Two spaceships, Galliott and Argos, head towards an unknown planet from which a distress signal is coming. Suddenly, an unknown force catapults them towards the planet, and they barely land safely thanks to Captain Mark. However, other crew members get possessed to attack each other, before regaining consciousness after a minute. Argos is safe, but it seems nobody survived the landing on the Galliott. Mark and the crew explore the desolate planet, and discover a giant skeleton and remnants of a station. It turns out that the planet is inhabited by energy beings which take over the body (or even the corpse) of another being because they know their Star is dying, so they want to escape and move to another planet. Mark, Sanya and Wess are the only ones able to escape from the planet alive in Argos. However, Mark and Sanya turn out to be possessed by the energy beings, too. Wess kills himself by destroying the spaceship's engine, so Mark decides to land on Earth.
"Planet of the Vampires" (also known as "Planet Terror") is a testimony to the long lost audacity of the Italian cinema which hereby underwent a remarkable enterprise of conjuring up a science-fiction horror film without the big budget usually found in Hollywood, and yet, it works since the director Mario Bava's ingenuity was able to surpass the movie's limitations. The set-designs, costumes and special effects are lacking (the stars in space and the design of the planet all look charmingly naive), but that is compensated through a slow-burning, scary mood which builds its suspense since the crew is stuck on the alien planet full of rocks and fog for the majority of the film. The opening features a really well made scene (stars in space seen rotating through the window of the spaceship, as the camera pans down to look at the astronauts downstairs) and another good one is on the planet when they discover a skeleton of a giant on the ground. More of these kind of ideas would have been welcomed, since the movie loses its creative swing in the second half, turning rather routine, standard and improvised. The authors created a threat without a single monster make up since the villains are invisible "energy creatures" which possess the bodies of the astronauts, making this at times a stretch and a cheat, though still a good forerunner and amalgamation of Scott's "Alien" and Carpenter's "The Thing", contemplating about some themes of invisible threats and paranoia, whereas the twist ending is well done.
Grade:++
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