The She Beast

Plot synopsis:
The film starts out in Transylvania with an alcoholic Count Von Helsing (Karlsen) reading from a text, which begins a historical narrative of the witch, Vardella (Riley).
During his reading, the movie flashes back roughly 200 years to a religious service, where a child shows up and reports the location of Vardella. Then by the leadership of the pastor, hysteria breaks out and the congregation sets out to find and kill the witch. However, one of the villagers warns the others against killing the witch, as he explains the Count must exorcise the witch firstly, lest she will not die and will linger on as a curse for generations to come.
Nevertheless, the congregation sets out and finds the witch. Upon finding her, the pastor directs the crowd to take her to the lake, where she will be impaled and dunked to death. As Vardella is tied into the chair, She curses the people and their descendants for what they are doing and threatens she will someday "be back." The Count and his attendant secretly watch the execution from a distance upon a hilltop, and seemingly purposely do not intervene. Then the story returns to the reflective Von Helsing in his cave.
Next, a young, newly married couple are traveling in a black Volkswagen Beetle through the Carpathians in Transylvania for their honeymoon. The husband, Philip (Ogilvy), realizes he is lost and stops to look at a map with his wife, Veronica (Steele). A lawman (Maslansky) happens by and Philip asks for directions and recommendations for overnight lodging.
When they arrive in Vaubrac, they find the town run down and unimpressive. But just before they were to drive on, the hotel owner, Ladislav Groper (Welles), happens upon them and offers them a room, bread and tea — attempting to accommodate their English traditions. While waiting for their food and tea, they notice Von Helsing strangely swinging on a nearby swing-set. After they toss aside their garlic that came with their food and tea, Von Helsing immediately comes up to explain why the garlic was in their tea — as protection against Satanism and Witchcraft. He then goes on a verbal diatribe explaining he is an aristocrat (albeit dispossessed of his castle by the current governmental regime) along with relating the history of the Von Helsing family and the Draculas. In the process, he cons them into buying him a bottle to drink. And wearing on, Von Helsing recounts the story and curse of Vardella the witch. However, the couple are skeptical.
Quickly tiring of the Count's recitation, the couple retire to their room for the evening. During their conversation, Groper rudely intrudes upon the couple's room without knocking, claiming there is no privacy in the People's Republic. Offended, Philip requests a different room but is denied. Nevertheless, once Groper leaves, the couple become romantic together. However they are interrupted again, this time by Groper watching their lovemaking through the window. Philip scrambles to beat up Groper. Returning to his wife, he wants to leave Vaubrac; but Veronica decides she wants to stay and reassures him that Groper is too badly beaten up to bother them again.
The next morning, they attempt to leave early, but Philip finds Groper stole the distributor cap from their car, of which he promptly retrieves. Driving down the road, Philip loses steering control of the Volkswagen and narrowly misses hitting a delivery truck head-on, but causing him to crash into a lake. Veronica's body is then possessed by the spirit of the 18th-century witch who was killed by the local villagers, and is now bent on avenging herself upon them. Both persons still unconscious, the truck driver (Ennio Antonelli), who has a bad local reputation with the police, retrieves Philip and what he thought was his wife, but was Vardella instead. He brings them back to Vaubrac, leaving them with Groper, so that the police would not accuse him of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Philip comes to and inquires to Groper about his wife. When Philip realizes that Veronica is missing and something/someone else is in her place, he becomes enraged again at Groper, who denies knowing anything about who the other body is. Suddenly Von Helsing arrives and takes notice that what was mistaken as Veronica is indeed Vardella having returned. Then he reassures Philip that he can help him get his wife back.
Von Helsing asks Philip a series of questions regarding the accident, and then takes him back to his cave, where he lives. He begins reading from a record book entitled, "The Death of Vardella the Witch". Philip then grows frustrated and impatient with what he regards as unrelated to his missing wife, and finally leaves on foot in order to report the incident to the police. Von Helsing then goes in pursuit of him in his yellow roadster, an early model Citroën.
However, Von Helsing does not find Philip, but arrives back in town, where he visits Vardella, in order to bring her back to life. Meanwhile, Groper is heavily drinking, watching porn and gorging his face with food. The witch comes back to life, momentarily attacking and strangling Von Helsing, then leaves. Groper's niece (Lucretia Love) shows up horrified seeking protection from scary noises she had heard, which were due to the screeching Vardella had been making. However, Groper invites her in and attempts raping her. But breaking free of him, she escapes.
