The She Beast (1966) - Video On Demand

The She Beast - Movie Review

Deadlier than Dracula! Wilder than the Werewolf! More frightening than Frankenstein! A young woman is driving alongside a lake. She has an accident and the car plunges into the water. Her body is then possessed by the spirit of an 18th-century witch who was killed by local villagers, and is bent on avenging herself on them.

A small town in 18th century Transylvania is being terrorized by an evil witch. When a child is brutally attacked, the villagers capture the fiend and sentence her to death by dunking chair, but not before she casts a curse on them and their descendants. Two hundred years later, young newlyweds Veronica (Barbara Steele) and Philip (Ian Ogilvy) pass through the town on a tour of the Carpathians, only to have their car pulled into a lake by an unseen force. A passing truck driver quickly rescues two bodies from the wreck. One is Philip, battered but alive, and the other is... the witch, back from the dead to wreak havoc on the town once again! Can Philip and his newfound friend, the great grandson of Professor Van Helsing, capture the witch and bring back Veronica?

The first of three horror classics from cult director Michael Reeves, The She-Beast 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 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!).

Several highly effective sequences in this fast-paced film show director Reeves’ skill as a filmmaker, which would really come out a few years later with his masterpiece, The Witchfinder General (aka The Conqueror Worm) with Vincent Price; it’s a pity that Reeves never lived long enough to enjoy his success or continue working in the field of film. The very talented Reeves died in early 1969 at the tender age of 25 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates as he tried to combat both insomnia and depression.

The She Beast - Cast & Crew

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