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[Blu-ray] ‘Journey to the Seventh Planet’ is Low Budget Sci-Fi Fun
Journey to the Seventh Planet is the type of low budget science fiction film from the 60’s that I used to come across on late night television when I was a kid. While the film has budgetary restrictions that clearly show, the filmmakers make due with what they had and delivered a fun, imaginative little movie.
The film takes place in the distant future of 2001. Planet Earth is no longer divided into various countries and as a result there aren’t anymore wars. Instead Earth is controlled by the United Nations. In an attempt to find other planets that can harbor life the United Nations sends a space crew out into space in an attempt to explore Uranus, which they believe to possibly be suitable for living. Obviously the notion of human life being able to exist on Uranus is silly, but this was the 60’s, so why not?
When the crew lands on Uranus they are surprised at what they find. This isn’t the cold, dark icy plant they were expecting. Instead they find themselves smack dab in the middle of a luscious forest, just like one might find on Earth. Puzzled by this development the crew decides to get out and do some exploring. What they discover is that this forest is surrounded by some sort of barrier or force field. One member of the crew attempts to force his arm through the barrier which results in it freezing.
Suddenly other things begin to appear. A village that looks familiar to one of the crewmen. Then attractive women that various crew members have had a history with. Before long the crew realizes that everything they are seeing is something they have imagined or thought about since landing. Their desires begin to become reality, at least that’s how they appear. Before long they are confronted by some sort of creature. This creature is the thing controlling them, the thing that gets inside their minds and brings their thoughts into the real world. Soon the creature begins to pray on the fears of the crew and hideous monsters and beasts begin to attack.
This plot may sound familiar and that’s because it has been used a few times in films since. Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris is the most famous and successful movie that plays around with these same ideas. This is not to say Journey to the Seventh Planet is in the same category as Solaris, because it’s most certainly not, but some of the same basic ideas are shared. It’s also worth mentioning that while Journey to the Seventh Planet may predate the film of Solaris, the novel actually came out a year earlier.
A better comparison would be Berry Levinson’s Sphere, which also deals with an alien life force that creates manifestations based on the fear of the crew attempting to explore it. I would say that not only do these two films share similar themes, but they’re on pretty equal footing in terms of overall quality.
The special effects are of low quality, but they’re fun and inventive. There are some shots and effects re-used from previous AIP films – 1958’s The Spider being one that stood out. This was a Samuel Arkoff production and we know he wasn’t against re-using footage to save a buck or two. And honestly, I’m fine with that. Part of the enjoyment of a film like Journey to the Seventh Planet is relishing the cheap nature in which it was made and appreciating the work the filmmakers put in to make something out of nothing. I actually find movies like this to be quite inspirational, precisely because of the way they were made. They had to get creative with this and they did just that delivering interesting costumes and sets. I was especially fond of the crew’s blue spacesuits which looked like something Devo might wear.
The recent Blu-ray from Kino Lorber looks fantastic. It does a wonderful job bringing this B-movie to life. The film has a few moments that really pop with color and these shine on this particular release. Texture of the costumes and set design also comes through nicely. As far as special features go there isn’t much. You get a trailer and a commentary track with Tim Lucas, a film historian and Mario Bava expert. Overall not a bad package.
Journey to the Seventh Planet is a high-spirited B-movie that I would fully recommend. Grab some popcorn, your favorite beverage and pop it on for the perfect Saturday matinee.
Journey to the Seventh Planet is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.
There’s something really insidious, in a great way, about setting a horror story in a movie theater. It’s something filmmakers have known for decades, going back to The Blob and beyond, but it never fails to strike a chord because, in a way, it hits us exactly where we feel safest. Seeing a horror movie on the big screen, surrounded by like-minded moviegoers, is a communal experience, one in which everyone screams and laughs together. We are together, and therefore we are much less vulnerable, so when someone punctures that bubble of safety, it’s all the more frightening.
Matinee (also released as Midnight Matinee in some territories) is a movie that understands this from the jump, setting up a stunning opening kill that predates a similar sequence in Scream 2 by almost a full decade. A smart, layered, very stylish Canadian slasher released at the tail end of the 1980s, it’s one of those films that’s spent a lot of time in the dark even among the horror faithful (I’m willing to admit that I hadn’t seen it until recently). Now, a new Kino Cult Blu-ray release is out to change that, and it reveals a slasher essential that, while not perfect, has charm and style to spare.
Two years ago, the Paramount Theater in the small town of Halston closed its doors when, during the theater’s annual horror festival, a young moviegoer was murdered in his seat, mid-movie. Leads in the murder quickly dried up, and the case is cold enough now that the town barely talks about it anymore. Fortunately for local horror fans, that means the Paramount can open again in time for its Halloween horror festival, and they’ve got a hotshot producer (William B. Davis) in town for just such an occasion.
As the festival draws closer, the film introduces us to a variety of characters, including rebellious teenager Sherri (Beatrice Boepple), her boyfriend Lawrence (Jeff Schultz), her overbearing mother Marilyn (Gillian Barber), and the theater’s kindly owner, Earle (Don S. Davis), who’s just hoping he can run a business without more bloodshed. But someone clearly remembers what happened two years ago, and their violent streak is on a collision course with opening night.
Matinee has quite a few things going for it, but what stands out right away, and maintains a consistent grip right up through a wonderful crescendo in the third act, is the film’s visual style. Writer/Director Richard Martin, cinematographer Cyrus Block, and special effects wizard Bob Comer make great use of the film’s limited locations, giving the movie a charming small-town feel reminiscent of Halloween or The Blob while building a self-contained little world inside the theater itself that’ll remind you of films like Popcorn and Demons.
The colors are striking, the framing is clever, and the film clearly has a ball making references to all kinds of other horror cinema moments ranging from The Phantom of the Opera to Friday the 13th. The kills, while relatively sparing with gore, are delivered with style and appropriate tension, creating that sense of unease right in the middle of a place where we as movie fans should be comfortable: The movie theater. Along the way, the Paramount itself becomes a character, and this release definitely dials up its retro splendor.
The Blu-ray upgrade preserves the film’s attention to detail and ambitious cinematography, helping the colors to pop while never letting go of the texture and feel of a relatively low-budget horror film made in Canada in the 1980s. There’s a certain gauziness to many exploitation films of this era, that haloed light you get when the scene is perhaps overexposed just a little too much. It makes the film dreamlike even when it reaches for realism, and Kino Cult’s upgrade preserves that feeling. Throw in a smart script and a whodunit plot that leans heavily into the psychological details of each character, and you’ve got a winner.
There are a couple of things that stick out as slight issues here, including the lack of special features beyond an excellent commentary from film historians and Kino regulars Jason Pichonsky and Paul Corupe. The disc is quite reasonably priced, so it’s not a letdown economically speaking, but I’d love a deeper dive into the film and the Canadian slasher boom in general, particularly for a movie like this that seems to have faded from so many memories, including mine. The sound mix also has some issues, probably left over from previous releases, that might have you playing with your volume settings a little more than you’d like over the course of a 90-minute film, particularly when lines of ADR dialogue crop up.
These are minor concerns, though, and they do nothing to diminish the impact of Matinee, or the joy that’ll come from watching this film for the first time if you’re a slasher devotee in search of something new, or even someone who saw this movie way back when hoping to relive its glories. This is one of those slashers I’ll be talking about with fellow horrorphiles for a long time, and it’s because of this disc.
Matinee is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Cult.
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