THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER (1957)

Though I frequently review horror and sci-fi movies in October, I'm making a special effort this month to view (or, more often, re-view) movies that ran on the Friday night Chiller Theater double feature here in Columbus, beginning in the mid-60s and continuing for many years. The first horror movie I remember seeing on Chiller (at the age of 7) was THE CRAWLING EYE, which ran in January of 1964—a fact I happen to know because I've been doing newspaper microfilm research on Chiller Theater in Columbus (the name was used by several TV stations around the country). The next one I remember was the Bela Lugosi DRACULA a few weeks later. Soon I had a subscription to Famous Monsters of Filmland thanks to my understanding and indulging parents, and a lifelong interest in these movies. Chiller aired the Universal classics and occaional big-budget films like FORBIDDEN PLANET or THEM, but mostly I remember the B-movies and foreign oddities I ran across, so that's my focus this month.

A narrator posits the existence of previous civilizations that wound up blowing themselves up as we see a meteor from space plunge toward Earth. A geologist (Robert Clarke) working in an isolated mountain cabin sees the meteor fall. Meanwhile, a socialite (Marilyn Harvey) is kidnapped by two guys and their older boozy, floozyish gal pal, and they take off into the same mountains where the meteor crashed. On a winding mountain road, a blurry-looking woman dressed in a skintight sliver space suit wanders about, scaring all the animals she comes across. Our narrator says, "Here is our stage—our characters." The action begins when the thugs encounter the blurry woman in the middle of the road. They avoid hitting the woman (who vanishes) but they end up crashing the car, so they take refuge at gunpoint at Clarke's cabin. The she-monster stalks about the woods and when our little group discovers that bullets don't hurt her, but that she can kill with just a touch (and that the corpses are radioactive), they decide to hole up in the cabin until morning. Of course, things don't go according to plan.

At times this feels very much like an Ed Wood movie (beginning with the goofy narration) with a bigger budget, location shooting, and slightly better acting. Robert Clarke, though no award-winner, is a pro—he's fine in THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON and BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER—as is Kenne Duncan (one of the thugs) who had a long career in westerns, and the others are adequate. The effect of alien blurriness is more irritating, and the "she-monster" isn't very monstrous except for her ability to kill with a touch. There's even something of a surprise ending in which it turns she's not really a monster at all, just misunderstood. Shirley Kilpatrick as the alien (above right) is moderately sexy, but looks nothing like the poster which is the single best thing about this production—and you don't have to sit though the movie to enjoy it! [Amazon Prime]