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THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER
Rating: 
USA. 1958.
Director/Producer – Ronnie Ashcroft, Screenplay – Frank Hall, Photography (b&w) – William C. Thompson, Music – Guenther Kauer, Makeup – Nicholas Vehr. Production Company – Ronnie Ashcroft Productions.
Cast:
Robert Clarke (Dick Cutler), Marilyn Harvey (Margaret Chaffey), Kenne Duncan (Matt), Shirley Kilpatrick (Alien Woman), Jeanne Tatum (Esther Malone), Ewing Brown (Brad)
Plot: Two hoods abduct heiress Margaret Chaffey. But their car breaks down in the San Gabriel mountains and so they force their way into the cabin of geologist Dick Cutler. But then a mysterious alien woman appears from a meteorite that has crashed in the hills. Her radium suit proves deadly to all whom she touches. She is impervious to bullets and so Cutler and the others try to improvise a mean of stopping her.
The Astounding She-Monster is one of the Z-grade sf classics of the 1950s, right up there with Cat Women of the Moon (1953), Robot Monster (1953), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and the works of Edward D. Wood Jr. (Indeed director Ronnie Ashcroft worked as an assistant director for Edward D. Wood Jr at one point on Night of the Ghouls [1960/83]). It’s a rather dreary film. It gives the appearance of having been shot at someone’s mountainside cabin in the space of about a single weekend. Ashcroft’s direction is almost entirely static – the film is shot in long, wide angles, something that low-budget directors like because it requires less camera set-ups, but which on the other hand also proves dramatically stultifying. And the plot only really consists of lots of running about between the cabin and the mountainside with the alien woman appearing and killing people every now and again. The dull happenings on-screen happenings are certainly enlivened a score which thunders away with a good deal of frenetically brassy melodrama.
There are occasional pluses that make it almost worthwhile. One of these is wonderful purple voiceover narration at the start: “Too bad Maggie, the Cadillac has not failed you. Ride swiftly – you have a very special appointment this day. An appointment that may very well change your life – or end it ... There’s the gate, Maggie – beyond it lies the most fantastic experience of your life ... No use trying to struggle, Maggie – being kidnapped could be termed about normal for a socialite like you – and you are being kidnapped. In fact you are all being taken to a rendezvous with fate. High in the San Gabriel mountains the stage has already been set. No turning back.” And with the arrival of Shirley Kilpatrick’s alien the narration goes into overwrought hyperbole: “Our final character – a visitor from beyond imagination. Evil until evil.” And there is a single scene where Ashcroft’s direction rises to the occasion – where Robert Clarke and Marilyn Harvey are being held by alcoholic moll Jeanne Tatum and between them start sewing doubts in her mind and preying upon her need for a drink. One plus is also Shirley Kilpatrick’s intergalactic femme fatale. In weirdly alien makeup and with her appearances always accompanied by a peculiar optical wavering effect, Kilpatrick certainly cuts an effectively eerie presence.
On the other hand it is also a film of underwhelming promise. The opening narration goes on, in typical The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) manner, about cosmic retribution. “Are we today on the point of repeating this cosmic suicide? There is one planet in particular who fears that if the Earth is not destroyed first it will destroy the universe.” Alas Shirley Kilpatrick’s single alien invader, killing people with her radioactive touch, proves a decidedly less then imposing delivery on such a promise. There is a modest twist ending, which Ashcroft fails to manipulate in any particularly imaginative way, wherein the alien woman is revealed to be an emissary of peace (something that contradicts the opening statement about cosmic retribution) and the survivors wonder if her people will return with another message or in search of vengeance.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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