Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 20: The Astounding She Monster

After the cynical rottenness of Batman and Robin it is honestly a relief to watch something that is just dull and awful like Astounding She Monster.

Glowing space lady kills a dog, people and a bear.

Wait what?

Made in 1957 for a budget that wouldn’t have paid for Uma Thuman’s nail polish in Batman and Robin this is one dumb film.

In the opening a narrator (who leaves pretty quickly I guess he saw the rest of the script and decided that he was outta there – probably demanded his check before he left for the day as well)

Anyway the narrator tells us that some folks believe that this universe started when other folks blew up their universe. It’s an intriguing idea for the source of the big bang but I don’t think the screen writer knew enough about the big bang – which was still in its infancy as a theory to have that in the screen play – just words in a row. At any rate the narrator tells us that now other aliens are worried that Humanity is developing the means to destroy the universe again so off to goes – a dot of light – this is a very low budget picture.

After this we see a ‘society woman’ get kidnapped , as part of a long prepared plan – the plan is simply cut her off then pull her out of her car and drive off. Two five year olds who were waiting to be fed could come up with a better plan.

Then we shift to the mountains were we meet the male lead, a geologist and his dog (played by the actor’s dog per the ever infallible Internet movie database)  man and his dog doing science in the mountains.  As they are doing science in the mountains they see the glowing ball from that planet back there (the narrator by now has left the building so were working with the little information we can get from the screen itself) the glowing ball hits the ground makes something of an explosion and the scientist – a geologist by the by – shrugs his shoulders and heads back for the cabin.

Emerging from the glowing ball is the Astounding she monster – in heels – eyebrows that must be seen to be believed and a skin tighitsh  jump suit. She also is shot out of focus or blurred to give the impression that she is hot with deadly radiation – it’s the major effect in the film – things get blurry when she’s around – given the  tiny budget and the basic level of competence in this film I  think this was about as good an effect as they were going to get – the Director who worked with Ed Wood, shows the effects of  Wood’s influence because they use the same shot of the She monster walking along the road about 15 times.

Also the music is taken from a sound library somewhere and features about two themes on is a loud trumpet heavy da-da DA – Da! Theme whenever the She Monster is walking about.

Fate then sets its wheels in motion to bring all these people together, the kidnappers car goes off the road near where the scientist lives as the diver Bard was distracted by the glowing lady – yes the she monster (da! Da! DA!)

On foot, they arrived at the films one set – the interior of the scientist's cabin – it’s a cozy little crew with the kidnapped girl, Nat, the boss, Brad, the idiot and the drunk woman who is Nat’s squeeze for some reason – Nat not being as smart as he thinks is one of the possibilities here.

So we have a little sub-moron petrified forest set up with the kidnappers waiting the scientist's jeep but as the lights are broken they have to wait until morning. Drunk lady drinks about all the booze, the scientist tires to fight back but gets hit instead. There are phone calls taken under duress and the whole thing is so dull  you start to wish she monster would kill them all.

Well she doesn’t quite do that – Bard hears the dog bark and he goes after what the dog is barking and it’s the She Monster! The she monster kills the dog! Then she kills Brad! Then Nat goes out and drags the body back – arriving just in time to shoot the last bottle of booze in the house much to drunk lady’s upset. Now it turns out that Nat (who as I said isn’t as bright as he thinks)  has picked up radiation poisoning from carrying Brad around – Brad having died from the direct touch of the She Monster who I guess is just radioactive as hell.

So after another in series of phone calls they are outside where the she monster kills the drunk lady – and as she tries to touch Nat – Nat steps aside as the she Monster lunges forward for him (nobody else in the film thinks to do this) and the She Monster falls off of a fairly large cliff – (it seems she isn’t that bright either)

Nat returns to the cabin and at gun point forces the scientist and the girl to drive the jeep (with him in it) down the mountain despite the terrible danger of falling off a cliff and dying.

Worse yet the She Monster got better – and as they round a turn in the road there she is in all her out of focus glory – Nat is killed here – which I was happy to see – when the last disposable character dies it means the movie is almost over. As the scientist and the kidnapped girl run back to the cabin , the she monster kills a bear – mostly because they had stock footage of a bear to use and they wanted to pad the film a little. And then heads back to the cabin.

Inside the cabin the scientist is doing science things mixing chemicals to hopefully kill the she monster – and it does and then, as required by monster films she fades away – the effect is handled by the leads saying ‘look she’s fading away” and then we cut back to the dead she monster them back to the leads who are looking at the fading one assumes, and then back to the spot where the she monster used to be but now no longer as she is presumed to have faded.

As a final twist they find a note inside the one thing left of the she monster a medallion – there is a note inside saying basically please come joint the united planets – ask the lady with this message about it proving that the aliens in this film aren’t very bright either – your emissary to a new world is a mute glowing space alien whose touch kills? Great. You know I don’t think we want to be a part of the United Planets – you’re too stupid.

Enjoy with a TV dinner- it’s such a 50’s grade Z film.