Groper goes after her, but once outside he is confronted by Philip, whom he clobbers with his bottle of alcohol, leaving him unconscious in the road to be run over by traffic. The truck driver happens by again, but swerves to miss him. Later Von Helsing comes upon him and drags him out of the road. Meanwhile, Groper is heavily drinking again, when all the sudden Vardella comes upon him and attacks and kills him with a hammer and sickle.
Von Helsing and Philip take off to find Vardella. Again, Philip wants to go to the police, but while driving, Von Helsing explains Vardella has returned and if she were to be gunned down by police, he would not be able to perform the exorcism necessary on the witch in order to bring Veronica back. Slowly, Philip begins believing in Von Helsing and what he says.
Meanwhile, back in town, there is an illegal cockfight going on; and Vardella has gone on a killing spree against the descendants of the people who had tortured and killed her hundreds of years before. On foot through town, Von Helsing and Philip begin searching for Vardella. Vardella shows up at the cockfight to get revenge on the villagers there. Von Helsing comes upon the scene and uses a syringe to drug the witch. They load her in his roadster and take her back to the hotel's kitchen and put her on ice for safekeeping. Then they go to Von Helsing's cave to pick up some ritual tools in order to exorcise Vardella.
After being jailed, the truck driver makes a deal to tell police where Vardella is in exchange for his freedom. He leads the police back to the hotel, where they find the drugged witch. The comrade police lieutenant intends to have Vardella autopsied and buried, which would ruin any chances of bringing Veronica back. Reneging, the police lieutenant takes the truck driver back into custody. And returning to the hotel from Von Helsing's cave, Philip and the Count find Vardella missing. So they head to the police station and steal back Vardella's body out from under them.
A car chase ensues, with Von Helsing and Philip in the paddy wagon and the police driving Von Helsing's roadster. The roadster momentarily stalls, enabling Von Helsing and Philip to evade them. However, Von Helsing realizes the ritual tools he needs to bring Veronica back are in his car, so they pull over and the police catch up with them. While laying in the paddy wagon, Vardella awakens from her drugged state. She then attacks the approaching police officers. Von Helsing uses his syringe to drug Vardella again, as well as the police officers.
They carry Vardella to the roadster and transport her to the lake, where they find the dunking chair. They strap her into the chair, perform a ritual and drop her into the water, where she disappears. Philip panics. But suddenly Veronica floats to the surface, and her husband retrieves her. Veronica and Philip are reunited.
In the end, the three of them are seen driving off in Von Helsing's Citroën, out of Transylvania to Czechoslovakia. Due to the havoc that Von Helsing wrought in Vaubrac, he decides to leave the country for England with his two new friends, although he feels his exorcism services might still be needed for future devilry in his native land. Light-heartedly, Philip jokes about the inhospitality of Vaubrac and is relieved by leaving. But on the other hand, Veronica seemingly has good feelings about Vaubrac and Transylvania altogether, claiming in the end, "I'll be back", echoing what Vardella had threatened before she was tortured and killed two hundred years earlier.
The film is both a combination of a horror story and a dark comedy, and satirizes the then Soviet Union. And the plot relies on an admixture combination of two legends: witchcraft and Dracula, that is, alluding to Veronica and Vardella as being the witches, while Von Helsing is a character from the Dracula stories, even though there are no vampires in this movie.

Tags: gothic

Review:
Filmed under the title of REVENGE OF THE BLOOD BEAST and officially released in Italy as SISTER OF Satan (although, LAKE OF Satan, is apparently yet another name attributed to it over there!), the film's best-known moniker is SHE BEAST – which is how it has been released on DVD, first by the budget outfit Alpha and, more recently, by the more respectable label Dark Sky Films.Even though Reeves' entire cinematic output consists of merely four titles, he managed the enviable feat of working with one genre icon apiece: Christopher Lee in CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD, Barbara Steele in SHE BEAST, Boris Karloff in THE SORCERERS (1967) and Vincent Price in WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), his last (and, undoubtedly, best) work.
Actually, the contribution of Barbara Steele – the then-reigning 'Scream Queen' of Italian horror movies, ever since her breakthrough dual roles in (yet another legendary genre director) Mario Bava's BLACK Sunday (1960) – to the film under review amounted to just one 22-hour day of the 18-day shooting schedule; her agent at the time, David Niven Jr., only alerted her of this clause on the day before she came on the set and, although she was a trouper, Steele had a major falling-out with producer Paul Maslanskyalthough, judging by the cordial and lively Audio Commentary on the Dark Sky DVD, any animosity between the two has long since faded away!
