Genre: Horror
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Starring: Chester Morris, Marla English, Tom Conway, Cathy Downs
MST Season: 8
The Movie
Hypnotist Carlo Lombardi tours with an act where he hypnotizes his lovely, largely bosomed assistant Andrea. But Lombardi's hypnosis is so powerful that he can return Andrea to a past life as a prehistoric life-form and also have her manifest this creature in actuality. He is then convinced to boost sales of his act by telling the audience that the creature will strike every time it appears, which leads to several murders. Despite the link of the murders to the supposed creature, the police have no definitive proof to tie any crime to Lombardi.
Upon release, The She-Creature mostly found itself playing in double features with another movie featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, It Conquered the World. It's not easy to make It Conquered the World to look good by comparison, but here we are.
The She-Creature sports a creative story, but ultimately dull plotting. The movie moves slowly, and a lot of scenes in the film feel similar to scenes we have seen prior in it. When the movie ends, I feel like I've seen just a giant brick of greyness, and that's not just due to the black and white cinematography. At least that is attempting some mood lighting, even if its overuse of shadow can go a little too far. The movie feels blank, with wooden acting of a script nobody seems to want to work with, making the film seem like its not willing to make its audience feel like they're getting good entertainment out of the money they spent. No wonder this needed to be in a double feature.
Probably the only thing people will get out of it is the only thing the audience wants to see, which is the monster costume. It's fairly neat looking, if a little busy. The titular She-Creature doesn't disappoint, but the movie around it isn't giving it anything to work with. The She-Creature appears too rarely to save the feature, and when it is here it struggles to give the movie the last bit of personality that it's begging for.
The Episode
One criticism the eighth season of Mystery Science Theater faces, when it's not the fallback of "No Joel, No Trace, Stupid Story Arc," is that the opening Universal International/American International based episodes tend to blur together for feeling too similar, and it's often seen as being a dull string of episodes during the show's lengthy run. This is not entirely without merit, because it is a bit straining when laid out in a row, and it's easy to attribute the weaknesses of certain episodes to others out of a faulty memory. Before I started writing this blog, I had memories of the American International episodes being a bit boring, but I found them pretty enjoyable upon these viewings. It mostly turns out when I remembered this string of episodes, I was mostly remembering The She-Creature, which is just a dull movie overwhelming its commentary. Its amazing how one lackluster experience can somehow infect more positive ones around it.
What's really unfortunate about this episode is that the riffing is very enthusiastic. If nothing else, the energy in the theater shows potential to be the perfect counterweight to such an inactive movie. Unfortunately, while it's a silly movie with goofy shit to commentate on, there just isn't enough. It's a slow and uninteresting movie, and while the riffing tries to compensate, it often feels like its waiting for the movie to catch up because Mike and the Bots are moving too fast for it. That's not to say the episode doesn't have some chuckles in it. There is some material that left me laughing for a good while, be it just simple jabs like "Guess the stain and win a prize!" or exchange add-ons like "I shall touch you and you shall be asleep."/"So like every night?" It's just an example of the promise on display, but the whole experience falls short.
The host segments are actually pretty fun, though. We get one last glimpse of the Observer Planet, as Mike tries to help Pearl and Bobo escape with the help of the Nanites, who blow up the planet due to misinterpreting Mike's command. Pearl and Bobo manage to escape with one of the Observers held hostage, our beloved "Brain Guy" played by Bill Corbett, who joins the Mads as a regular after this episode. Upon the Satellite of Love, there are some wacky shenanigans as Crow and Servo mix-up a Thigh-Master with a Thaw-Master and Crow invents the Tickle-Me Carlo Lombardi Doll, based on the antagonist of the film. There is also a pretty stellar segment in which Mike takes acting lessons from the movie's mumbling male lead.
"....my boat..."
It's sad to think that there is an episode so dull that it actually manages to drag down the episodes around it, and yet I also have to face the fact that this is a hyperbolic reaction because the episode isn't really that bad. It's just a drag. There's stuff worth watching in this episode and it isn't an unpleasant experience, which sees me slightly recommending it, I just can't promise a good time.
Average
The DVD
Shout Factory released The She-Creature as a part of the Volume XXXIV collection. Audio and video were both spotless, while the sole special feature was the film's trailer.
Sleeeeeep!
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