that the infamous scientist Dr. Rynning (John Carradine) is heading a space expedition to the 'Spectrum Solar System' to do some research or something, I don't really care as Horror of the Blood Monsters is already as stupid as any film I've seen. So, Captain Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers), Bob (Fred Meyers), Willy (Joey Benson) & their glamorous assistant Linda (Britt Semad) together with Dr. Rynning take off in the XP-13, a state of the art spacecraft (well, as state of the art as you can get from a spacecraft made out of a washing up liquid bottle, some wires & painted silver). Not very well guided by Colonel Manning (Robert Dix) & a bird named Valerie (Vicki Volante) back on Earth they unfortunately hit a meteorite & are forced to land on an uncharted planet that suffers from 'Chromatic Radiation' which turns the sky different colours. Once safely landed the team come across various creatures & warring tribes. The encounter a woman named Lian Malian (Jennifer Bishop) whom they do a little DIY surgery on & are able to make understand & speak English perfectly. They must find a way to repair the XP-13, avoid all the hostile creatures, sort out the entire planets problems & make it back to earth safely...

Produced & directed by Al Adamson who also has a small role during the opening sequence as a Vampire, Horror of the Blood Monsters is as bad as you could possibly imagine & perhaps even worse. The script by Sue McNair has potential, isn't too bad in itself & even tries to add a moral message at the end but in the hands of the infamous Adamson Horror of the Blood Monsters is a real chore to sit through. The incompetence is astounding, lets start with the process 'Spectrum X' which means most of Horror of the Blood Monsters takes place in annoying colour tints, the entire screen is bleached a single colour & it got on my nerves so much it's untrue, I simply hated it & can't see anyone disagreeing. The film goes to great lengths explain this with the useless 'Chromotic Radiation' nonsense, in fact Horror of the Blood Monsters if full of stupid inane scientific babble which means nothing & Carradine's character is particularly guilty of this. None of the characters are developed & I hated them all, I never cared for anyone or was in the slightest bit interested in what happened to any of them. Adamson's direction is pathetic & he slows the film down to a snail's pace, he fails to create any sort of excitement or pace & the fights are so poorly choreographed their laughable & beyond tedious. Horror of the Blood Monsters uses different footage from various other films including One Million B.C. (1960), Unknown Island (1948), Robot Monster (1953), The Wizard of Mars (1965) & Tagani (1965) which is where the real reason for the 'Spectrum X' colour tinting is discovered because some of these films were Black and White so Adamson could just tint the whole screen one colour & it would match the rest of the film, brilliant stuff Al. The props like the wobbly aluminium painters ladder on a supposedly futuristic spacecraft, costumes, sets like the truly awful looking spacecraft which consists of a wooden table some old fashioned computers & some of the most basic chairs ever that appear to be two planks of wood nailed together, continuity with the XP-13 having taken off but the footage on the control rooms monitors suggest otherwise & those tribes all of a sudden are able to speak English, the special effects are as bad as anything I've seen & just about everything else are terrible, this is real bottom of the barrel stuff. The monsters are rubbish, there are some stupid looking bat-men, a half a crab man, I say half because he always remains half submerged in water so we never get to see below his waist & the Vampire cavemen have the most fake looking plastic fangs in film history. The acting is so bad it's hard to imagine it could be any worse even if they tried. I hated Horror of the Blood Monsters, sure it has a wonderful title but it is a really crap film. It bored me to tears & I couldn't wait for it to finish. Sci-Fi horror films don't come much worse & it's not even worth a watch in a so-bad-it's-good way either, avoid at all costs.

Another Al Adamson "masterpiece"

[Casey-52 · 9/10 · 23 May 2000]

I don't care how many people voted this movie a "1" out of 10, this movie is pure entertainment! There aren't very many painful moments, lots of great, fun scenes, and of course, the Adamson trademark of "cut and paste filmmaking".

"Vampire Men of the Lost Planet" (the video title) is a bizarre combination of horror and science fiction. The opening scenes include vampires attacking people in dark alleyways and actually manage to conjure up some atmosphere before ruining it by displaying obviously fake vampire fangs and dabs of blood on necks. Watch for Adamson himself as a vampire (with plastered back hair)! Now for the real movie...or at least Adamson's part of the movie: a team of astronauts are sent to a far-off planet that is believed to have sent the vampire virus to Earth to discover how to destroy them! Of course, by the end of the movie, the mission is forgotten and presumably the vampire epidemic is still running rampant, but what comes in-between is loads of fun! What follows is a mix of Adamson's footage (the astronauts and their cavegirl guide) and a Filipino caveman movie that is surprisingly well-made. The monsters are all in the Filipino movie and are inventive, to say the least. There are great scenes of warring cave tribes, vicious cave women who fight off their attackers, snake men with snakes protruding from their skin, lobster monsters eating cavemen as they cross a lake, and a simple plotline about the warring tribes venturing to get "fire water" (oil) in a valley. John Carradine is along for the ride, but never leaves the spaceship! Vicki Volante and Robert Dix play two lovers working at the launching pad. To make matters worse (better?), most of the film is tinted a certain color, changing every few minutes (the explanation is that the planet's atmosphere has varying levels of radiation). The reason for the tinting: Adamson's footage was in color and the Filipino monster movie in B&W.

