Planet of the Vampires (1965) on Netflix
Two ships, the Argos and the Galliott, follow a distress signal to Aura, an uncharted planet. An unknown force turns the Argos crew on one another. Only Captain Mark Markary resists.
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- Rotten Tomatoes73%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Argos and the Galliott are two interplanetary ships on an expedition into uncharted space when they pick up a distress signal from Aura, a fog-encased planet nobody has explored. Both ships attempt to land. As the Argos enters the atmosphere, an unknown force takes hold of the crew and drives them to attack one another. Captain Mark Markary alone holds on to his will and pulls the others out of their murderous state. On the surface, the survivors set out across the strange terrain in search of the Galliott, the sister ship that went down ahead of them. Communications officer Sanya and engineer Wess are among those with Markary, and the repairs the Argos needs will take time.
Cast
- Fernando Villenaas Dr. Karan
- Alberto Ceveninias Toby Markary / Wan
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ridley Scott and Dan O'Bannon both claimed they had never seen Planet of the Vampires when Cinefantastique noted how much the film resembled Alien in 1979, but O'Bannon later admitted he "stole the giant skeleton" from Bava's film.
- Low on money and unable to use opticals, Mario Bava did nearly all the effects in camera: the alien planet was two plastic rocks left over from a mythological film made at Cinecittà, hidden with smoke, and Tim Lucas wrote they were multiplied in shots by mirrors and multiple exposures.
- Before Norma Bengell was cast as Sanya, Susan Hart — an AIP regular and the wife of Arkoff — was considered for the female lead.
- On set each actor spoke his or her own language — Barry Sullivan in English, Norma Bengell in Portuguese, Evi Marandi in Italian and Ángel Aranda in Spanish — often without understanding what the others were saying.
- In the late 1970s Atlas/Seaboard Comics published a short-lived comic book, Planet of Vampires, which mixed plot elements from Bava's film with Planet of the Apes and I Am Legend.
