Four shipwreck survivors are washed up on what appears to be deserted island: Fred, the skipper (Tod Griffin), Jerrie, a spoiled socialite (Irish McCalla), Sammy, the Asian first mate (Victor Sen Yung, best known for playing a son of Charlie Chan in several films), and a Polynesian guy named Kris with no personality whom we know won't be long for the world. Jerrie's rich father has funded this expedition to investigate reports of an island filled with odd creatures, and fate has dumped our group on the exact island they're looking for. Their radio won't transmit, but it does receive, and when some military jets fly overhead, Sammy hears enough to understand that the planes will back in a couple of days to do a bombing practice run over the (assumed to be) human-free island. The four build a camp and when Fred & Jerrie & Sammy return from exploring, they find the camp destroyed and Kris dead, killed with bamboo spears. Clearly, the island is inhabited and soon the three find the corpse of a woman with a deformed face ("A woman’s body with the face of a demon!" says Fred). What's going on? Well, it turns out the inhabitants of the island are a handful of Nazis led by Col. Osler (Rudolph Anders) and some native women on whom the doctor is experimenting. He's searching for a way to cure his wife's disfigured face but all he's done so far is turn the women in "mindless beasts" with grotesque animal faces whom he holds as prisoners and slaves.
This schlocky B-movie is unmemorable except for some surprisingly effective make-up for the titular "she demons." The film combines two horror movie tropes: experimentation that turns humans into inhuman creatures, and a mad doctor's search for a disfigurement cure. Despite the good effects, the movie is let down by the drab performances. Irish McCalla was best known as the star of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a mid-50s TV series. She's statuesque but between the character's nastiness and McCalla's indifferent acting, it’s difficult to care about Jerrie. A beefcake hero might have made the movie more fun, but here, Tod Griffin is a drab, vanilla fellow with little screen presence and what looks like an oddly groomed little toupee of chest hair in his shirtless scenes. Even Rudolph Anders is fairly bland, missing an opportunity to go over the top as the Nazi doc. This leaves Victor Sen Yung, fine as the sidekick, as the default best performer. There is a fun scene of the native women dancing that recalls but doesn't better Maria Montez's delirious campy dance in
COBRA WOMAN. This cheapie made some money on a successful drive-in double bill with a similar low-rent quickie called GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN. It's all quite silly, and if you're in the right popcorn mood, can be fun, but I kept wishing the hero was someone a little hunkier, like John Agar or Ken Clark or Jeff Richards. Pictured are Griffin, McCalla and Yung. [Amazon Prime]
Four shipwreck survivors are washed up on what appears to be deserted island: Fred, the skipper (Tod Griffin), Jerrie, a spoiled socialite (Irish McCalla), Sammy, the Asian first mate (Victor Sen Yung, best known for playing a son of Charlie Chan in several films), and a Polynesian guy named Kris with no personality whom we know won't be long for the world. Jerrie's rich father has funded this expedition to investigate reports of an island filled with odd creatures, and fate has dumped our group on the exact island they're looking for. Their radio won't transmit, but it does receive, and when some military jets fly overhead, Sammy hears enough to understand that the planes will back in a couple of days to do a bombing practice run over the (assumed to be) human-free island. The four build a camp and when Fred & Jerrie & Sammy return from exploring, they find the camp destroyed and Kris dead, killed with bamboo spears. Clearly, the island is inhabited and soon the three find the corpse of a woman with a deformed face ("A woman’s body with the face of a demon!" says Fred). What's going on? Well, it turns out the inhabitants of the island are a handful of Nazis led by Col. Osler (Rudolph Anders) and some native women on whom the doctor is experimenting. He's searching for a way to cure his wife's disfigured face but all he's done so far is turn the women in "mindless beasts" with grotesque animal faces whom he holds as prisoners and slaves.
This schlocky B-movie is unmemorable except for some surprisingly effective make-up for the titular "she demons." The film combines two horror movie tropes: experimentation that turns humans into inhuman creatures, and a mad doctor's search for a disfigurement cure. Despite the good effects, the movie is let down by the drab performances. Irish McCalla was best known as the star of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a mid-50s TV series. She's statuesque but between the character's nastiness and McCalla's indifferent acting, it’s difficult to care about Jerrie. A beefcake hero might have made the movie more fun, but here, Tod Griffin is a drab, vanilla fellow with little screen presence and what looks like an oddly groomed little toupee of chest hair in his shirtless scenes. Even Rudolph Anders is fairly bland, missing an opportunity to go over the top as the Nazi doc. This leaves Victor Sen Yung, fine as the sidekick, as the default best performer. There is a fun scene of the native women dancing that recalls but doesn't better Maria Montez's delirious campy dance in COBRA WOMAN. This cheapie made some money on a successful drive-in double bill with a similar low-rent quickie called GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN. It's all quite silly, and if you're in the right popcorn mood, can be fun, but I kept wishing the hero was someone a little hunkier, like John Agar or Ken Clark or Jeff Richards. Pictured are Griffin, McCalla and Yung. [Amazon Prime]
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