Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970)

Original movies directed by Al Adamson are bad enough, but his hodgepodge flicks, assembled from pieces of films for which Adamson bought the rights, are even worse. Sci-fi/horror embarrassment Horror of the Blood Monsters demonstrates why. To repurpose scenes from a black-and-white Filipino movie about cavemen fighting supernatural monsters, Adamson shot some new material and contrived an incoherent story about Earth sending a space vessel to a distant planet as a means of combating extraterrestrial vampires, or something like that. The picture opens with a lame vampire attack shot in a soundstage, then transitions to ground-control scenes featuring black curtains as backdrops, and eventually to spaceship sequences with the production values (and performance quality) of a high school musical. To mask the monochromatic nature of the Filipino footage, Adamson provides dialogue about mysterious radiation that changes the color spectrum, and the black-and-white stuff appears tinted green or red or whatever. The monsters in the recycled scenes are ridiculous, flying bat-winged little people, real lizards photographed in forced perspective, underwater crab creatures, and vampires whose fangs look like pieces of chalk. Adamson’s new scenes aren’t any better. John Carradine spews pointless exposition, a buxom blonde looks confused while, thanks to iffy dubbing, another actress’ voice emanates from her mouth, and so on. At one point, the technicians at ground control stop supervising the emergency space mission so they can make out and play with a color-spectrum gun, resulting in yet more tinted shots. Alternate titles for this crapfest include Creatures of the Prehistoric Planet, The Flesh Creatures, and Vampire Men of the Lost Planet.

Horror of the Blood Monsters: SQUARE