Joined in this discussion is the film's nominal lead and veritable Michael Reeves mascot, Ian Ogilvy; they had been schoolmates in their teenage years and Ogilvy would go on to star in all of Reeves' directorial output.The film opens with a witch-hunting sequence that anticipates the more notorious ones in WITCHFINDER GENERAL; the victim of the 'trial by water' (or, more exactly, stake through the heart!) has to be one of the ugliest female monsters to appear on celluloid and, in fact, was actually portrayed by a colored dancer sporting heavy – and highly effective – make-upwith hideous tooth-work and shriek-laden voice to match!
The cast also includes three other moderately familiar names of the period: John Karlsen (as the modern-day eccentric witch-hunter Count Von Helsing {sic}!), Mel Welles (as a boozing lecher of an inn-keeper) and Lucretia Love (appearing – in one of two surprisingly racy scenes in the film – as an innocent villager assaulted by Welles, just before he gets his own comeuppance from the rampaging titular creature); curiously enough, the other brief spot of nudity is provided by La Steele herself, during a night-time lovemaking scene with husband Ogilvy, that is witnessed by 'peeping tom' Welles – who is subsequently beaten up within an inch of his life by the understandably incensed guest!
Despite both Maslansky and Griffith having worked on some intriguing fantasy stuff (CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD itself, 1972's DEATH LINE, 1975's RACE WITH THE DEVIL and 1977's DAMNATION ALLEY, as well as two 1957 Corman productions, NOT OF THIS EARTH and THE UNDEAD respectively), unfortunately, it is their comedic vein which comes to the fore here in a truly misjudged and overstretched climactic "Keystone Kops"-type slapstick car chase (seemingly needed to pad out the running time to feature-length)!
The man (Ian Ogilvy) is saved, but pulled up with him is not his wife (Barbara Steele), but a 200-year old witch named Vardella.Now, the first thing you might be asking is this: why would Dark Sky Films, distributor of some of the finest gems in horror and exploitation, release a film that has been in the public domain for years and not very widely praised?
After one man is found dead, a policeman turns to another and asks, "Is he talking?" The other says, "No, he's dead." So the first one says, "That's obstruction of justice." And then shortly after we get a chase scene that some critics have frowned on for its silliness, but I wonder if they hadn't been paying attention -- the cops were hilarious throughout the film.Writer/director Michael Reeves has to be given plenty of credit for this.
The husband comes to the surface unharmed but his young bride emerges from the water possessed by the spirit of the witch, looking for revenge upon the descendants of the townspeople who had killed her," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Writer/director Michael Reeves's "The Sister of Satan" is an exasperating feature.
Barbara Steele is my all-time favorite actress, and I also have utmost respect for director Michael Reeves for his directing the brilliant 1968 horror classic "Witchfinder General" with the matchless Vincent Price, my favorite actor of all-time, in the lead.
300 years later English newlyweds Veronica (Barbara Steele) and Philip (Ian Ogilvy) are spending their honeymoon in Romania, near the lake where the witch was executed.
When having a tea, the couple get to know the elderly Count Van Helsing, a descendant of the famous Van Helsing family, and learn that the haunted lake is still a dangerous place...I am a huge fan of Barbara Steele and of horror in general, and "The She-Beast" is certainly the weakest film with Steele I have seen so far.
However, the movie is in some parts unintentionally funny, and even though it is not very suspenseful, a film featuring Barbara Steele is never a complete waste of time.
Ian Ogilvy's performance is not too convincing in this one, fortunately he did a way better job starring in "Witchfinder General" two years later, a film for which I will always respect director Michael Reeves, who was certainly a promising and great talent for the Horror genre, a talent which was sadly wasted by his early death in 1969.
"The She-Beast", however is certainly not Reeve's highlight, but a rather dull movie, which can be fun to watch at times, but doesn't deliver the suspense or eeriness a horror flick should.
It is certainly no must-see, but if you want to watch it anyway I recommend to watch a few other films with the great Barbara Steele (such as "The Pit And The Pendulum", "Black Sunday", or "Castle of Blood") as well as Michael Reeves' "Witchfinder General" first.
Unlike many creaky horrors from the mid-sixties 'The She Beast' merits a re-visit not only for the other- worldly beauty of, Barbara Steele, but the almost pubescent, Reeves still manages to construct some luridly effective shock moments and generates a palpable Gothic sensibility which remains timeless.
However as a horror fan who is well aware that this is an out-dated offensive view toward anyone who practices the ancient art I love this representation of the witch as ultimate monster, frankly because it gets old seeing possible "lipstick lesbians" hanging out in coffee shops and celebrating themselves all over Nature's good grace only victimized and forced to use magic in self defense.
