Planet of the Vampire Women (2011, DVD Review)

Director: Darin Wood
Cast: Liesel Hanson, Stephanie Hyden, Jawara Duncan, Keith Letl, Paquita Estrada, Ashley Marino, Danielle J. Williams, Emily Vernon
MVD and Seminal Films / Region 1 / Unrated / 16×9 widescreen / Dolby Digital 5.1 / 95 minutes / PURCHASE
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It’s time for some cheesy, independent action/sci-fi/horror compliments of writer/director Darin Wood (Monster from Bikini Beach). His latest, Planet of the Vampire Women, is exactly what it sounds like; a movie about a planet inhabited by a variation of the sexy, nocturnal, blood sucking parasites. Darin’s surname “Wood” is a pretty cool coincidence because this, his second feature, reminds me a lot of legendary filmmaker Ed Wood Jr.’s infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space. Its wonderfully low-budget, b-movie charm takes this movie a long way and drives the entertainment.
A band of space pirates –consisting of a gorgeous, Nubian Amazon woman, a drunken doctor, a male cyborg, a female “pleasure clone”, a Laura Croft wanna-be and assorted stripper-types– are on the run from Officer Falco after a botched hold-up of a multi-billion dollar space casino. Their spaceship (a futuristic version of a vintage Chevy Camaro) crash lands on a mountainous planet just after their captain is shot by some kind of ray that turns her into a hot ass vampiress. The crew meets up with Falco who follows the pirates to the planet and they split up; some to fix their spacecraft, and some to explore the planet and its inhabitants like bird-sized bugs, monsters made of mostly a giant maw and of course, the vampires.
On their journeys, they are picked off one by one and tuned into the vampiric army of the dead. While fighting off some of the planet’s wildlife, Falco and Ginger (the Tomb Raider-ish chick) happen upon the last of the original race of the planet –who looks like the Borg Queen from Star Trek: First Contact. She explains to them that the “vampires” are parasites of her people run amok and she is about to blow up the entire planet to eradicate the varmints. So it’s a race to fight through the vampires and critters and get the hell off planet, but who or what else is going to escape as well? Oh, it’s going to be a wild ride with this crew of misfits and topless chicks!

Captain Richards (Paquita Estrada)

What, I didn’t mention there were topless chicks? There are shit-tons of them! Wanna make a decent indie movie? Put lots of tits in there! Darin Wood knows what I want in a shoestring budget science fiction and horror flick: naked chicks, blood, and action, and he fucking delivers in Planet of the Vampire Women. I will often start watching one of the many low-budget films I get here at Casa De Ploitation and turn it off within minutes because I have a sixth sense of suckitude. This one hooked me from the opening scene of strippers gyrating topless in the casino. *BAM* attention grabbed! Well played Mr. Wood, well played…
Wood kept me interested with his use of ridiculously bad special effects on par with a GWAR concert, action driven pacing and lines like “I’m not saying they’re vampires, but they’re some sort of undead creature that feed on the blood of the living and shoot lightning out of their eyes”! The scenes of the final vampire attack lead by head vampiress Captain Richards (the yummy Paquita Estrada) are fucking awesome… lots of boobs, blood and neck gnawing! I had a lot of fun watching Planet of the Vampire Women and I’m sure it will be watched multiple times in the future thanks to MVD Distribution who puts out a shit load of independent horror and exploitation films, so check them out and peruse their catalogue. Maybe you will find other gems like this one.