The Astounding She-Monster (1957)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

****SPOILERS**** With bad movie director Ed Wood as the behind the scene consultant the film "The Astounding She-Monster" ends up a slight cut above most of the like-wise cheaply made bad films of the 1950's. This meteor lands on earth as this alien woman dressed in a skin tight silver jump-suite materializes killing anyone , human or animal, that she touches. It just happens that a kidnapping took place and the kidnappers Nat Burdell Brad Conley & the booze guzzling Jeanne Tatum end up taking their victim socialite Margaret Chaffee to this cabin in the woods right where the meteor landed not quite realizing what their in for. It the cabin lives geologist Dick Cluter and his faithful companion his dog Egan who together with Margaret are held hostage by the trio of kidnappers.It's when the alien woman starts to run amok and starts doing her "thing" in radiating anyone that she touches that the kidnappers start to lose interest in Margaret and start to try to figure out ways to escape before they themselves end up getting radiated to death by her. It's when everything seems lost that Cluter finds a way to destroy, with a platinum based solution, this alien woman from outer space before she does any more damage. And when he does Cutler as well as Margaret find out, from a note she left, that she was mankind's last hope in surviving the destruction that's soon to come. A destruction that mankind, with the use of nuclear weapons, is soon to make upon itself.***SPOILERS*** The depressing ending in the movie was repeated in both Ed Wood's bad movie classic "Plan Nine from Outer Space" as well as the 1962 "Twilight Zone" episode "The Gift" with mankind not realizing that the alien whom they fear is in fact trying to help them in saving them from their own self destruction. The difference here is that the space woman instead of trying to save the human race was doing her best to destroy it herself which didn't make her any friends on earth.

Back in the late 70s a local TV station (in MA) used to show this constantly on Saturday afternoons. It's about a tall glowing woman from another world who wanders around aimlessly in the woods. She's photographed with lights on her and in sort of a "wavy" way--it's hard to describe. She runs into some gangsters, their "moll" and two people they're holding hostage. The rest of the film involves them running from her (bullets don't hurt her) and her touching them and (inadvertently) killing them (she's radioactive). It all leads up to a totally ridiculous finale--with a moronic "twist".I found this fascinating in high school...but not because it was good. It was LOUSY...but in a really interesting way. There's a narrator that sounds like he's drugged out, the special effects aren't special at all and the dialogue and story are predictable. The acting is as good as it can be (i.e. not very). Still, it IS interesting but I can only truthfully give it a 1. Still....try catching it. There's NOTHING like it.Also your only chance to see Shirley Stoler as the alien in her first movie (she's billed as Shirley Kilpatrick). She's tall, young and SLIM!!!

Only an hour long with a paper-thin plot, this piece of 50s sci-fi cheese is the kind of inept classic that Ed Wood has become famous for. Lots of time is taken up with random footage of the She-Monster (Shirley Kilpatrick in a skintight glitter suit) wandering around in the woods. Four people in a cabin fight and get killed off by the lethal touch of this alien gal. Given that she doesn't say a thing, Kilpatrick really does carry this amateurish film with her menacing look and sexy outfit with a camera blur added to make her look out of this world. Lead actor Robert Clarke was so impressed with the money this film made that he went out and made his own monster movie, THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON. Rumor has it that Shirley Kilpatrick gained a lot of weight in later years and became character actress Shirley Stoler of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS and PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE.

It's amazing to me how films this poor continue to have a commercial life, but the recent DVD release of this Bomb just proves that some people will watch anything (like me, unfortunately)!Produced on the cheap (maybe a couple of week's worth of a kid's school lunch money), pic features a mysterious, glowing Alien female (Shirley Kilpatrick) whose radioactive touch brings instant death. Miss Astounding gets mixed up with some kidnappers (led by Kenne Duncan) and their victims on a secluded mountain range and gradually picks them off one by one until vanquished by a stalwart geologist (Robert Clarke). Ridiculous denouement suggests that our title monster was sent to Earth as an Emissary of peace. You could have fooled me.Production values are strictly from hunger and the film has the amateurish look of a home movie. Poorly edited and with horrible sound, it's a chore to sit through. Although music is credited to an individual, the soundtrack sounds more like a collection of poorly matched library music cues.This flick started the downward spiral of Clarke's movie career, which reached it's nadir with a string of films with world class hack Jerry Warren. Warren no doubt used this production as inspiration for his "ouerve". Movies of this type have garnered a reputation for being "So Bad, they're good!". This one's just plain bad.