Al Adamson. What an original! His films will always remain fun to watch for generations, even if small-minded people look for something else beneath the cheap surface. There isn't, so just sit back and enjoy them!

Horror of the Blood Monsters

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 10 October 2023]

Al Adamson was remixing movies back in 1970. Invasion of the Blood Monsters has footage from Robot Monster, Unknown Island, One Million B. C., the Filipino movie Tagani and The Wizard of Mars. By the time it was ready for drive-ins and theaters, that black and white footage looked old. Adamson used a process called Spectrum X that made everything a single color. It's really strange when mixed with full color footage yet I kind of enjoy it.

Exploitation heroes like Gary Graver and Adamson play vampires in the beginning as we listen to Brother Theodore tell us what has happened to our home world and why a rocket must go into space and John Carradine will lead humans in their quest to save Earth.

Jennifer Bishop is the beautiful girl who will help them fight snake men, lobster people and more vampires - hey, Bud Cardos - and oh yeah, bat people! Sam Sherman produced this and it was originally started in 1966 with reshoots in 1970. It was getting renamed all the way up until it was a Star Wars clone - well, in title only - under the AKA Space Mission of the Lost Planet.

I just read a bad review of this movie and it made me dislike the person who dare say anything mean about this film. From the moment the Independent International logo shows up, I was happy. Like, deliriously joyous. How can you not love a movie like this? What's next, people don't like Brain of Blood?

Redefines bad

[Bill-166 · 1/10 · 3 March 2007]

This film atrocity must be seen to be believed. By comparison Plan 9 looks like Citizen Kane. Any movie that can combine vampires, space travel, lobster-men, bat-pygmies, snake-men, & cavemen into one utterly illogical, incomprehensible "plot" gets a special place in my bad movie lovin' heart to begin with. When compounded by adding tinted black & white stock footage as a plot device, a 50-cent plastic toy spaceship with a bic lighter for propulsion(I swear I'm not making this up), and a "Spectum Analyzer" that is clearly a caulk gun, it transcends the normally accepted standard of "so-bad-it's-good". The WORST of the worst.

I liked it and I don't care who knows it!

[Sum Flounder · 7 February 2002]

What I liked most about this crazy movie is the late great Brother Theodore's manic narration of the intro. He did an even better job narrating the film's trailer. It makes me wish that more directors would have hired this insane genius and just let him cut loose. The infrequency of Theodore's screen appearances seemed to have been his own choice. There were plans to cast him as Dracula in Al Adamson's "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (THAT would have been something to see!), but apparently Theodore wasn't comfortable doing material that was written by somebody other than himself. Anyway; the rest of the film was pretty cool, too. The experience of watching it is kind of like channel surfing when every station is showing a cheap science fiction film at the same time. If the way the plot is going isn't to your liking, don't worry. It'll change in a minute. The lobster man was my favorite. I also liked the stock footage from Hal Roach's "One Million B.C." Seeing the spaceship model from Roger Corman's "War of the Satellites" was a surprise. I guess special effects man David Hewitt must have kept it in his basement all those years. There was also the voice of the talented Paul Frees in a few spots. While it's true that the producers of this film were shamelessly padding an obscure foreign film into something (they thought) was releasable(and re-releasable under many other titles), they did it in an entertaining and hilarious way.

A bad film that all others bad films must live down to.

[Ron-137 · 1/10 · 7 February 1999]

I saw this film in the early 1980's as part of a triple feature at the local drive-in (so please if I error on the details, my apologies). At that time it was titled "Night of the Wolf" or "Cry of the Wolf" or some such non-related drivel. It starts with vampire attacks on women in the night (in poor lighting). Then it goes to launching a rocket into space (internal shots only). We wade through long dialogues over what the plot is about (while walking around in a cardboard set). The Ship lands on a planet inhabited by vampire cave-men (all shot in black & white through a red filter). They find, rescue, and flee with the only non-vampire cave-gal (which is never really explained). The crew escape back to Earth without a solution to the problem (luckily the red cloud dissipates freeing Earth till the next time.) The nightmares still linger in my head about this, truly the worst film that I ever saw.

Yet Another John Carradine Craparama!

