Retro Movie Review - "Queen of Blood" (1966)

[jordan179]

IntroductionI turned on this movie expecting it to be MST-able Grade B nonsense. I was very pleasantly surprised with what I found. Though the special effects are lame and its concept of space travel primitive by modern standards, it was actually an intelligent and well-thought-out movie -- one which deserved better treatment than it could get at

Comments

[unixronin]

Well, there does remain the not-inconsiderable problem of a vampiric alien species from a distant star that, nevertheless, has biochemistry close enough to ours that humans are an apparently acceptable substitute for whatever it is that they normally drain the blood of, yet different enough from us that a minor scratch is a mortal wound.

[jordan179]

... a vampiric alien species from a distant star that, nevertheless, has biochemistry close enough to ours that humans are an apparently acceptable substitute for whatever it is that they normally drain the blood of, yet different enough from us that a minor scratch is a mortal wound.

All this proves is that we are similar enough on the level of nucleoproteins that our blood is a nourishing broth to them -- nourishing enough to enable the Queen to survive for a matter of weeks, during which she lays eggs. The minor scratch proving mortal implies a rather different anatomical organization, but not an essentially-different biochemistry at the fundamental level.

Note that nothing in the movie shows them as being similar to us in any other way than that they can nourish themselves from our blood -- and that is only proven to be effective for a time, we don't know what equivalents of vitamins it might lack. Their psychology appears to be very different, and we don't know how detailed the anatomical similarities (or differences) are,

[polaris93]

Excellent review, Jordan. :-) Was there a novel that went with it? The novel might explain some things that were missing from the movie. "The movie is not the book." I could go for both the movie and the book. I think a lot of movie-goers who complain about special-effect and similar problems in older movies like this forget that the special-effects departments were limited as to what they could do by a) then-current technology and b) limits on what was known, scientifically and otherwise, about things presented in their movies. When you take that and limited budgets into account, quite a few of those older movies are superb -- for example, think of Forbidden Planet and George Pal's War of the Worlds, two of the greatest movies ever made. Both are somewhat outdated, technically speaking, but so what? Compare them to such zillion-dollar flops as Poseidon, a recent remake of The Poseidon Adventure (which was another great movie), and you can see that they're gold. Analogously, the best horror movie I've ever seen was Carnival

[jordan179]

Was there a novel that went with it? The novel might explain some things that were missing from the movie.

I don't know. The concept of sapient aliens who live like eusocial insects dates all the way back to H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon (1901), and the concept was done several other times before 1966, most notably in Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959). Oddly, given what I think were the alien motives and the nature of the implied mutual misunderstanding, Queen of Blood actually reminded me of the backstory of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (1985), which makes me wonder if Card was inspired by this movie.

The vampiric aliens concept also goes back to H. G. Wells, this time War of the Worlds (1898). It's also been done over and over again, including by Jack Williamson ("Prince of Space"), C. L. Moore ("Shambleau") and Robert Bloch ("Shambler from the Stars"). The movie Lifeforce (1985) was in part obviously inspired by Queen of Blood, though it also has literary origins in Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires (1976),

[polaris93]

After getting The Poseidon Adventures from the library and watching it, I was so intrigued by it that I got the original book by Gallico from the library and read it. I couldn't put it down, it was that good -- and that in spite of the fact that it was so full of grammatical problems, typos, and other editorial horror-stories that I winced my way through nearly every paragraph (from an early age I've been tragically afflicted with savage editoritis ;-)). - I'll have to look for the novelization of Forbidden Planet, just to see how it compares with the film. - Carnival of Souls, a.k.a. "the movie that refused to die," was overpowering. Try watching Bordello of Blood (no, that's not fair, that movie was clearly a lampoon) or the Grindhouse double feature, Planet Terror and Death Proof, (http://www.moviefone.com/movie/grindhouse/24583/synopsis?flv=1, http://en.wikipedia. ( ... )

[kishiriadgr]

Here's a third fan of "Carnival of Souls". I own it. I love the organ-only soundtrack and the scenes of Mary blankly playing as the dead whirl around dancing in the abandoned amusement park. Chilling and so under-rated.

[mrbogey]

"The Oceania's crew survives the solar storm by raising an electromagnetic shield which, unfortunately, greatly reduces their energy (which is why they have trouble on the return flight). This is absolutely plausible --"

Well it works for the planet.

[jordan179]

Indeed. :)

[xolo]

Ooooo! I haven't seen that in years. A very eerie movie.

[somercet]

Sounds great. I'll keep an eye out for it on cable.