She Demons

‘From Beauty to BEAST!’

She Demons is a 1958 American horror film directed and co-written by Richard E. Cunha (Missile to the Moon; Frankenstein’s Daughter). Made in a tongue-in-cheek style of Men’s adventure magazines, Nazisploitation and Island of Lost Souls, the film was distributed by Astor Pictures as a double feature with Cunha’s Giant from the Unknown. It stars Irish McCalla (Hands of a Stranger), Tod Griffin, Victor Sen Yung (TV’s Night Gallery), Rudolph Anders (The Snow Creature; Frankenstein 1970) and Gene Roth (Attack of the Giant Leeches).

Plot teaser:

During a tropical storm a pleasure boat is shipwrecked on an uncharted island and presumed sunk with all hands. The radio possessed by the four survivors can only receive but not transmit and they discover the island will soon be used by naval aircraft as a bombing target.

Finding strange human footprints and hearing the sound of drums, three of the party explore the island that they discover is populated by deformed humanoids who are the product of scientific experiments by a party of Nazis led by a mad scientist war criminal who rules the island…

Reviews:

“She Demons has become a full-blown cult classic. Richard Cunha has packed a lot of schlock into his 76 minutes of low-budget mayhem – laughable dialogue, Nazis who flog girls, a mad scientist called “The Butcher”, a hurricane, ugly female monsters wearing cheap rubber masks, island castaways, a volcanic eruption, a henchman named Igor (played by Gene Roth, one time Three Stooges villain), stock footage from One Million BC, bombs, female sex serum, stereotypical racist gags, campy dancing by cute native girls, a not-too-hunky hero who just happens to be a scientist, and Irish McCalla in a cocktail gown (some would say this is worth the price of admission alone) … It has a lot to recommend it.” Terrororstralis.com

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“Besides the standing jungle set there are only a couple of mad lab interiors, including some concrete block stairs that look suspiciously similar to a setting in Frankenstein’s Daughter. Caves are provided by lots of stone walls made from crumpled paper, and a few angles once again in Bronson Caves. All are filmed flatly, using the fewest camera setups necessary to display the action. It’s all there: silly native dances that look like watered-down burlesque, the stunt double for Tod Griffin who has completely a mismatched build and hair, and stock Germans that prance around in shiny uniforms that should have worn out years before.” Glenn Erickson, DVD Talk

“Far better production values than the majority of drive-in jungle pictures, but with all the clichés thankfully intact; ominously distant drums, choreographed blue-eyed native dancing slave girls in skimpy outfits, the love-hate guy/girl thing, a mad German scientist, a rich-bitch blonde in tight-fitting clothes, zombies washing up on shore,Nazi’s … it’s hard to go wrong with uniformed Nazi’s. The acting isn’t even one-take quality, more like filmed rehearsals.” Willard’s Wormholes