EDITOR’S NOTE: Back on June 29, 2020, I said, “Behold pure magic! You may have noticed that I have a weakness for movies where planetary races of female overlords descend on our little mudball and wipe humans out left and right. This is one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of the genre ever and has suddenly leaped to the top of the list.” As we work on an entire week of movies where evil women try to destroy Earth, how dare I not include this one, which comes from Alfredo B. Crevenna, the director of The Fury of the Karate Experts, one of the most out-there films ever, a movie that somehow combines Santo, kung fu mysticism, aliens, the Coral Castle and Atlantis.

After walking into a flying saucer-looking ride at a carnival, a group of humans is soon light speeding their way through space, the prisoners of a planet of women looking for a new home. Beyond the nuclear family being menaced, we also have a boxer who is in over his head with the mob, his girl and the gang of thugs out to make him pay.

Soon, they’re being experimented on by the evil queen Adastrea and helped by her twin Alburnia. There’s a legend on their planet that twins would arrive, with one serving a dark god and the other a being of light. They’re both played by Lorena Velazquez, whose acting career continues to this day. She’s as close to a scream queen as this era would produce, with roles in The Ship of Monsters, Macabre Legends of the Colony, She-Wolves of the Ring and, in perhaps her best-known horror role, she was Thorina, queen of the vampires in Santo contra Las Mujeres Vampiros. She’s beyond fabulous in this, threatening the lives of children in one scene and sweet and tender in the next.

Speaking of children, the space women have a plot to take human lungs — the younger the better — and use them to make their own ability to breathe our air.

One of the space women, Eritrea, is played by Maura Monti, who would play a similar role in Santo vs. the Martian Invasion, released the very same year. She’s also The Batwoman, which we covered last week.

This movie packs plenty of poignant moments and hilarious dialogue inside it, so much so that you’re unsure if you’re watching a drama or a comedy at points. The sets are astounding works of pop art, the aliens’ costumes leave little to the imagination and the bad guys are as bad as you can get. All movies should aspire to do so much with so little.

You can watch this on YouTube.