SHE DEMONS is a low budget quickie of the 1950s with plenty of potential and not a lot of impact. It has all the ingredients to make a successfully entertaining B-movie, including: horrific deformed monsters, a two-fisted hero, whipping, native girls dancing in bikinis, women in prison, Nazi experiments, a sadistic German officer, and an erupting volcano. Somehow it manages to fumble the ball somewhere along the line, providing only two (count 'em) scenes of excitement: a prolonged battle between our hero and the whip-wielding Nazi bad guy, and the eruptive climax. The rest is talk, scene-setting and more talk, but the film isn't without its charms.
Chief of those is Irish McCalla, the statuesque blonde playing the female lead. A commanding mix of Monroe, Mansfield, and Dors, she goes easy on the eye even if her acting isn't up to scratch. Sadly, little is made of McCalla, but her presence definitely helps. Tod Griffin is less impressive as the hero; he seems to spend more time standing around than actually doing anything, and I definitely needed to see him fighting the Nazis more.
The film deserves kudos for having a third lead played by an Asian, Victor Sen Yung, who delivers much of the comic relief. He's fine, as is veteran Rudolph Anders as the sinister German surgeon conducting experiments on the native girls. Sadly, too much of this film is filler – the German's explanations go on for an age, for instance – and it lacks the serial atmosphere that would have made it a classic. Nonetheless, aside from the somewhat insipid direction this delivers a few vicarious thrills for fans of such fare.
Chief of those is Irish McCalla, the statuesque blonde playing the female lead. A commanding mix of Monroe, Mansfield, and Dors, she goes easy on the eye even if her acting isn't up to scratch. Sadly, little is made of McCalla, but her presence definitely helps. Tod Griffin is less impressive as the hero; he seems to spend more time standing around than actually doing anything, and I definitely needed to see him fighting the Nazis more.
The film deserves kudos for having a third lead played by an Asian, Victor Sen Yung, who delivers much of the comic relief. He's fine, as is veteran Rudolph Anders as the sinister German surgeon conducting experiments on the native girls. Sadly, too much of this film is filler – the German's explanations go on for an age, for instance – and it lacks the serial atmosphere that would have made it a classic. Nonetheless, aside from the somewhat insipid direction this delivers a few vicarious thrills for fans of such fare.