CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION (1967)

This low-budget TV movie is a remake of 1956 low-budget horror film THE SHE-CREATURE, which, while it had an interesting plotline, was no great shakes itself. In this version, the sinister looking (because of his goatee) Les Tremayne performs a show at a seaside resort in which his lovely assistant (Pat Delaney) helps him read minds and make predictions. One night, he predicts that there will be a murder on the beach—and there is. There are more predictions and more murders, and the resulting publicity winds up being good for the resort, so the owner (Neil Fletcher) enters into a business deal with Tremayne—who insists he's a real psychic—publishing a quickie book about the situation. However, the cops (led by Roger Ready—yes, that is the actor's name) get a handsome Air Force officer (Aron Kincaid) who just happens to be an expert on parapsychology to help them investigate. It turns out that Tremayne puts Delaney into a past-life regression trance which triggers the appearance of one of her prehistoric selves, a googly-eyed sea monster which goes on a beachside killing orgy.

Even by TV-movie standards, this is cheap and mostly lame. It wasn't a major network production, but a quickie from American International which needed a few new films to flesh out its syndication package, and though it's a few steps above Ed Wood, don't expect much out of this. The saving grace is Les Tremayne who had a lengthy career in movies, radio and TV, working regularly up to 1990. Though he may be a bit embarrassed about the production around him, he gives a nicely understated performance, sinister but not histrionic. Kincaid (pictured) was pleasant enough as beach movie eye candy, but here he just seems wooden, and his character, who would seem to be the hero, mostly just observes and predicts bad things—and the fact that all his dialogue is post-dubbed doesn't help. The monster itself is a very bad knock-off of the Creature from the Black Lagoon with ping-pong balls for eyes. Most of the night scenes are clearly cloudy-afternoon scenes with no attempt made to darken them. For trash connoisseurs and fans of wooden hunks only. [DVD]