Maybe I watched a different movie than others but I liked this one quite a bit! Certainly next to Cahn's other film with Marla English, Voodoo Woman, this is a masterpiece. A good cast and atmospheric direction (setting a coastal location, mostly revolved around Tom Conway's beach house) help a great deal. The plot is a bit odd, though: hypnotist Chester Morris is obsessed with his assistant, Marla, putting her under deep so he can summon folks from the past including a lady from the 1600s and a sea creature that appears at first in a cloud before manifesting into a scaly monster that kills at his command. Morris seems to will the monster to kill either because he's an evil bastard, wants to prove himself, or a bit of both. Skeptical doctor, Lance Fuller, rivals Chester for Marla. Conway of the Val Lewton productions is an agent who sees dollar signs and sets Chester up as a star hypnotist not realizing of the danger to himself and others who live in and around his coastal community. Blaisdel's monster, rubber-suited with a lot of detail to make it aquatic and distinctive, is probably his masterwork. Cathy Downs is the elegant blond daughter of Conway hot for Fuller, while Fuller resists life amongst the aristocratic jet set. Ron Randell is the detective out to stop Chester. Marla is a stunner, much easier to take than as the wretched gold seeker in Voodoo Woman. Sexy and vulnerable, Marla offers a victim needing release from the hypnotic stranglehold of Chester. Some decent dialogue (especially from Fuller regarding the affluent folk wanting him to commiserate with them regularly and the startling ability of Chester for which his science has a hard time explaining), delightful cold-blooded and stern-faced Chester in all his villainy, and the spiritual mist that emerges from Marla which is a rather effectively done special effect to prove the hypnosis used on her are reason enough to thwart the rather negative reputation this little B-movie has against it.
Review of The She-Creature