[MooCowMo · 2/10 · 5 April 1999]

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 caveman movie! It's 3 treats in 1!! In the first part of this chilling opus, an annoying narrator waxes poetically 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. Then we see our plucky astronaut team, lead by the irratible Mr. Carradine, who obviously needed some ruffage. Then they land in the middle of a Filipino caveman moovie, where they help the good cave people fight the bad cave people...sort of. 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 gell the cameraman chose at the time. 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. This is Roger Corman at his worst. MooCow says check it out for a hoot, but don't say you weren't warned!

:=8)

Why is there no lower rating than 1?

[cyclone259 · 1/10 · 6 July 2009]

Bad, bad, bad. Not even the good kind of bad either. You can look at most any Ed Wood project and say "That movie was terrible, but it had heart" but, not this one. It was on life-support, bloated, pumped full of morphine and waiting to die.

Don't get me wrong, I love terrible cinema (Plan 9 From Outer Space) is part of my movie collection, but there's no excuse for this one. The sadder thing is that I regrettably paid a $1.99 to watch it on the 'Classics On-Demand' channel. That's 90 minutes I'll never get back.

Anyway, the storyline. It opens with some 'vampires' preying on hapless victims in LA? New York? Who knows. The vampires are clad in 60's era chic attire, lurking in the darkness to unleash their plastic-toothed evil upon the world.

Jump ahead... Scientists? from earth are traveling to a far-off planet and after a run-in with an unknown energy force end up making an emergency landing on a planet replete with cavemen, tinted cut scenes and lizards wearing latex appliances. Come to find out, this is apparently the home world to the vampires on earth. Whoopee.

After seeing John Carradine's excellent performance in 'The Grapes of Wrath' and then in this dreck (and apparently many other titles in the genre), it makes one think that someone was really hard up for a paycheck. Sad, truly, truly sad and almost heartbreaking. It made me think of Lugosi at the end of his career. Who knows, maybe he actually enjoyed working, no matter how crappy the project was.

Anyway, the cast and acting were as cardboard as the scenery. The irritating 'tinting' of the scenes (which allowed the insertion of clips from other awful movies) was a distraction. Overall, in my Top 10 of the worst movies I have ever seen. A must miss at any price.

Al Adamson's very own "Plan Nine".

[mark.waltz · 1/10 · 13 September 2019]

Ridiculous looking vampires with $.10 Halloween store fans. A sudden incident on a spaceship where grouchy John Carradine barks "Take your hands off me!" Tinted footage that alternates between red, yellow, blue and green. A bug eyed sea monster with lobster claws. The Filipino equivalent of Sabu. A bikini wearing alien who speaks perfect English. (Well not perfect....her acting is not what I'd call well rehearsed or directed...) Vampire aliens with tusks instead of fangs. Enlarged reptiles supposed to be dinosaurs. Bat people who fly but look like Bela Lugosi in "The Ape Man". A form of energy known as "fire water". And don't forget Robot Monster.

Yes, the stock footage mixed into this film creates a delightfully stupid low budget sci-fi/horror. Veteran actor John Carradine isn't playing a mad scientist, but his character is deliciously nutty. The plot makes no sense, yet somehow I was able to figure out a way to put it into words. The Tubatano people and the other tribe seems to be cast with cab drivers on their day off. This is one of those films that seemed like what was already in its hundredth rerun on local TV, yet it had some sort of theatrical release. This has to be seen to be believed, and makes Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster" seem like "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

Seen on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater in 1977

[kevinolzak · 1/10 · 19 August 2014]

"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.

Al Was Able To Get A Movie Out And Stay In The Movie Business

[mikecanmaybee · 2/10 · 19 July 2020]

Al gave it his best shot and bundled together a movie that was a bridge to the classic "The Female Bunch." This movie starts out quickly with Director (Al Adamson) as one of the ghastly vampires who attack twenty somethings. The next thing we know is "Horror of the Blood Monsters" transitions into a Sci-Fi with grumpy Dr. Rynning (John Carradine) bossing around ship Commander Steve Bryce (Bruce Powers) and everyone else on board including the lovely Linda (Britt Semand). They land on a planet inhabited by a race of Philippino Vampires, Crab People who lurk in a freshwater steam, and Bat People. There are two different films here with Al doing a nice job tying it all together. All that said, I'm not going to recommend this one unless of course...... Al had the before mentioned (Britt Semand) and the gorgeous (Jennifer Bishop) as Lian, however, there were no tasteful shower scenes or an artsy skinny dip sequence which may have put this one over the top. (Joey Benson) plays the part of ship crew member Willie who is kind of a Leave It To Beaver guy who doesn't seem to exist in this day and age.

Shoestring budget and shoestring production

[lightfinger-91687 · 2/10 · 3 April 2022]

You would be best to skip this movie. This movie has little redeeming quality. It's hard to sit through. The beginning sequence is laughable and comes off as a poor documentary and then switches to a space endeavor.

The Perfect Drive-In Experience: A Hallucination in Space!

