Queen of Blood
Directed by Curtis Harrington
Written by Curtis Harrington from a story by Mikhail Karzhukov and Otar Koberidze
1966/USSR/USA
Cinema West Productions
First viewing/YouTube
Allan Brenner: [disgusted] She’s a monster.
John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and Dennis Hopper appear in but do not save this dud.
The year is 1990. An alien spacecraft sends a distress signal from Mars and Earth sends a rescue team including astronaut scientists Alan Brenner (Saxon) and Paul Grant (Hopper). Dr. Farraday (Rathbone) supervises from earth. Naturally, when they find a surviving female alien they put her on board where they belatedly find she feeds on human blood. And breeds.
Roger Corman bought up a bunch of Soviet scifi films for their special effects. He then gave directors such as Harrington a few dollars and some washed-up actors for Americanization. If this hadn’t had an appearance by Basil Rathbone I would have given it a miss. But poor Basil could not rescue this bad bad (as contrasted with good bad) movie. Also has one of the most rip-off non-endings EVER! You have been warned.
I watched this on YouTube with commercial interruptions but I don’t think those did the movie any harm.
