Review of She Creature, The

Introduction

During the 1950s and 60s, Horror in the US was as synonymous with American International Pictures as Hammer was with Horror movies in the UK. Kings of the drive-in, AIP put their money behind up and coming young directors (perceived as hip-and-happening, and uniquely for movie executives on-the-money for once). The company`s biggest directorial discovery was a youngster called Roger Corman, who with the aid of classic horror star Vincent Price and teenybopper idol Frankie Avalon (oh, and not forgetting mouse-ka-teer supreme Annette Funicello) would invent a whole genre of teen movie.

Founded by Samuel Z Arkoff and James H Nicholson, AIP`s initial stock-in trade was creepy monochrome horror movies, heavy on the cheese. "The She-Creature" (1956) is one such movie, detailing an evil hypnotist`s regression of his subject to a prehistoric sea-monster. Unusually, more screen time is given to the histrionics surrounding the monster`s antisocial behaviour than seeing it trash the joint. The restrictions caused by lousy rubber monster suits did not cause similar considerations in other AIP movies, so we can only assume the story was scripted with this different approach.

The best things about these movies are the posters, and the box contains a set of nine poster-postcards to match the trailers included on the disc.

Video

Presented in 1.33:1 monochrome, the movie has suffered from age and wear and tear is visible. Day for night scenes are remarkably flat and lacking in contrast.

Audio

The soundtrack also suffers from age, and is presented here in DD2.0 Mono.

Features

The movie comes with nine gloriously cheesy trailers for other movies in the collection. Posters for these movies are also reproduced in postcard form in the box, and are undoubtedly one of the highlights of the release. There is also a 50 minute audio-only interview with Samuel Z Arkoff at the BFI. There are also Dutch and German subtitles but no English HOH.

Conclusion

A disappointing entry to the series. AIP produced some real humdingers in the horror genre during the 1950s and 1960s, but this isn`t one of them.