Wednesday, October 9, 2019

THE 31 DAYS OF HORROR-WEEN: PRIME EVIL: SHE DEMONS (1958) **


She Demons was the first film from director Richard E. Cunha.  It’s pretty rough in spots and doesn’t have the wacky charm of his later work.  It lacks the endearing silliness of Missile to the Moon and the flat-out fun of Frankenstein’s Daughter.  However, there are faint glimpses of what the man was capable of, and for that, it’s (almost) worth watching.

A quartet of castaways wash up on an uncharted island.  After getting their bearings, they head off looking for the legendary creatures that supposedly inhabit the island.  They soon discover the place is crawling with Nazis.  Their leader is performing experiments on the native girls, turning them into hideous she demons in an effort to keep his ugly wife beautiful.  Naturally, it’s up to our heroes to thwart the Nazis’ devious plans.

She Demons starts off just fine, but it gets awfully talky in the middle section of the film.  Although you have to wait around quite a while for something to happen, the dance routines of sexy ‘50s babes wearing loincloths and bone necklaces gyrating wildly around a fire pit are amusing.  The big reveal of the doctor’s wife’s face is effective too.  The final escape sequence isn’t bad either, especially when you consider Cunha had to stage an eruption of lava using little to no money.  It also contains a bit more blood than you’d typically see at the time.  

If anything, She Demons is memorable for its inclusion of minority actors as half of our heroes are non-white; a rarity in a ‘50s horror flick. While the African American character (Charles Opunui) is kind of cliched and superstitious (not to mention the fact that he’s the first to die), the Asian sidekick is quite funny.  He’s portrayed by Victor Sen Yung, a veteran of many Charlie Chan movies.  He easily gives best performance of the film, stealing every scene he’s in from the dull romantic leads.

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