Now for my review."The She Beast" stars Barbara Steele and Ian Ogilvy as a couple of British subjects on a European honeymoon vacation arriving in Transylvania.
A Funny Way to Exorcise a Hag. I had read negative reviews about this film all these years and also that director Michael Reeves was "horrified by the outrageously comical final car chase scene shot by the second unit", but, as a matter of fact, all the film has a comedy tone and funny elements, even in its creepiest moments (as when the she-beast throws away the sickle she has used to kill, and it falls on top of a hammer, forming the communist symbol).
Steele spent only one day with the production (a day in which she was used to very good advantage), so most of the action is left to a very young and thin Ian Ogilvy (he was only 23), New Zealander John Karlsen as a descendant of Dr. Van Helsing, Mel Welles chewing the scenery, and the ugliest witch you will ever see in a movie (called Vardella, by the way, but apparently Martha Reeves never heard about this)..
Funny little horror flick which gives room to comic relief sometimes, especially when the hotel owner spies on his guests, but it's not particularly memorable, especially since Barbara Steele disappears for half of the running time and shocks are few..
First up we've got a role for the great Barbara Steele, and second of all the director is Michael Reeves; the same man behind the horror classic Witchfinder General.
Not even Barbara Steele can save this film, as she only appears for a few minutes and Michael Reeves doesn't make the best use of her during this time.
Interestingly, Reeves used a big horror star in every one of his four films; Witchfinder General has Vincent Price, The Sorcerers featured Boris Karloff and Castle of the Living Dead has Christopher Lee; but unfortunately, the female horror icon has been sold short as The She-Beast is absolute garbage, and I seriously see no good reason to waste your time with it.
The film-makers seem pretty sure the audience is teen-agers with hormones sizzling and are probably going to spend their entire time in the theater necking; so they don't bother giving us a whole film we can watch straight through.There are some bits that border on amusing - like the Keystone-Cops tribute in the chase scene - as well as bits that promise something really adventurously scary - having a witch-monster attack a young boy watching a cock-fight offers real opportunities for thrills - which, unfortunately, never show up.Finally, there's the doddering old man who saves the day; I really came to like this character and thought how wonderful it would have been had the whole movie been about him instead of the stupid tourists.
Lots of WTF moments including a cockfighting match and a delirious scene involving the witch being driven around in the back of a car that invokes Evil Dead 2 meets Weekend at Bernie's.Pretty hilarious and some of the torture is weirdly disturbing.I have no idea how this film would look restored.
The rest of the film details the husband and Van Helsing's attempt to get rid of the witch's spirit and bring back Babs...and (sigh), this involves a lot of slapstick comedy.
I know Michael Reeves has got a cult following for The Witchfinder General (and for dying so young I guess), and as a first film a lot of it works, but the comedy seems too forced for me.
Most people reading this know that he went on to work with Vincent Price on 1968's "Witchfinder General" (aka "Conqueror Worm") before he died of an accidental overdose in early '69 at the too-young age of 25."The She Beast" is about a hideous witch in modern Transylvania who is resurrected via the drowning of man's wife (Barbara Steele).
However, each time the film begins to succeed in this way, it derails itself with high school-esque slapstick which in all probability, no one found funny at the time but the producers.Still, it's worth a peek for die-hard Barbara Steele and Euro-horror fans..
Only Count Von Helsing (Karlsen) and Ogilvy can keep the witch alive long enough to re-enact the ancient ritual that will hopefully return Steele from the dead.There's some obvious flair in director Reeves' imaginative tale, but it's outdone by the offbeat humour that was apparently more the result of second unit director Charles B.Griffith (a name that will be familiar to some).
Aside from AIP regular Griffith, Mel Welles turns in a wonderfully hammed-up performance as the grubby local booze-hound and peeping tom, while Lucretia Love has a cameo as his smoking-hot niece for whom things turn ugly really quickly, much like the film's title character."She Beast" is camp and quirky with a bizarre "Keystone Cops" homage at the film's climax, where a man on a scooter seems to appear in every shot, from every direction, during a car pursuit.
John Karlsen as "Count" Van Helsing - yes, he's a descendant in modern times - is so wooden that it's almost painful everytime he speaks on screen, like hes that lacking in emotion past his one note.But it's nice to see Barbara Steele, if briefly (and for a moment she is quite...
It takes some chances on going for gruesome violence and clearly Reeves has a love for monster movies and doesn't take it to be a joke, not to mention it clocks in just shy of 80 minutes and doesn't overstay its welcome.It is sloppy, and there are things like the witch coming towards the camera after attacking someone and it looks cheesy, and the climax is what disappoints me the most as a goofy car chase.
