llcoolvad | She Monster

Just watched She Monster on SciFi, and boy was it fun! Like most people, I love a good B-movie horror flick, and was expecting the usual SciFi badness when I turned this on. But no! This was an actual GOOD B-movie!

Rufus Sewell (hot!) and Carla Gugino (hot!) are minorly successful carnies in 1905 Ireland. They find out about an actual mermaid being held captive by a sea captain, and Sewell conspires with some friends to steal her away -- his bright idea is that they can bring her to America and make a ton of money.

Of course, once they get on board the America-bound ship things go horribly awry, and they discover that the mermaid has a dark side. An appearance by a creepy Gil Bellows, Alien-like enclosed-space-with-bad-thing horror, telepathy, and male suspicion of female sexuality combine to keep the plot moving along nicely. When they end up crashed on The Forbidden Islands, the home of the mer-people, it gets very messy.

I did a tiny bit of research to find out where the heck it came from and discovered that there were four movies all made based on 50s movie titles; they're not remakes, just took the title and ran with it, and were produced by Cinemax as part of their "Creature Feature" series. Directed and written by Sebastian Gutierrez, in theory this movie was supposed to be Part One of several, but that might have just been a 50s serial homage. I would love it if they made more, though!

If you are a Netflix subscriber, it's totally worth the rental. I'd bet it would be very atmospheric if you didn't have commercials every 10 minutes ruining the mood. Anyway, very unexpected fun! I'd give it a B+...