Highly Overrated But Still Good

good back-story, and good acting

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sure, it ain't no contender for an Oscar, but damn if it doesn't have a somewhat interesting and unusual plot. Its main problem is the same one that plagues a lot of cheap genre movies from this decade: dialogue, dialogue, and more dialogue! It takes quite a bit of time in between its horror moments, which are actually fairly atmospheric. The monster isn't exactly convincing, but that's no surprise. (Famed monster maker of the period, Paul Blaisdell, designed this beast and played it as well.) The acting is variable - some of it is quite entertaining, some of it woefully bad. (Lance Fuller has the dubious distinction of being the worst actor in this thing; talk about a stiff!) B director Edward L. Cahn certainly did better during this period; after all, he guided "It! The Terror from Beyond Space", generally considered to be the inspiration for "Alien".The movie isn't without its merits. Chester Morris is a delightfully sinister villain as Dr. Carlo Lombardi, a hypnotist who deals in matters of transmigration, age regression, and reincarnation. His unwilling assistant is young Andrea Talbott (the strikingly attractive Marla English); every time after he "puts her under", a prehistoric monster that was supposedly HER in a long ago past life emerges from the ocean and kills somebody. The inept police, led by the stubbornly skeptical Lt. James (Ron Randell), and Dr. Erickson (Mr. Fuller) think Lombardi's a big fat phony but still see him as dangerous; naturally, by the end of this picture their minds have opened a bit more."The She-Creature" ain't high quality stuff, to be sure, and it's ultimately too dull too much of the time to get rated very high, but it *is* at least amusing enough to have appeal for schlock devotees.Seven out of 10.

One from "The Arkoff Library" released as R2 DVD exclusives and a film I was intrigued by after viewing its trailer in view of the theme (reincarnation-by-hypnosis inspired, as was Roger Corman's similarly fanciful THE UNDEAD [1957], by THE SEARCH FOR BRIDEY MURPHY [1956]) and the cast (led by old hands Chester Morris and Tom Conway). The former as the villainous hypnotist gets a chance to ham it up, but the latter is rather wasted as Morris' host and subsequently business manager (incidentally, their roles were originally to have been played by Edward Arnold and Peter Lorre respectively!); also involved are Ron Randell as a dour Police Lieutenant and Hollywood's idea of a comic-relief Swede, El Brendel (another relic of a by-gone era), as Conway's manservant. Apparently, Morris is able to take his subject as far back to the beginning of time where the titular creature emerged from the sea to kill(?!); of course, he cannot resist bringing it back again to do his evil bidding…that is, until the girl concerned falls for (and learns to resist his will thanks to) a rival yet much younger 'practitioner'. Actually, the design of the monster (looking a bit like the gill-man from Universal's "Creature From The Black Lagoon" series) is quite effective and the film as a whole (anticipating in its carnival/watery setting Curtis Harrington's decidedly more poetic debut feature NIGHT TIDE [1961]), though hardly essential genre fare, is somewhat more tolerable than I was expecting it to be – given a less-than-stellar reputation. Still, the constant hypnosis sessions for the benefit of Conway's would-be jaded guests do become repetitive after a while...

POSSIBLE PLOT SPOILERS!!!! Hypnotist Dr. Lombardi (Chester Morris) puts his assistant Andrea (Marla English) into a deep sleep. When this happens her thing in a past life (the title creature) comes out of the sea and kills people. Lombardi knows this and "predicts" the killings. Dr. Ted Erickson (Lance Fuller) thinks Lombardi is a fraud and tries to prove it. He also falls in love with Andrea which bothers Lombradi a LOT.... Absolutely ridiculous story but this isn't a total bomb. Some of the discussions on reincarnation and past lives are interesting, there's good direction and a really eerie music score. Also the creature itself has become one of the legends of horror movies. It looks pretty scary and has HUGE breasts!!!! You just have to laugh when the creature attacks people--and they just stand there and do NOTHING so it can kill them! The acting wavers. Fuller seems to be (wisely) kidding the material but isn't bad. Morris is VERY serious (and dull). English is just stunningly beautiful and very good in a tricky role. Tom Conway shows up in a small role and has fun with the material.So--this has its good points but the silly story and slow pace really wears you down. Worth catching at least once for the monster. I give it a 3.

**SPOILERS** The movie "The She Creature" seems to have been highly influenced by the reincarnation craze of the 1950's revolving around the past life of Colorado housewife Mrs. Simmons who in her previous incarnation was the 19th century Irish woman Bridey Murphy.The movie instead of concentrating on the reincarnation angle goes all over the place with the somewhat unstable carnival hypnotist and mind reader, as well as prognosticator, Dr. Carlo Lombari, Chester Morris, who's completely obsessed with his beautiful assistant Andrea Talbott, Marla English. Dr. Lombardi is so possessive of Andrea that his trying to get her to be his soul-mate just turns her off to the wild and crazy guy.It's when the handsome and a bit skeptic, of Dr. Lombardi's psychic powers, Dr. TedErckson, Lance Fuller, comes on the scene that things really start to unwind with the by now mad Doctor Lombardi going so far as conjuring up this She, or Sea, Creature to do Dr. Erickson in. The creature has been around for some time in the movie even before Dr. Erickson showed up. It was Dr. Ericksons presence that really brought the worst out of it as the thing, being controlled by Lombardi, went on a rampage murdering some half dozen young people who were enjoying themselves on the beach.Even though Lombardi is on the scene of every one of the She Creature's killings he's totally innocent, to the disgust of police Let. Ed James (Ron Randell), of them. Lombardi is at the scene of the crime but the evidence exonerates him . It's as if Lombardi is pulling the polices, and Let. James, leg in order to both show them up and prove his power as a psychic is genuine.As for the hypnotized and at times completely composed Andera she's in a life and death struggle tug of war between her "master" Dr. Lombardi and "saviour" Dr. Erickson that goes on for almost the entire film. Besides being a woman from 17th century England, Elizabeth Wetherby, It's also brought out that Andera was this 1950's looking spaceman, or spacewoman,in the very distance, about 300 to 400 million years ago, past that came out of the primordial soup and was to become the precursor or mother of the human race;The She Creature!The film has money hungry entrepreneur Timothy Chapple, Tom Conway, make a deal with Dr. Lombardi to manage his carnival act and make millions for both himself and the mad doctor. What Chapple doesn't know is that whatever Dr. Lombardi is doing is not and act but the real McCoy and in the end he's to get the shock of his life finding that fact out. The She Creature her, or it, self takes care of business by finally putting an end to Dr. Lombardi's obsession with both it and Andrea, whom it supposed to have been way back then in prerecorded history. Finishing off the crazed Dr. Lombardi who wanted it to instead finish off Dr. Erickson the bumbling and hardly able to walk She Creature stumbles back to the ocean with the cops, who are unable to see it, being directed by Dr. Erickson, who can, to shoot at it as it finally disappears under the waves.Were given to understand that It, the She Creature, will come back in the very near future to both shock as well as put it's audience to sleep, the thing was about the least scariest monster in movie history,in a new film sequel. As far as I know that happily never happened which was a blessing to everyone, the cast crew and those watching the film, involved with it.