The She-Beast was one of those titles that I always saw the trailer for, but never managed to see, mostly due to the fact that it was only available on VHS via mail-order companies at the time (and there were more thrilling-looking pictures to order). When DVD came about, however, the whole industry changed: public domain movies were being distributed left and right — and The She-Beast was one of them. Unfortunately, by that point, my procrastination had been overruled by my inane sense of perfectionism — and by then, I only wanted The She-Beast if it was in widescreen. Lo and behold, a good 20 years after I first saw the preview for it, The She-Beast has finally hit DVD in an anamorphic widescreen presentation from Dark Sky Films.
The first of three horror classics from cult director Michael Reeves, The She-Beast (known in Italy as La Sorella Di Satana, or The Sister Of Satan) is not the straight-but-cheesy horror film you’d expect if you only ever saw the trailer. In fact, it’s a deliciously wicked horror comedy that succeeds in both entertaining and amazing the average viewer, especially when said viewer takes into consideration that this was Reeves’ first-time writing/directing a feature-length film and that the movie was shot in 21 days with a £17,000 budget (which Reeves put up himself from out of a bag!).
Two hundred years ago in Transylvania, the evil hag Vardella terrorized and murdered the populace until the townsfolk murdered her by nailing her to a dunking chair and drowning her. Alas, the fearful citizens did not wait for Professor von Helsing to properly exorcise the witch, and so Vardella cursed the entire community, threatening to rise from the dead one day and seek her revenge. In the modern mid-'60s, we meet Veronica (top-billed horror queen Barbara Steele, who is only in the beginning and end of the film) and Philip (Ian Ogilvy), a newlywed pair of cynical Britons (are there any other kind?) honeymooning in Communist Transylvania for one reason or another. Making the mistake of stopping in a small, backwards town, our heroes soon meet up with a sleazy drunken innkeeper (the great Mel Welles) and Count von Helsing (John Karlsen), the eccentric but spry descendant of the original professor who rid the world of Dracula.
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