The She-Creature Blu-ray - Chester Morris / Marla English

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "The She Creature")

Directed by Edward L. Cahn
USA 1956

The stunningly lovely assistant to a fiendish hypnotist finds the beast within her unleashed in the drive-in classic The She-Creature!

Andrea Talbott (Marla English) becomes a pawn in the deadly intentions of Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris) who uses his sinister powers to regress her to a past life ... as a prehistoric humanoid monster from the ocean’s depths! Using Andrea to commit shocking and vengeful murders Lombardi’s crimes go unchecked ... until his assistant-turned-assassin slowly begins to take control of her hideous new form.

***

A hypnosis based horror film tells the story of an oily hypnotist Dr Carlo Lombardi and his beautiful former carnival worker assistant Andrea. Dr Lombardi’s best-selling act consists of him predicting death and regressing Andrea back to previous lives, from a seventeenth century English woman all the way back to her pre-historic days when she was a sea-creature! When he summons the monster she comes forth from the sea and embarks on a terrifying killing spree. The locals of the beachfront community of southern California start to grow suspicious of why and how the hypnotist’s predictions of death are coming true.

The She-Creature is a classic fifties horror story of a slow scary monster controlled by an evil hypnotist to commit murder! His hold over her begins to fade as her love grows for the hypnotist’s archenemy Dr Ted Erikson who is investigating the murders! Will Andrea break free from the hypnotist’s evil grip before he gets her to kill her true love Dr Erikson? How does she manage to kill so many people when she moves so slowly? Just how scary can a busty monster in a chintzy rubber suit be? Find out in The She-Creature!

Excerpt from the Arkoff Film Library at TalkingPix located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: August 1956

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Review: Shout! Factory - Region 'A' - Blu-ray

Box Cover		CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures:
Distribution	Shout! Factory - Region 'A' - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:17:29.686
Video	1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 26,955,999,561 bytes Feature: 20,578,191,360 bytes Video Bitrate: 32.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate Blu-ray:
Audio	DTS-HD Master Audio English 1575 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1575 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Shout! Factory 1.85:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 26,955,999,561 bytes Feature: 20,578,191,360 bytes Video Bitrate: 32.00 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents The She-Creature (1:32:00) • Radio Spot (1:00) • Photo Gallery Exclusive Blu-ray (limited to 1,500 units) and get an EXCLUSIVE 18” X 24” FOLDED POSTER featuring our artwork, available while supplies last! Blu-ray Release Date: June 28th, 2022 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 8

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Shout! Factory Blu-ray (November 2023): Shout! Factory have transferred Edward L. Cahn's The She-Creature to Blu-ray. In 2006 we reviewed Lionsgte's "Cult Classics collection" DVD with the double feature of Day the World Ended and She-Creature HERE. The DVD was 1.33:1 and quite poor with an interlaced transfer and chroma evident (see Marla English's sweater below.) The 1080P, 1.85:1 transfer is a vast improvement with dramatically superior contrast detail, grain rendering and pretty much every visual facet of image quality. There are still segments of the presentation that show highly visible vertical scratches (see below.) Thankfully it is rare with the most noticeable as a streak on the right edge for the first 10+ minutes of the film. Otherwise, I was very pleased with the 1080P upgrade. It was like a new viewing.

NOTE: We have added 68 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Shout! Factory use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. The She-Creature has aggressive moments - creature attacks and gunfire - that come through with, surprisingly decent depth. There is a haunting score by AIP regular Ronald Stein who has done more than his share of this genre (Attack of the Crab Monsters, Dinosaurus, Day the World Ended, Journey to the Seventh Planet, Queen of Blood, It Conquered the World, Not of This Earth, Dementai 13, Spider Baby etc.) It does add suspense sounding effective via the lossless transfer. Shout! Factory offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray.

The Shout! Factory Blu-ray offers no commentary but instead includes an eighth season SD episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 making mocking-fun of the film. Frankly, The She-Creature is a very easy target for sarcasm. There is also a Radio Spot and Photo Gallery. The package does also include an exclusive folded poster featuring vintage artwork - it is on my wall, now!

Edward L. Cahn's The She-Creature is cinema cheese gold. It's great with a megalomaniac carny hypnotist, Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris,) and his unwilling female subject, Andrea Talbott (Marla English,) whom he has a Svengali control where he, somehow (past life regression), utilizes her deep hypnotic states to summon a prehistoric creature who commits murders. Hmmm... The "She-Creature" costume was created by iconic film monster-maker Paul Blaisdell (who also played the monster in every scene!) He was the man behind the creature outfits for The Beast with a Million Eyes, Day the World Ended, It Conquered the World, Not of This Earth, From Hell It Came, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Earth vs. the Spider, How to Make a Monster, It! The Terror from Beyond Space and many more. I loved the mentalist-hypnotism-reincarnation angle of The She-Creature, sexy Marla English, the creature (are those large fangs coming out of its stomach?) and the seriousness that the performers take the, ludicrous, story. What is not to enjoy? An absolute keeper for me. I'm very happy that Shout! Factory gave a Blu-ray upgraded of the very weak DVD. Get it while you can.