The She Beast (1966)

Simply Perfect

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The wiki and other sources have this film tagged/labeled as horror and fantasy but NOT comedy. A lot of people are calling this one a comedy-horror when it is not just because there is some comic relief or comical moments within the film. It's on the campy side - so it's fun at times.Overall this film is terrible - really bad. It is mildly entertaining in it's way but mostly boring to me. It's such a shame because I like Barbara Steele and this film is a waste of her good talent - for one thing she is not in this film enough to satisfy most of us.The movie is just over 1 hour and 18 minutes long and it took 30 minutes for the car wreck to happen and the ghost witch to enter into the man's wife. After the possession, it is still pretty much of a bore to watch with a handful of good scenes.3/10

Veronica and Phillip are a young English couple enjoying a holiday in Transylvania now part of modern day Romania . Actually "modern day" is in fact 1966 the year this was made and right away the logic alarm bells start ringing as to why anyone would want to visit the Stalinist regime of Romania ? Despite Nicolae Ceausescu coming to power the previous year and later being seen as a liberal in the West Ceausescu was no different from the previous regime which almost resembled a vicious parody of Orwell's 1984 . Is this the type of country dependent on Western tourists ? It's certainly not Yugoslavia Since THE SHE BEAST is a horror film I suppose you are meant to ignore logic and this might have possibly worked if the antagonist was a vampire directly related to Dracula but the story has nothing to do with Vamps and everything to do with a Witch . In other words the story could be set in any foreign country . Directed by 23 year old Michael Reeves who a couple of years later was being touted as "The wunderkid of British cinema" there's nothing here that indicates brilliant potential though to be fair you could say the same with Coppola's early work . THE SHE BEAST has a cheap , almost amateurish feel to it and shooting it in black and white adds to the cheap feel . It also has a strange tone where the film can't make u t mind if it's trying to be a straight horror or an innocents abroad black comedy . To give it some credit the make up on the witch is grotesquely impressive but nothing else is and you can never escape from the lack of logic of holidaying in a paranoid communist regime . More so when characters are constantly pointing out Romania is a hardline Marxist state

Much has been made of young film-maker Michael Reeves, especially what great heights he might have achieved in his career had he not died so tragically young (25 to be precise). Most of this mouth-watering yet unfulfilled expectation hinges upon the brilliance of his third and final film, the Vincent Price classic Witchfinder General. Having said that, Reeves' second film – The Sorcerers, starring Boris Karloff and Catherine Lacey - is also an adeptly crafted bloodcurdler, greatly admired by critics and genre addicts alike. Since he attained such an esteemed reputation in his brief lifetime, one would assume that Reeves' first film must also be a cracker… perhaps not up to the heights of his 2nd and 3rd films, but certainly a superior offering showcasing the young director's budding brilliance and mastery. A good, interesting little debut at the very least, surely? Wrong! The She-Beast is a largely terrible horror entry, very muddled in conception and clumsily put together, with almost none of what would become the director's trademark skilfulness and artistry. If he'd died after this film it's unlikely anyone would have remembered him at all.In modern-day Transylvania, elderly recluse Von Helsing (John Karlsen) lives in a cave where he spends half his time drinking himself into a stupor and the other half re-reading accounts of legendary past events in the neighbourhood. He is particularly interested in one terrible incident from 200 years previous, the capture and drowning of a local witch in the neighbouring lake. At the point of death, the witch placed a curse on the entire village and promised that one day she'd return and have her vengeance. Back in the present, British couple Veronica (Barbara Steele) and Philip (Ian Ogilvy) end up in the village whilst on a tour of eastern Europe. Following a bust-up with a drunken innkeeper, they make a hurried getaway but, as they pass the lake, a mysterious force affects the steering on their car and they crash into the water. To Philip's horror, his wife doesn't make it out of the lake… instead, her unconscious body is possessed by the long-dormant spirit of the witch, transforming Veronica from an attractive young woman into a hideous monster with murderous vengeance on its mind. Philip and Von Helsing race against time to find a way to exorcise Veronica and return her to her natural state before she is lost forever.There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the plot other than a reliance on derivative ingredients – witch's curses, village mobs, the possession of a pretty young innocent, etc. (all things that have been over-used in terror pictures of its era). At the very least, however, The She-Beast should have enough mileage in it to be a semi-enjoyable horror movie in the familiar old style. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't work… it is awkwardly structured, woodenly acted, wildly overplotted and – worst of all – massively disorganised in terms of style and purpose. Disparate elements are thrown in for no good reason, such as touches of political commentary about the nature of eastern bloc existence and ill-fitting flashes of comedy (including a truly bizarre Keystone Cops-style car chase near the climax). These jumbled elements simply bring a sense of confusion and incohesion to the film, distracting the audience from what ought to be the central storyline. It wouldn't matter if they worked, if they added a worthwhile extra dimension to the film, but they don't… meaning that, as a result, everything comes across as muddled and incoherent. A couple of effective jumps remain, plus the odd memorable scene amid the chaos, but overall The She-Beast is a huge let-down from its wunderkind director.

Michael Reeves is the man who left the horror-loving universe baffled with one pondering question: what if … ? Would this young and obviously multi-talented genre director would have delivered many more horror classics if he hadn't passed away at the age of 25? He probably would have. His last film, "Witchfinder General" starring Vincent Price, is widely and righteously considered as one of the greatest period pieces ever accomplished. Anyone who directs such a film at the relatively tender age of 25 is bound to deliver several more masterworks. Reeves' other film "The Sorcerers" is perhaps slightly less memorable and overwhelming, but nevertheless a modest little gem for horror fans to discover. "She Beast" was his first achievement as a director. Quite frankly, this isn't a good film at all… "She Beast" tells a typically Gothic horror tale that starts in the 18th century, in a small Transylvanian village terrorized by a hideous witch that kills little children. After yet another vile murder, the villagers organize a lynching mob and drown her in the town's lake. Two hundred years later, the British lad Philip and his lovely wife Veronica are driving through the Transylvanian countryside on their honeymoon. Nearby the lake, Philip loses control over the steering wheel and crashes the car into the water. He manages to save himself quite quickly but, instead of the lovely Veronique, the hideous witch emerges from the lake with a vengeance. Philip, with the help of a descendant of Dr. Van Helsing, must find a method to exorcise the witch's evil spirit without killing the body of his beloved wife. The plot of "She Beast" is very routine and derivative, which is exactly what Michael Reeves must have thought as well, as he tried to flavor it with misplaced comedy. Especially during the final act of the film, when Philip and Van Helsing are confronted with the dimwits from the local police, the film is stuffed with dumb slapstick situations and wannabe humorous interludes. The chase sequence, for example, is extremely overlong and actually belongs more in a Benny Hill sketch. Barbara Steele, already a couple of years passed the high point of her career, is scandalously underused! She's only in the film for a good 15 minutes, albeit with a glorious almost nude scene, but then she gets replaced by an anonymous actress wearing the – hands down – ugliest make up in history of horror cinema. As illustrated on the DVD cover, the hag has a swollen face and terrible dental hygiene, and the weird thing is that she already looked like that before she was killed by villagers in the 1800's! Reeves' regular Ian Ogilvy is decent enough as the worried husband and there's an interesting role for genre veteran Mel Welles as a voyeuristic innkeeper. Not very recommended, except of course if you want to see everything Barbara Steele has ever starred in and/or you want to see the other work from the director of "Witchfinder General"