[Atomic_Brain · 10/10 · 16 September 2020]

Following the gruesome and untimely murder of Al Adamson, his remarkably unique drive-in pictures are finally beginning to get the respect they surely deserve. As one who experienced many of the classic Independent International shockers on the big outdoor screen, I can testify that these films, which hold up remarkably well today, were even at the time like nothing else being shown on drive-in screens.

Horror of the Blood Monsters may be Adamson's ultimate cinematic mish-mash, a patchwork hallucination without peer, although others such as Blood of Ghastly Horror and Hell's Bloody Devils are certainly rivals for that honor.

After an arty animated credits sequence by unsung graphic genius Bob LeBar, this glorious mess begins with our favorite overwrought narrator, Brother Theodore shouting inchoate "beat" poetry such as, "I am the Vampire!", while several dumb fools on-screen (including the director and cinematographer, supposedly) run around in the night wearing dime-store Halloween fangs. This segues into the story proper, which is a very cool, low-budget space opera, uncannily similar to Dave Hewitt's amazing The Wizard of Mars, and one is not surprised to learn that Hewitt did, in fact, supply some of the props and footage from this outer space epic for this picture. It's also fun to see a couple of stock shots of Jack Rabin and Irving Block's sublime miniature space station from Roger Corman's incredible War of the Satellites.

When our intrepid space explorers land on their designated planet, the color film turns to a strange tint, like a sepia-toned silent film, for here this daring film poses its most auspicious cheat, incorporating stock footage from a black and white Filipino monster movie about cave people and claw monsters.

One of many highlights in this most trippy film is a newly-shot scene wherein Vicki Volante and Robert Dix have intercourse in a groovy space bed, a jaw-dropping moment which catapults this film into pure sexploitation territory.

The ongoing juxtaposition of weird monochrome Filipino footage with colorful new U. S. footage makes for a jarring and completely compelling viewing experience, and as with most, if not all Adamson drive-in legends, one is encouraged not to follow the plot too closely; like a good drug trip, you are just supposed to just sit back and enjoy the show! Even the hyperbolic and generic title hints that patrons are supposed to seek cheap thrills, not deep plot, from this bizarre collage of a movie, an excellent example of imagination and montage from various sources used to good effect in the service of "throwaway" commercial cinema. Al Adamson will live forever in these exquisite films which, for some of us, were like seeing High Art on the Big Screen.

Whatever Ed could do badly . . . Al could do worse!

[Bruce_Cook · 11 December 2003]

Also released as: `Creatures of the Prehistoric Planet', `Horror Creatures of the Prehistoric Planet', `Space Mission of the Lost Planet', and `Vampire Men of the Lost Planet'.

Al Adamson again proves that anything Edward D. Wood, Jr. could do badly by accident, Adamson could do worse on purpose! As with several other Adamson projects, this one started as a Filipino feature, from which Adamson clipped footage and then shot new footage to be added.

John Carradine plays a scientist who traces a group of vampire killers on Earth to a previously unknown planet, where he and his crew have to fight vampire cavemen, snakemen, and other badly done makeup jobs from the cribbed Filipino footage.

The original film was in black-and-white, but the new scenes were filmed in color.

Was this a problem for Adamson? Of course not! Al just tinted the black-and-white scenes and then had his astronaut characters explain that the tint was a side effect of the planet's radiation (what else?)

Also starring Vicki Volante and Robert Dix. A voice-over narration by Theodore Gottlieb tries in vain to bring it all together. When the film flopped at the box office, Adamson tried his patented re-title-and re-release method -- which never works. But it did give the public four more chances to unwittingly see his rotten movie.

A hilariously horrible hoot from our reliably schlocky pal Al Adamson

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 2 September 2007]

This uproariously atrocious Al Adamson $1.50 sci-fi/horror patch-up job rates highly as one of Al's single most sublimely stinky pictures to ever disgrace celluloid. This beautifully bad and berserk baby boasts John Carradine at his all-time crankiest, Brother Theodore's gut-busting wheezing histrionic opening narration, poorly tinted black and white giant creature footage from the moldy oldie items "One Million Years B.C." and "Unknown Island," cheap cardboard spaceship sets, a quick cameo by Adamson as a vampire with wicked sideburns, a particularly ridiculous heavy-breathing sex scene, a pretty sorry trash cinema ensemble cast that includes Vicki Volante, Jennifer Bishop and Robert Dix, chintzy cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, such hysterically goofy monsters as hairy cave-dwelling bat demons, swamp-residing lobster men, snake men, and two warring cavemen tribes, and a stupendously silly plot concerning a fearless team of astronauts traveling to a hostile alien planet so they can thwart a severe extraterrestrial vampire plague that's ravaging Earth! This isn't by any stretch of the imagination a good movie, but it is nonetheless an often unintentionally amusing and hence hugely enjoyable Grace Z low-budget crap camp classic.