Mulheres Demônio

Richard E. Cunha made few good low budget B movies. This movie otherwise could have been utterly forgettable, isn't due to his ability to select actors who could act, and his ability to keep the story going without falling apart.

While not at the success level of Roger Corman's B movies, Cunha's movies has similar quality that keeps them from being an utter schlock. This movie is about the same level of story as Roger Corman's "Wasp Woman". Both focus' on intrigue of beautiful woman turning into a monster.

This movie stayed with me since I saw it as a child because of the transformance scene of the above mentioned beautiful woman. Three characters that told most of the stories to this movie, namely the blond girl, the main character, and the Nazi captain could all act. This kept the story together and didn't go the way of other similarly budgeted movies.

They could have inserted another 10 minutes of skin exposures by the girls, and tormenting of the girl that was on the operating table, and the movie could have been twice as good, but if they did that they might have blown the budget or ran overtime against the double feature movie that these movies were usually shown in theaters.

One of the hidden classic amongst the truly low budget movies from the '50s. If you're a fan of Roger Corman's earlier movies, this movie might be for you.

This ranks right up there with "Plan Nine From Outer Space" and the rest of the Z-grade sci-fi and horror films made during the 1950's and it's also as much fun to watch. Story is about four people getting shipwrecked on an uncharted island and at first they believe it's unoccupied but when one of them is discovered murdered with spears they quickly change their mind. The Captain is Fred Maklin (Tod Griffin) and his first mate is Sammy Ching (Victor Sen Yung) and they also have the spoiled rotten but beautiful Jerrie Turner (Irish McCalla). They explore the island and discover a bunch of scantly clad young women who are being held in bamboo cages by Nazi's!

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

The three of them are captured and taken to an underground laboratory where they meet Col. Karl Osler (Rudolph Anders) who explains to them that he uses the young women for his experiments with radioactivity and the genes from animals to try and fix the face of his wife Mona (Leni Tana) who was disfigured in an accident. Fred and Sammy are taken outside to be beaten and locked up in bamboo cages by Nazi soldiers while Karl puts the moves on Jerrie and tries to persuade her to stay with him but Mona overhears everything and then helps them to escape.

This film was directed by Richard Cunha who built a career out of making very bad low budget films. Where do I start my comments? The jungle that they wander about in looks exactly like some of the sets from "Gilligan's Island" and later on it's easy to spot the scenes that are filmed in the infamous Bronson Canyon where so many other films have been made. You can't help but laugh when McCalla recoils in fear at the harmless Python hanging from the tree and has to be rescued by Griffin. And speaking of him he seemed determined to get McCalla's romantic interest and even ignored the many insults that she hurled in his direction like "You could have at least saved me another pair of shoes". McCalla never had much training as an actress but she was very beautiful and tall and was a very successful model that helped her land the role of televisions "Sheena". Griffin looks ridiculous without his shirt on and I kept wondering if he could pull his pants up any higher. Anders keeps that devilish grin on his face even when he's talking about "persuasive measures" and this film has actors giving the worst German accents since "Hogan's Heroes". Why would a bunch of Nazi soldiers who know that the war has been over for 12 years and are not getting paid allow themselves to be ordered about by some nut? And the uniforms they wear look brand new! Aren't those uniforms made for a much colder environment? You would think that with what they have to wear they would drop like flies from heat stroke. The young girls in this film are listed in the credits as the "Diana Nellis Dancers" and if anyone knows anything about them let me know. Why would a bunch of girls who were kidnapped by Nazi's and attempting to escape stop to perform an exotic dance? Somebody...please...logic! Even with the silly attempts at acting I did feel that Yung came out the best and does show some real sincerity and he would of course go on to play on "Bonanza". If your a connoisseur of bad films than you definitely need to check this out.

This one pulls out all the tropes, and ends up being far better then it should have. Tiny budget; a surprisingly dull, ineffective; bristling, meet-cute couple who end up falling for each other; irrelevant side-kick "comic relief" (good to see Victor Sen Yung working, though you kind of keep hoping for Birmingham Brown to show up and get him out of there); sadistic Nazi scientist (complete with cigarette holder!), trying to restore his experiment-scarred wife; girls in fright masks and novelty-store teeth; volcano lair... You know - the usual.

What surprised me was the sudden and unexpected depth of some of the characters, and that the leading lady turned out to work more effectively against the baddies than utterly dull leading man - but I suspect that might have much to do with the presence of Irish McCalla, TV's "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle". You just don't see a lot of strong woman characters, in this era OR this genre.

There isn't any really new ground broken, with this one, and it certainly didn't win any awards - and yet, it has a certain comforting familiarity. It's fun, and even more fun to poke fun at with your friends. Keep your expectations low, give it a chance, and see if you don't end up liking it!

I first saw 'She Demons' on TV as a youngster, and was frightened by it; as I grew up, I saw it a few more times as an adolescent and a teenager, and then, it sort of disappeared from TV.

I found a VHS copy in a video store 3 years ago, and had a movie night with some friends. We howled at the bad acting, the bad makeup of the 'She Demons', and especially at their weird dancing.

The climax, still effective, is the end when Mona reveals her face. A must see if you're in the mood for campy horror and a lot of laughs.

A boat is lost in a hurricane and 4 people scramble onto the beach of an unchartered island. The leader of the group is a young man named "Fred Maklin" (Tod Griffin) who not only has to figure out how to keep the group alive but also has his hands full with a beautiful but spoiled blonde by the name of "Jerrie Turner" (Irish McCalla). Not only that, but he has two even worse problems he has to deal with. First, he overhears a radio broadcast saying that the island they are on will be bombed out of existence within a couple of days. The second problem is that the island is controlled by an evil Nazi doctor "Colonel Karl Oster" (Rudolph Anders) who is performing cruel experiments on native women he is holding hostage. Anyway, rather than spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was pretty much a typical low-budget B-movie produced in the 50's which has one saving grace-the beautiful Irish McCalla. Unfortunately, her presence wasn't enough for me to rate this film higher than I have. Slightly below average.