The She-Beast (1966/Dark Sky Films DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C+ Film: C+
In
another interesting genre entry from the always-interesting director Michael
Reeves, The She-Beast (1966) is an
odd but interesting mix of Horror, unintentional comedy, atmosphere and moments
out of nowhere you have to see to believe.
We begin in 18th Century Transylvania, a place synonymous (we
guess) with the rise of supernatural evil.
A bizarre, strange witch is blamed for an attack on a child and brutally
killed.
Now comes
the 1960s and the witch is back! A
couple (genre icon Barbara Steele and Ian Ogilvy making his debut in his first
feature film, one of many such genre pieces before landing the Simon Templar
role on TV’s Return Of The Saint,
reviewed elsewhere on this site) and they are driving along happily in their
(now-classic) Volkswagen Beetle when evil intervenes. Then a different kind of screaming starts.
Not the
most well-rounded film in the genre you will see, there is something very
entertaining about this film that comes from the efforts of all involved,
definitely trying to make this work and the power of the ambition helps makes
this more watchable than the script would.
Ogilvy was a born star and is not in the film enough for this fan, while
Steele steals many of her scenes. All
true Horror fans need to seer this one at least one to appreciate it and Dark
Sky’s DVD is decent considering the film’s age.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in CromoScope, a
two-perforation 35mm format like Techniscope that produced a tiny negative
(like the old Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns), but without the superior
three-strip dye-transfer Technicolor process applied to print production. Instead, you get EastmanColor and that looks
good here, but the transfer is weak, the print is a little aged and the vault
materials used might need some work.
However, we would like to see a Blu-ray of this before expanding on the
latter. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono also
shows its age, but is also at a low volume, so be careful of adjustment levels
during playback.
Extras are
not much, but worth your time with a stills section and really fun audio
commentary by producer Paul Maslansky, Ogilvy and Steele that any serious film
fans will want to hear and enjoy.
- Nicholas Sheffo
