Wednesday, August 22, 2018

PLANET OF STORMS 1962 (RETROMEDIA)

Finally, the original version of the movie Roger Corman made four or five movies out of.

I have always wanted to see this fine Russian made sci-fi outing and I must admit I wasn't disappointed. It's a highly entertaining and imaginative film.

Three spaceships are sent to land on the planet Venus. One is hit and destroyed by a meteor. The remaining six astronauts and their robot named John decide to go ahead and land on the planet.

The one female, Masha (Kyunna Ingatova) has to stay behind and orbit the planet so her comrades can return. She reluctantly accepts to do so, even though inside it tears her apart as she wanted to touch ground on the strange planet.

Once there the men encounter giant man eating plants, a bizarre race of lizard creatures, a flying monster that resembles a Pterodactyl, a brontosaurus and they all seem to hear a strange female voice that is somewhat entrancing, much like a Siren.

After many hardships including torrential rains, volcanoes and earthquakes the five men decide to return after gathering many samples of the planet. One of the men, Alyosha (Gennadi Vernov) has found a strange rock that he discovers has a sculpture of a beautiful creature inside of it. He believes these are the inhabitants of Venus and the source of the strange noise they all hear.

However they cannot stay any longer and must leave the planet. The final shot of the film shows a reflection in a lake of a beautiful female creature, just like in the sculpture.

I found this to be a very fun and interesting film. The effects for the most part are very good and the print quality from Retromedia is superb. It's in Russian, of course with English subtitles. I would recommend this to any sci-fi fan, especially fans of 50's and 60's films. It was nice to see the entire film after spending over 50 years seeing bits and pieces in other movies.

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