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Night of the Blood Beast / She Gods of Shark Reef; August, 1958
Topic Started: Aug 12 2017, 12:38 PM (191 Views)
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Night of the Blood Beast (1958) Dir. Barnard Kowalski
Produced by Roger & Gene Corman
American-International Pictures
62 min. / B&W / 1.37:1

ITB Strange Science Cinema #136

She Gods of Shark Reef (1956) Dir. Roger Corman
American-International Pictures
63 min. / Color / 1.37:1

Yes, it's time for another thrilling return to those... well, of course, "thrilling" is basically a judgment call, but still... days of yesteryear for another absolutely authentic drive-in double feature, this time back to that summer of 1958, when America was young and innocent and men apparently had bellies full of seahorses. But I anticipate myself.

The best scene in Night of the Blood Beast is depicted on the poster: a monstrous fiend carrying a severed human head in its ferocious claws whilst menacing a lovely young lady who is wearing only a black bra and half-slip. and had this scene actually BEEN in the movie, of course, it would’ve been even BETTER. What we have instead is a remake of The Thing, with a couple of dribble glasses of Attack of the Crab Monsters, Day the World Ended, and The Day The Earth Stood Still mixed in.

Earth’s first man into space returns but he's quite, quite dead (well, mostly dead, anyway). “He has no respiration, no heartbeat, no pulse,” we’re told. That would seem to cover it, except the hearty cosmic explorer refuses to get stiff (well, many living guys sometimes have that problem from time to time, or so I’m told) and his blood cells are happily mucking about, forming little conga lines. A group of misfit scientists (two of whom are 1950s sci-fi movie scientist babes in pointy bras) are trying to examine the corpse in a little cut-off-from-the-world laboratory, except the monster from Corman's Teenage Caveman keeps attacking them. Pretty soon, the dead astronaut with the live blood is up and around, too, arguing that the monster shouldn’t be killed, but just given a good talking too and then studied for all of the good advice it might have for mankind. The sort-of-dead astronaut is x-rayed and it is determined that the Blood Beast has impregnated him during reentry and now there’s a flock of li’l monstrous sea horses happily swimming around inside him, which doesn’t bode well for his engagement to one of said beautiful female scientists.

Million-dollar Dialog:
Semi-Dead Astronaut to fiancée: "If what you say is true and I’ve been dead, I don’t know what this means for us."

In the end, the Blood Beast absorbs the mind of his victim and gets to lure everybody out of their laboratory and right down to the famous Bronson Canyon cave, where there’s a final showdown that will partially remind you of It Conquered the World and partially remind you to watch better movies.

Ed Nelson as the scientist bent on destroying the Beast; Georgianna Carter and Angela Greene are the two scientists who should be wearing black bras and half-slips. They actually take this silliness seriously and acquit themselves nicely. That said, this is hardly Corman's finest hour: the films he produced himself seem woefully cheaper and less entertaining than when he's got supervision (and, no doubt, a slightly bigger budget) with which to work.

Intermission time brought us the usual snack bar ads, trailers for coming attractions, including a double feature of The Brain Eaters and The Spider (and that's two movies, not just one, although The Brain Eaters and the Spider sounds just as good all by itself), and an odd cartoon called Possum Pearl, about an ugly hulking hillbilly woman who sings about catching a husband. She seems familiar and I can only assume she's based on a live performer and in all fairness, I'd probably watch a movie called The Hillbilly Lady and the Spider, too.

Anyway, on we go to our second sensational feature, She Gods of Shark Reef, and this'll be the first time I've ever seen this one. Surprisingly, it's in color; it also sat on the shelf for two years (Corman filmed it back to back with Naked Paradise in Hawaii to save dough) before anybody, even AIP, would release it, which should tell you all you need to know (although, in our In The Balcony way of ours, we'll tell you even more).

A smuggler who's killed a couple of cops coerces his brother into helping him get away by boat, but the boat hits Shark Reef and our two mischievous siblings find themselves stranded on a tropical island with a bevy of sarong-wrapped cuties and their den mother, a hatched-faced old crab. When the decent brother falls for one of the Tahiti cuties, he has second thoughts about the whole help-your-murderous-brother escape plan, though.

Million-dollar Dialog:
The good brother, hopefully: "The tide is high and the wind is strong. We'll leave evil behind us!"

Corman has nothing but fond memories of makin' this one (Hawaii and pretty girls'll do that to ya) and his book on his entire film career completely omits Night of the Blood Beast, which is probably not that big an omission. Truth is, She Gods of Shark Reef is rather disappointing, making this one of the very worst of all the 1950s sci-fi/horror double features. Granted, these drive-in double features were cheap and look it, but for the most part, they deliver the goods you're expecting. This one is rather a snoozer.

Blood Beast has never had an official video release but it's on Youtube; She Gods is PD and you can find it anywhere, if you're lookin' for it.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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