Démons femelles

1957's "She Demons" marked the the second in a quartet of infamous horror titles from resident Astor Pictures director Richard E. Cunha, boasting an increased budget of $65,000 to complete a double bill with his debut "Giant from the Unknown." This is the picture that heralded the duo still to come, not a lone Conquistador for a menace but beautiful busty women wearing monstrous faces and little else threatening the weak stomachs of male characters on screen while parading in skimpy outfits for the benefit of masculine audience members. For those who admired Allison Hayes in her sultry dance of voodoo in "The Disembodied," there are a multitude of shapely bodies engaged in some kind of movement, some perfectly normal looking, others more savage due to their fanged appearance, resulting from experiments being conducted on a Pacific island stronghold for aging Nazis still devoted to the cause, the volcanic finale shot at the ubiquitous Bronson Caverns. The big cheese is Rudolph Anders as Col. Karl Osler, whose wife has been disfigured by the heat of molten lava, attempting to find a cure from the faces of female subjects kidnapped from neighboring islands. This hoary, old fashioned plot dragged out to 77 minutes is a rehash of Bela Lugosi's devoted husbands from Monogram items like "The Corpse Vanishes" or "Voodoo Man," while predating an identical European trend begun with "Eyes Without a Face," adding to the decade's mix "Atom Age Vampire," Jess Franco's "The Awful Dr. Orlof" (and various follow ups), Peter Cushing's "Corruption," and Claude Mulot's "The Blood Rose." Osler isn't played as much of a threat, but as described he sounds very much like the feared Josef Mengele, well versed in the art of transmutation in seeking to create the perfect Aryan specimen, Rudolph Anders repeating this low key approach in his next role as Boris Karloff's best friend in "Frankenstein - 1970," in which Karloff's scarred and twisted visage is the result of Nazi emasculation (Anders had smaller parts in "Phantom from Space" and "The Snow Creature"). Of greater marquee value for Cunha is casting Irish McCalla for the lead, television's Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, starting out a spoiled socialite before settling down to become a woman of action moving through more jungle hijinks (her last feature was playing a nurse in 1960's "Hands of a Stranger"). Little known Tod Griffin offers up masculine heroics, Charlie Chan veteran Victor Sen Yung provides comic relief, and reliable Gene Roth is again one of the villains, though dispatched too early to make much impression. More outrageous than "Giant from the Unknown," "She Demons" would be matched in pulchritude by the director's next double bill, "Missile to the Moon" and "Frankenstein's Daughter," before returning behind the camera as cinematographer, finally eking out a living as proprietor of an Oceanside video store in California.

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.

Shipwrecked on an island during a hurricane, four survivors - spoilt heiress Jerrie (Irish McCalla), explorer Fred Maklin (Tod Griffin), and crew members Sammy Ching (Victor Sen Yung) and Kris Kumana (Charles Opunui) - discover a tribe of sexy native women who are being used in experiments by evil Nazi concentration camp doctor Karl 'The Butcher' Osler (Rudolph Anders).

In his attempts to restore the beauty of his disfigured wife Mona (Leni Tana), Osler has transformed numerous native women into vicious 'she demons', retaining their hot bods but wiping their minds and giving them hideous fizzogs in the process. When Jerrie, captured by the Nazis, spurns Osler's amorous advances, she too is scheduled to become a she demon...

This hokey '50s drive-in flick boasts all sorts of exploitation goodness: Nazis are always a winner, as are voluptuous native girls (played here by The Diane Nellis Dancers, who perform a hilariously bad dance routine). The 'she demons' themselves are memorably daft, with manky skin, oversized teeth, and claws. Also adding to the trashy vibe are a couple of scenes of torture, with a native babe flogged to death, and Fred and Sammy shackled and forced to walk in circles until exhausted.

Unfortunately, even with a short running time of 77 minutes, the lack of any real plot development means that the film does start to drag after a while, although the finalé, as our heroes escape from the Nazi lair while lava floods the island, is quite fun.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the terrible stunt doubles who look nothing like the actors they are standing in for, and for McCalla's giraffe-like neck.

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.

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.