The Astounding She-Monster

Moviecut—The Astounding She-Monster

Only an hour long with a paper-thin plot, this piece of 50s sci-fi cheese is the kind of inept classic that Ed Wood has become famous for. Lots of time is taken up with random footage of the She-Monster (Shirley Kilpatrick in a skintight glitter suit) wandering around in the woods. Four people in a cabin fight and get killed off by the lethal touch of this alien gal. Given that she doesn't say a thing, Kilpatrick really does carry this amateurish film with her menacing look and sexy outfit with a camera blur added to make her look out of this world. Lead actor Robert Clarke was so impressed with the money this film made that he went out and made his own monster movie, THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON. Rumor has it that Shirley Kilpatrick gained a lot of weight in later years and became character actress Shirley Stoler of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS and PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE.

Truly cheap sounding narration and lighting effects that look like a filter raised and lowered in front of the camera makes this science fiction / horror film one of the worst of the 1950's. there's an idiotic storyline involving kidnappers who hold up at a country home and the sudden presence of a very strange looking female which even odder eyebrows. She doesn't say a word. All she does is stock her victims, weather being hey darling Fox, a hissing snake or the people in trapped in the cabin in the middle of nowhere. The cast is resoundingly bad and the structure amazingly stupid, even if the deaths are pretty horrific. Still, it will be very difficult to not laugh, so I call this a delightful unintentional comedy that can be enjoyed for pure silliness.

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!