Quite frankly, this isn't a good film at all "She Beast" tells a typically Gothic horror tale that starts in the 18th century, in a small Transylvanian village terrorized by a hideous witch that kills little children.
She Beast was directed by Michael Reeves, who would go on to helm historical horror Witchfinder General, although at times it's hard to believe that the two films could have come from the same man.
Witchfinder General was a truly chilling study of the evil in man, a genuine classic of the genre with a brilliant central performance from Vincent Price; She Beast, on the other hand, is an embarrassingly bad tongue-in cheek horror with a risible plot, stilted dialogue, weak comedy, and dreadful turns from its stars, Ian Ogilvy and Barbara Steele.Ogilvy and Steele play honeymooners Philip and Veronica, who are travelling through Transylvania when they crash their car into a lake where, centuries earlier, butt-ugly witch Vardella (Joe 'Flash' Riley) met her fate at the hands of an angry mob.
Possessing Veronica, Vardella proceeds to make good on her dying words, a curse on the descendants of those responsible for her death.Cruddy low-lights of Reeve's lamentable feature-length debut include Philip and Veronica's dull-as-ditch-water stay at a hotel where the perverted owner, Ladislav Groper (Mel Welles), likes to peep on his guests, and a terrible car chase scene that sees Philip and local witch expert Count von Helsing (John Karlsen) pursued by three bumbling policemen, the action sped up for comic effect (with the cars inexplicably passing the same motorcyclist several times).Thankfully, Reeves got much better at his job before dying from an accidental overdose at the age of 25, meaning that horror fans can remember him for his one great movie and forget all about this hopeless mess..
Philip recovers & seeks the help of Count Gustav Von Helsing, the last of the famous family of monster hunters, in order to defeat Bardella & get Veronica back.Michael Reeves was for a brief time in the 1960s considered the wunderkind of British horror.
Reeves called in his old school friend Ian Ogilvy to give him a starring role, roped in a few other friends from continental cinema & managed to get Barbara Steele, then a big genre name thanks to Mario Bava's Black Sunday, in to give some name value, raised the cash himself & proceeded to make Revenge of the Blood Beast.Revenge of the Blood Beast (known in some places as The She Beast) is something of an oddity in 1960s horror – a horror film that tried to copy the format of the European horror genre of the time & even more unusually at the time, an attempt to merge horror with comedy.
It's such a shame because I like Barbara Steele and this film is a waste of her good talent - for one thing she is not in this film enough to satisfy most of us.The movie is just over 1 hour and 18 minutes long and it took 30 minutes for the car wreck to happen and the ghost witch to enter into the man's wife.
Horror fans who think they are in for a treat seeing that this Barbara Steele-starring movie is another Italian production - just like the acclaimed "Black Sunday" - will be in for a big disappointment.
I'm not going because I believe in the supernatural, but it's a heck of an excuse to make up for missing the office Halloween party by saying you've been taking pictures of Dracula's castle.And while most normal IMDb reviewers would review a horror movie in honor of this month, me, since I review horror movies all the time, I thought I'd get in the mood for my trip by watching films set in Romania; so of course, I review the first horror movie set in Dracula country I can think of....'The She-Beast', a truly awful stain on the career of everyone involved about a woman who gets possessed by a leprous hag after falling into a lake in a car accident after the witch was almost fired into a lake by a catapult years ago.What?
John Karlsen also gives a decent performance as Count VON Helsing, a descendant of VAN Helsing from 'Dracula'(So I guess there is a vampire connection after all.)and top-billed Barbara Steele does what she can in her little screen time.
Modest Italian horror flick starring Barbara Steele as a new bride honeymooning in Romania and who unfortunately ends up possessed by the spirit of one of the ugliest witches ever committed to film.
It starts off as a horror film about a murderous witch and continues in that mode by utilizing one of the best horror actresses of the time in Barbara Steele (as "Veronica").
Unfortunately, rather than using her talents to any great extent the director (Michael Reeves) completely omits her character for almost half of the film and decides to focus more on her husband "Phillip" (Ian Ogilvy), the innkeeper "Ladislav Groper" (Mel Welles) and "Count von Helsing" (John Karlsen) instead.
To make matters even more strange, the movie then detours from being a horror film to a comedy with the local Transylvanian police bumbling around like the Keystone Cops.
When a vacationing couple crashes into the lake, the beautiful wife somehow morphs into the body of the hideous, long-dead witch and begins making good on her 200 year-old threat.
It seems that just as She-Beast builds up a bit of horror the Borat-like plot takes over again.This is worth a look for the decently funny stuff; and also for the nicely-turned-out witch.