The She-Creature (1956)

One of the wrost movies I have ever seen

Instant Favorite.

Fresh and Exciting

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

In the 1940s, Chester Morris and Tom Conway were reasonably successful and respected actors. Both made B series films (Boston Blackie and The Falcoh respectively) as well as A and B films...quite a few of them. But by the mid-1950s, both these actors were having problem finding roles on TV or films...and they were sadly reduced to acting in a schlocky film like this. Fortunately for Morris, he still had a few good projects in him (such as "The Great White Hope") but Conway would soon become a pathetic guy without work, a home as well as broken health. A sad end for a very good actor.In this film, Chester Morris plays Dr. Lombardi--a stage hypnotist with amazing powers. He is able to exert amazing power over people and claims to even be able to use age regression to bring out a physical manifestation...in essence, a monster. As for Conway, he plays Timothy Chappel, a guy who wants to exploit Lombardi's reputation in order to strike it rich. Little does he know that Lombardi's Svengali-like powers are real...and he's a very dangerous man. Apart from looking at how beautiful Lombardi's muse (Marla English) is, there isn't a lot of positive things to say about this cheap film. The monster, in particular, is pretty comical looking...and instead of instilling fear in the audiences watching the movie, it likely just elicited laughter. Plus, nothing about this film even seems scary...just kind of silly.

When I first heard about this film, I thought it was going to be typical 1950's B-movie stuff with someone in a cheesy costume going around attacking people. I was quite disappointed to find that most of this film wasn't even about that at all! It was mostly about this hypnotist who tries to seduce a woman by having her look into her past lives or something. It was hard to follow and I wasn't even sure how the title She-Creature was a part of this. It amounted to very little. If there's anything good about it, I guess it was at least a little unique.This wasn't even quite standard for films of the time. It really is just a pointless movie. I couldn't even tell that that creature was female! I don't know if I've ever seen more spinning papers in a movie before. That's probably why this is a dead horse trope. It's clichéd even by the standards of this time period. *

The best performances come early on-- that's when the two stiffed-up dead people fall to the floor. From then on, the acting goes steadily downhill. Actually, my nomination for "This movie's so bad, I'm not even going to try" award goes to Chester Morris, formerly known as Boston Blackie, with Ron Randell's "where am I" cop a close second. Morris wins because he gives his lines all the emotional inflection of a dial tone, and when he cuddles up to cutie Marla English for one of their many painful clinches, she looks like she wants to bang down the receiver. Too bad that making fun of a stinkeroo like She-Creature is like kicking a dead carcass. Because unlike one of those it's-so-bad-that-it's-good campy features, this one never had any life to begin with. Good camp needs an element of conviction— at least someone in production who believes the film is worth his/her effort. There's none of that belief here, probably because the cast of movie veterans knows they're on the downgrade and can look forward to little more than the next Social Security check. American-International and Roger Corman would soon wise up and turn these productions over to eager young unknowns and then the real campy fun would start. I just wish cable TV would honor some deserving old actors and give this celluloid zombie a quick burial, decent or otherwise.

With the assistance of hypnotist Dr. Carlo Lambardi (Chester Morris), Andrea Talbott (Marla English) is capable of regressing through a series of past lives. Some, like English maiden Elizabeth Wetherby, are quite innocuous. But Dr. Lambardi takes Andrea even further back – back to a time before humans existed. He takes her back to an amphibious creature that would someday become Andrea. But there are consequences. When Andrea regresses to this She-Creature, somehow it's capable of making the journey back to the present with her. A series of murders up and down the coast are proof. Andrea wants to escape from Lambardi and his powerful control over her. But is his control as powerful as the She-Creature? What an uneventful way to spend 77 minutes. The She-Creature is dull all the way through. I can't think of anything much duller than watching someone being hypnotized over and over and over. The cast doesn't help much. Chester Morris isn't much of a threat as the baddie. Lance Fuller makes for the most "do nothing" lead I've seen – unless you call staring blankly into space doing something. Finally, while I've always enjoyed Tom Conway's work, The She-Creature gives him little to do and Conway makes the most of it, sleepwalking his way to a paycheck. The only two positives worth noting are the creature special effects (very nicely done and far better than anything you would expect to find in a movie like The She-Creature) and the sight of Marla English in a sweater.Unless you're able to catch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of The She-Creature, my advice would be steer clear of this one.