L'Incroyable créature de l'espace

It's amazing to me how films this poor continue to have a commercial life, but the recent DVD release of this Bomb just proves that some people will watch anything (like me, unfortunately)!

Produced on the cheap (maybe a couple of week's worth of a kid's school lunch money), pic features a mysterious, glowing Alien female (Shirley Kilpatrick) whose radioactive touch brings instant death. Miss Astounding gets mixed up with some kidnappers (led by Kenne Duncan) and their victims on a secluded mountain range and gradually picks them off one by one until vanquished by a stalwart geologist (Robert Clarke). Ridiculous denouement suggests that our title monster was sent to Earth as an Emissary of peace. You could have fooled me.

Production values are strictly from hunger and the film has the amateurish look of a home movie. Poorly edited and with horrible sound, it's a chore to sit through. Although music is credited to an individual, the soundtrack sounds more like a collection of poorly matched library music cues.

This flick started the downward spiral of Clarke's movie career, which reached it's nadir with a string of films with world class hack Jerry Warren. Warren no doubt used this production as inspiration for his "ouerve". Movies of this type have garnered a reputation for being "So Bad, they're good!". This one's just plain bad.

This is another one of those "so bad it's good" Grade-Z science-fiction flicks from the 1950s. Hammy acting, bad dialogue, melodramatic narration, cheesy effects--it's all there, along with enough plot holes to drive a starship through. This movie tries really hard: it has wiseguy gangsters, an alcoholic gun moll, a rich kidnapped heiress, a lonely bachelor scientist who talks to his dog, and a beautiful deadly female space-alien wearing a skintight catsuit. Something for everyone!

An absurd introductory narrative precedes THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER! Then, another narrator takes over, telling us what we're witnessing on screen. The abduction of a socialite, made so much better by voice-over rather than any real dialogue.

The scene shifts to the wilderness, where geologist, Dick Cutler (Robert Clarke) walks his dog, unaware that nearby, a ship has landed. From this craft comes the shimmering alien of the title. Not only does she shimmer, but she seems to warp, as though made of some ethereal liquid. Either that, or she's imbibed too much space juice. Who really knows for sure? She saunters... no, sachets along, like an alien in need of a restroom. Still shimmering.

Meanwhile, the kidnappers and their hostage arrive, all of this happening close to Cutler's remote cabin. Soon, all will meet together. What are the odds of such a confluence of various characters and events occurring? Perhaps the she-monster knows.

Uh oh!

The sachet-ing she-monster has the space voodoo, touch of death! She wanders... no, meanders through the forest, using her hands of deadliness! Who will survive this awfulness?

Fans of all that is movie muck, rejoice! This is your day of deliverance!

EXTRA CREDIT FOR: #1- The tough-talking crooks and their drunken moll. #2- The game of "in-and-out-of-the-cabin", where everyone leaves and re-enters several times, even after it appears they've escaped the horror!

This is highly entertaining flotsam...

This is the type of movie that if you were watching it when it first came out in 1957, you probably would have had the pants scared off you.

Looking at it today, this is a movie that you can sit and watch with a bunch of friends and laugh. It's so ludicrous!!

The 'special effects' surrounding our monster heroine are so bad and very erratic. Sometimes you see them and sometimes you don't.

It's supposed to be night time, so how come when they are driving the jeep to try to escape, there is sunlight on the surrounding hills and sometimes our friends are driving right through the sunlight.

My favorite character in this movie is the head thug, Nat Burdell. He's so 'tough', he's almost lovable. Looking at the list of movies that he has participated in since the early 1940's, he seems to be an accomplished actor. Things really must have been very bad in his personal life to wind up in a film like this. Who said that good acting was a requirement for this film???

But all in all, if you're looking for some light-hearted movie to enjoy (don't expect anything great), either by yourself or with some friends, and you're just passing the time, RENT THIS MOVIE!!!!! YOU WON"T BE DISAPPOINTED!!!!!

1957's "The Astounding She-Monster" was a micro budget independent picked up by AIP, shot in four to six days in December 1956 by first time director/producer Ronnie Ashcroft (after working on Roger Corman's "Day the World Ended"), the budget of $18,000 sadly apparent on screen, lots of pointless narration, interminable driving, and wandering the woods waiting for the director to yell 'cut.' The presence of Kenne Duncan from "Night of the Ghouls" indicates the probable involvement of maverick filmmaker Ed Wood, whose more lively antics are certainly more watchable than this gabfest. The most inept trio of kidnappers are forced off the road by the mysterious appearance of 'a naked dame' who literally glows in the dark (the original shooting title was in fact "Naked Invader"), a recently arrived alien visitor (Shirley Kilpatrick) whose radioactive touch means instant death for snakes, bears, dogs, and humans. Robert Clarke's geologist shelters the thugs and their wealthy socialite victim in his mountain cabin, worrying about phone calls, police bulletins, and the search for booze until our space babe makes a nuisance of herself. It's a pleasure to see the villains knocked off but it's still a slog sitting through a plot that cannot sustain feature length. We never see any sign of Shirley's spaceship and her one piece outfit isn't as sexy as the curvaceous poster that undoubtedly made it a hit, while her background as a popular pinup model offers another reason for the picture's endurance (the obese Shirley Stoler who starred in 1970's "The Honeymoon Killers" was a different actress though they do share a similarity in looks). Clarke was dismayed by the final results yet so astonished by its success (his investment yielded a tidy $3000) that he figured he could do better, directing his own vehicle a year later with "The Hideous Sun Demon"; unfortunately he chose a distributor that went belly up rather quickly, sinking all potential profits.