TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO

(vt Planet of the Vampires) Italian film (1965). Italian International/Castilla Cinematografica/AIP. Dir Mario Bava, starring Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda, Evi Morandi. Screenplay: US Louis M. Heyward, Ib Melchior; Italian Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Roman, Alberto Bevilacqua, Bava, Rafael J. Salvia; based on a story by Melchior, based in turn on an Italian story by Renato Pestriniero. 86 mins. Colour.

   This Italian/Spanish/US co-production is directed by Mario Bava, whose baroque, erotic and sometimes sadomasochistic HORROR films have won him a cult following; he also dir DIABOLIK (1967). He was once a notable cameraman, and this sf/horror film is visually intense. Astronauts land on a strange planet and immediately and inexplicably start killing each other. Three corpses are buried but, in a striking sequence, rise from the grave, still shrouded in polythene. It turns out they are possessed by alien spirits. Two possessed astronauts and the still-human captain (Sullivan) take thespaceship to return to Earth, where the pickings will be rich. The discovery in TNS of an ancient, alien SPACESHIP on the surface, occupied by a giant skeleton, was echoed with some fidelity in the later film ALIEN (1979). The florid, dreamlike atmospherics of TNS almost make up for thesilliness of the story. Originally to be shot simultaneously in Italian and US versions, with pages of script delivered only on the day, it must have presented a challenge to even Bava's celebrated inventiveness.

   PN

   See also: CINEMA; MONSTER MOVIES; PARANOIA.