Reflections on ... Queen of Blood (1966)

It’s been suggested that – while Fontaine’s bar is temporarily shuttered due to the coronavirus scourge and the world is socially-isolating itself – the Lobotomy Room film club (specializing in the cult, the kitsch and the queer!) could continue online for the time being. I’ll be occasionally posting fun oddities and obscurities that are viewable on YouTube for your delectation. Remember: Lobotomy Room is the home of Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People) so don’t “at” me if you wind-up hating the movie and asking yourself, “What the fuck did I just watch?”

Our first film selection is Queen of Blood (aka Planet of Blood), an el cheapo 1966 science fiction movie (the meagre budget was reportedly $50,000) directed by Curtis Harrington. Not to be confused with Queen of Outer Space (1958) starring Zsa Zsa Gabor! Tagline: “Hideous beyond belief … with an inhuman craving!”

As was a common convention for producer Roger Corman’s b-movies of the period, this American flick incorporates (or “recycles”) footage from a 1959 Russian film. (The special effects and relatively impressive “outer space” scenes spliced-into the action are from the bigger-budgeted Soviet source). This ultra-terse synopsis I found online is more succinct than anything I could come up with: “astronauts go to Mars and return with a green vampire woman.” And boy, does she stir up trouble! In fact, in no time the corpses of astronauts begin piling-up, mysteriously drained of blood! (It takes everyone a while to discern the alien woman is a vampire. It’s been noted this aspect of Queen’s plot – the vulnerable space crew being picked-off one by one by a monster - anticipates Ridley Scott’s Alien).

Director Harrington (1926 - 2007) was a genuinely maverick, intriguing and durable talent with an overtly queer / camp sensibility. Queen is very much an example of Harrington being handed lemons and attempting to impose a bit of flair to the material. His wayward career encompassed the occult / underground art film fringe (he was an associate of Kenneth Anger, and appears in Anger’s 1954 film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome) to wildly entertaining hagsploitation horror movies in the early seventies (What’s the Matter with Helen? and Who Slew Auntie Roo? both starring Shelley Winters, Killer Bees with Gloria Swanson) to mainstream television establishment (he directed episodes of TV series Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman and Dynasty!).

The pleasures of this film: 

Some of the cannibalized Russian special effects are genuinely haunting, eerie and dream-like. (In fact, my tip is to drown-out the wooden acting and tedious dialogue, don’t try to make sense of the narrative and just let the movie wash-over you like a dream). 

The soundtrack of spooky “the-future-is-scary!” theremin music. 

Queen has a fun, kitschy sherbet-coloured retro-futurist look (it’s meant to be set in the year 1990 – which must have felt like the distant future in 1966), with lots of starkly minimalist space-age décor in the control centre and spaceships, and the astronauts wearing cling-y quilted athleisure wear outfits.  

Judi Meredith as coolly efficient astronaut Laura James sports truly impressive immobile and gravity-defying bouffant helmet hair that screams “1966”. 

It offers a sweet reminder of just how dreamily cute young heartthrob leading men John Saxon and Dennis Hopper were at this early point in their careers.

/ The look of love: Florence Marly and Dennis Hopper in Queen of Blood / 

But truthfully, the film is owned by the Queen of Blood herself. Honey, she is fierce! Played entirely mute (like Vampira in Ed Wood Jr’s Plan 9 from Outer Space) and possessing a glistening livid green complexion, sunken Marlene Dietrich cheekbones, glowing blood-shot eyes and a remarkable vertical fright wig hair-do (think troll doll), she is the film’s single greatest special effect. (I’d argue she’s an influence on the Martian vixen Lisa Marie plays in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!). Watch for how the alien smilingly (hungrily?) appraises the male astronauts - and then her lip curls disapprovingly when she spots Laura!  Producers pressured Harrington to cast someone younger, but 47-year old Czech actress Florence Marly memorably instills the role with unearthly inscrutability and menace. She alone makes Queen of Blood worth investigating. Spoiler alert: the ending involves repulsive pulsating “alien eggs” served on a tray of lime gelatin - an appetizer from an atomic-era dinner party gone horribly wrong.