Queen of Blood
1966 · Directed by Curtis Harrington · USA
Queen of Blood (1966) was written and directed by Curtis Harrington. This sci-fi horror is set in 1990, starring John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Dennis Hopper, Judi Meredith and Florence Marly as the Alien Queen.
Aliens make contact and announce their imminent visit to Earth. Their ship crashes on Mars and two spaceships are sent to investigate. On board the first ship are Laura (Meredith) and Paul (Hopper). The second spaceship contains Allan (Saxon), who is in a relationship with Laura. On Earth, coordinating the rescue is Doctor Farraday (Rathbone).
The team find a female alien, and it’s not long before she is feeding on the crew to sustain her appetite for blood. The crew try to appease her with their stores of plasma, but her appetite is insatiable and the plasma is not enough. She feasts on Allan and, in a scuffle with Laura, she is injured and bleeds to death. Allan surmises that she must be the queen of her race and part of a haemophilic bloodline sent to breed with humans.
With only Laura and Allan left, they return to Earth and discover the queen has laid pulsing, glowing eggs around the ship. Allan wants the eggs destroyed, but Dr Farraday overrules him to save the eggs for research.
An alien killing the crew of a spaceship, pulsing, glowing eggs. Does this sound familiar? Dan O’Bannon has cited Queen of Blood as a major visual and conceptual influence on writing the screenplay for Alien (1979). Harrington said that Alien “was a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of Queen of Blood”.
It is not the most visually exciting film; the effects are a bit shoddy, it is slow in parts and the Alien Queen is underused. With that in mind, it is an interesting chapter in the development of cosmic horror.
Gallery
Trailer
From the score
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Main title – Ronald Stein (credited as Leonard Morand)
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Isolated score – Ronald Stein (credited as Leonard Morand)
