A lightweight but fun old-fashioned adventure movie which has the very clichéd plot of a group of astronauts landing on a remote planet (bizarrely, Venus) and finding themselves terrorised by a variety of alien life. That's it. The end of the story. The rest of the film consists of various crew members trying to make their way back to their ship and being threatened by monsters, plants, the weather, and an erupting volcano. This is a lively little film which is confusing in parts, mainly due to the fact that it was initially a Russian film (called PLANETA BURG) which Roger Corman then got hold of, dubbed and added in extra scenes with actors Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue, located in static sets and basically commenting on the action as it happens. Although this gives the movie a disjointed feel, the process works as a whole.
The first thing we witness as the movie starts are some wobbly, miniature spaceships flying through the stars. Now this won't give George Lucas any sleepless nights but is however a nice attempt at creating a science fiction tale; I'm a big fan of special effects in whatever form they take and these are a good effort. We're introduced to the astronauts, a group of men who all look the same and are never really characterised in any way, shape or form. However, it is good to see Basil Rathbone (bizarrely looking a lot like Peter Cushing here) in action as a professor giving the orders, and it's nice that the sprightly 70-year old was still clinging to his roots at his age. American starlet Faith Domergue also appears as a token female who doesn't really benefit the plot in any way.
Also introduced is a very cool giant humanoid robot, one of the coolest you'll ever see perhaps. He even gives Robby the Robot a run for his money. The robot will play a key part in the film later on. As well as him, there are lots of cheap bits of sci-fi gimmickry, like weird pinging noises and scales and monitors which are meant to mean something. One scene I did like was when one of the astronauts turns on an outside microphone and hears a load of eerie wailing noises. Probably the best thing about this movie is the design of the planet. Venus is portrayed as a desert-like barren land, populated by the occasional hill, mountain, or pool. It's also extremely misty and contains apparent sentient vegetation in places. Hilariously, once outside, one of the explorers dips his hand into a pool he discovers (at one point I thought he was going to drink up!) - who's to say that the liquid isn't acidic? At this point we are introduced to the first "monster", a very well-designed giant tentacled plant which threatens to devour one of the men.
From then on, the group gets split up and explore the landscape. In their travels they discover a group of violent reptile men who attempt to kill them and are themselves killed, a brontosaurus (!) which they take a blood sample from (!!), and an evil flying reptile which attempts to destroy their amusing hover car. At one point they venture underwater where they discover an eerie, ruby-eyed bronze idol of the flying reptile and a hilarious white octopus. Anyway, what can I say? It goes without saying that this film is only to be watched by bad film fans who don't mind a few dodgy effects here and there and are willing to suspend their disbelief in the interests of entertainment. Saying that, the Russian special effects guys actually do a very good job in creating a world populated by all kinds of danger (my favourite creatures has to be the brontosaurus though). Also, a very atmospheric landscape in my opinion too. It's just a shame that we don't get to know or care about the astronauts at all. That would have made some of the dangerous situations more exciting. Otherwise, this is a perfectly perfunctory little B-movie enlivened by a great visual look.
The first thing we witness as the movie starts are some wobbly, miniature spaceships flying through the stars. Now this won't give George Lucas any sleepless nights but is however a nice attempt at creating a science fiction tale; I'm a big fan of special effects in whatever form they take and these are a good effort. We're introduced to the astronauts, a group of men who all look the same and are never really characterised in any way, shape or form. However, it is good to see Basil Rathbone (bizarrely looking a lot like Peter Cushing here) in action as a professor giving the orders, and it's nice that the sprightly 70-year old was still clinging to his roots at his age. American starlet Faith Domergue also appears as a token female who doesn't really benefit the plot in any way.
Also introduced is a very cool giant humanoid robot, one of the coolest you'll ever see perhaps. He even gives Robby the Robot a run for his money. The robot will play a key part in the film later on. As well as him, there are lots of cheap bits of sci-fi gimmickry, like weird pinging noises and scales and monitors which are meant to mean something. One scene I did like was when one of the astronauts turns on an outside microphone and hears a load of eerie wailing noises. Probably the best thing about this movie is the design of the planet. Venus is portrayed as a desert-like barren land, populated by the occasional hill, mountain, or pool. It's also extremely misty and contains apparent sentient vegetation in places. Hilariously, once outside, one of the explorers dips his hand into a pool he discovers (at one point I thought he was going to drink up!) - who's to say that the liquid isn't acidic? At this point we are introduced to the first "monster", a very well-designed giant tentacled plant which threatens to devour one of the men.
From then on, the group gets split up and explore the landscape. In their travels they discover a group of violent reptile men who attempt to kill them and are themselves killed, a brontosaurus (!) which they take a blood sample from (!!), and an evil flying reptile which attempts to destroy their amusing hover car. At one point they venture underwater where they discover an eerie, ruby-eyed bronze idol of the flying reptile and a hilarious white octopus. Anyway, what can I say? It goes without saying that this film is only to be watched by bad film fans who don't mind a few dodgy effects here and there and are willing to suspend their disbelief in the interests of entertainment. Saying that, the Russian special effects guys actually do a very good job in creating a world populated by all kinds of danger (my favourite creatures has to be the brontosaurus though). Also, a very atmospheric landscape in my opinion too. It's just a shame that we don't get to know or care about the astronauts at all. That would have made some of the dangerous situations more exciting. Otherwise, this is a perfectly perfunctory little B-movie enlivened by a great visual look.