Six She's and a He

An (almost ?) complete (i.e. 47:52 long) version of this once long lost flick has been discovered and is finally available from the fine folks at SWV. This review is of that version.

WOW!..I'm almost left speechless. How can I possibly describe this just as bizarre as obscure flick? Think of it as a rather intoxicating cocktail that's part Blood Feast part Orgy of the Dead (unfortunately sans nudity) with ten gallons of blood and a big pile of dime-store gore...mixed together in a coconut shell with a sharpened stick by six sadistic bikini clad blood thirsty nymphomaniacs. Yep, it's that surreal.

It opens with a rocket launch..sort of. What we see is an oscilloscope, open reel tape deck, and the console of an AM radio station while the sound of the control tower is heard. This just may be the lowest budget rocket launch sequence in the history of film (the launch in Nathan Shiff's super-8 home movie "Weasels Rip My Flesh" is more elaborate). Mmmm...delightfully cheezy. The rocket ship crash lands into the sea and the Astronaut (Fred Rogers, yes really.) washes ashore. He lands on what appears to be a pre-destroyed 1963 (or so) Florida beach..before the condos ruined the scenery. There he is met by six scantly clad women..sadistic women who make him their love and labor slave. Lotsa pool frolicking, and hitting Mr. Rogers with a stick ensues.

What will happen when he can no longer satisfy their wants and needs? You could ask the last guy, but his head's on a stick. It got up there via a gruesomely detailed flashback sequence.

Will Fred meet the same fate? See this wonderful early '60s Floridian exploitation classick and find out for yer self.

Oh..and..did I mention that this flick was directed and produced by the then owner of the Tunderbird Drive-In in Ft. Lauderdale (Richard Flink)? The Tunderbird is not only still going, but it's the biggest drive-in on Earth with 13 screens, rides, and even a circus!

8/10 on the Drive-In-Freak-O-Meter....that's good stuff.

As of this writing, nobody else has commented on this film, and it still lacks 5 votes. This surprised me, as I thought this was some sort of cult classic. Surely someone else has seen this besides me.

The basic plot of this short film (25 minutes) has a serviceman stranded on an island inhabited by women who enslave men. The ingredients here are women dancing in bikinis, cheesy dialogue, bad jazz/lounge music, and some gore.

You can probably tell right now if you will like this or not. I did; it's not a classic but it is funny and entertaining, and more enjoyable than most stuff out there.

8/10

UPDATE

Just wanted to add a few things that I recently learned. First, I was wrong, this is not a short film but actually a feature that is partly missing. I honestly wouldn't have guessed that after watching what existed at the time-I say at the time because apparently another chunk of the film has been found, though it is still incomplete.

Fred Rogers (Bill Rogers) is an American B26 pilot/astronaut (the film seems a little unsure as to which is his precise profession) who finds himself washed up on the shore of a remote tropical island after his plane/spacecraft ditches into the sea. He soon discovers that he not alone: the island is also home to a tribe of savage, toga-wearing babes who make him their slave, forcing him to work all day and satisfy their sexual urges at night. While that might seem like a reasonable arrangement to many men, Fred has soon had enough of being lightly poked with a bamboo stick while pulling a plough and longs for a good night's sleep uninterrupted by bouts of lovemaking. With help from sexy dissident Desiree (Dawn Meredith), he attempts to escape.

Something Weird Video happened upon a 28 minute version of Love Goddesses Of Blood Island (a much better title than Six She's and a He) when they bought the rights to William Grefe's Sting Of Death, and included it as an extra on their 2002 DVD double bill of Sting Of Death/Death Curse Of Tartu. They've since managed to compile a 47 minute version of the film, which is the version I managed to see. And what a wonderfully warped 47 minutes it proved to be… a delightfully daft slice of trashy 60s cheesecake schlock that just so happens to feature some juicy proto-splatter to rival that of gore legend Herschell G. Lewis.

The production values are low, the direction clumsy and the acting atrocious, and even at 47 minutes the film still manages to drag in places (the surreal dance moves of the six island beauties quickly become very tiresome), but it's all so wonderfully bizarre that any self-respecting fan of obscure cult cinema should definitely check it out given the chance. There's lousy lounge music and a dreadful theme song, some moments of total stupidity (the women give Fred a large scythe with which to cut the island vegetation; luckily for them, he's too dumb to think of using the large blade against his captors), and, of course, those surprisingly graphic scenes of violence, which include a flashback featuring the very messy disembowelment and decapitation of an earlier unfortunate male, and the unforgettable sight of one of the women falling face first onto the blade of a large knife! 6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Six She's and a He (1963)

** (out of 4)

An astronaut (Bill Rogers) crashes into the ocean where he eventually lands on Blood Island. This mysterious island has six beautiful women on it and they soon turn the man into their sex slave with plans on eventually killing him.

This film is also known as LOVE GODDESSES OF BLOOD ISLAND and was one of the first movies to try and cash-in on the explicit gore brought to the screen by Herschell Gordon Lewis and his film BLOOD FEAST. If you're a fan of the Lewis style of filmmaking then you'll certainly want to check this out even though the quality isn't nearly as good or entertaining as what stuff like COLOR ME BLOOD RED and TWO THOUSAND MANIACS delivered.

This film is out there in a couple different versions with one running twenty-seven minutes (an extra on a Something Weird Video disc) and a forty-seven minute version, which you can buy from Something Weird. I watched the longer version and for the most part it's mildly entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious. The biggest problem is that there are way too many scenes where not much is happening outside of dialogue. Director Richard S. Flink stops well short of any sexuality but of course it's the gore that sold this picture.

So, how is the gore? I'd argue that it's pretty good, although it's obvious to see how the various effects were done. There are a couple decapitations as well as the highlight of the film when one poor sucker is tied up only to be stabbed and then have his guts pulled out of him. This sequence is certainly the goriest of the movie and I'd argue it tops anything seen in a Lewis movie.

Even as a ten year old, I recognized this movie as a hilarious attempt to entertain my older sister and her b/f with near-naked women, sexual innuendo, and "shock horror". Of couse, they were too busy making out in the back seat to notice that I laughed at most of the silly plot, tacky acting, and terrible "special effects".

Still, they enjoyed their groping time, I suppose. This movie brings back memories of a period when movies were made in rapid succession to entertain with sex, violence, and no plot!!

Considering that the actors for the most part never were seen again in film, you wonder if they enjoyed, or forever regretted, their roles ...