The She-Creature (1956)

• Cold War hysteria or Atomic Age menace  (none)
• Stock military film footage totally unrelated to the movie (none)
• Men and women dressed to the hilt ✔ (extreme)
• Beautiful women with big breasts who instantly fall in love with Handsome Men✔ (We need to talk about this)
• Blatant sexism and objectification of Women✔ (extreme-virtual slavery)
• A bumbling Professor or Doctor with a plan to save the World ✔ (special)
• Really, really bad monsters or robots in rubber suits or ridiculous, low-budget, clunky gear✔ (moderate)
• High-ranking, befuddled Military Officers with pointers (none) However, we do have a really intense chief. ✔ (extreme)
• Giant Spiders, Bugs, Fish or Lizards that threaten all of civilization✔ (slight) 
• Cigarette smoking by everyone, except for the Monsters✔ (extreme)

The She-Creature is a horror movie that would have been much more effective if the monster had been totally eliminated. This is not because the monster was cheesy, which it was, or that the monster rarely appeared, which was the case. This movie was about a really creepy and evil hypnotist, Dr. Carlo Lombardi (Chester Morris), who enslaved and imprisoned his gorgeous associate Andrea (Marla English). 

Dr. Lombardi and Andrea have a sideshow at a Carnival, but the doctor has a couple of other agendas. One is to keep the beautiful Andrea hypnotized and gaslit, and in virtual slavery. The other is much more sinister as he has gotten fame in the community as a psychic by predicting grisly murders that he, himself is responsible for. While Andrea is under hypnosis, the doctor conjures up her past memories, one of which was a horrible, scaly and murderous sea she-creature with huge tits.

The doctor then teams up with the wealthy Timothy Chapell (Tom Conway) to try to financially harvest Dr. Lombardi’s murderous talents with rich rubes and gullible newspaper readers who love sensationalism. While awake from the hypnosis, Andrea loathes the doctor, but she cannot shake his hypnosis. Now, of course with an anti-hero villain like Dr. Lombardi, we must have a hero male figure for Andrea to fall instantly in love with. This would be Dr. Ted Erikson (Lance Fuller), with an acting job so wooden and boring that it almost put me to sleep. 

In addition to Dr. Erikson, we have other stupid doctors who try to discredit Dr. Lombardi’s psychic skills and a whole array of bumbling cops trying to pin the murders on Dr. Lombardi. These guys couldn’t arrest and convict Jeff Dahmer even with 10 freezers full of body parts. The only really decent and convincing acting was from Chester Morris, who played it straight all the way through as the ruthless villain.

4.0/10.0 With The Goatesians Rating of Would Have Been Better as a Psychological Thriller

Special Ruthless Ratings -or- What I Learned From The She-Creature

• Marla English was drop-dead gorgeous, a cross between Liz Taylor and Vivien Leigh. The most beautiful Horror Camp exploitation ever
• Ancient sea monsters don’t use their claws or teeth to kill, but instead eliminate humans with half-hearted karate chops
• Aquatic monsters, who are not mammals, have huge tits
• Dogs can be hypnotized by merely glaring at them