What with it's sparse sets, slightly out of date for the 60's corny sic-fi tone, it's plot involving a sorta space vampire, and its vaguely psychedelic color scheme, Queen of Blood reminded me of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires. Whether or not it was a deliberate ripoff I don't know (although apparently it was based around a bunch of purloined footage from a Russain sci-fi movie), but it's probably the slightly more successful film. Bava's film is a little more striking and unique, but Queen feels better pieced together, with a more fleshed out silly, unbelievable, fake-looking sci-fi world, and a more intriguing villain.
It also features some early roles for John Saxon and Dennis Hopper (the latter of which looking particularly young and handsome), which adds a slightly appealing nostalgia/curiosity element that Vampires lacked. Although somewhat slow paced, it builds up to an acceptable second half. It's not very scary or exciting, but the "queen" makes for an offbeat enough villain to lend interest to the suspense scenes. She's got green skin and hair, doesn't speak, and seems to be able to bewitch/hypnotize the crew members, so I guess there's this hazy sexual element to the whole thing that I liked. Anyways, not particularly great or even that good, but has a certain something that I found made it watchable.
Rating: C+
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