Rish's Reviews
She-Creature was a remake of an old 1956 flick, ironically enough also titled The She-Creature. Produced by Stan Winston and Executive Produced by the late, great Samuel Z. Arkoff, this was the first in a series of "Creature Features," where old Z-grade horror movies are remade with nifty monster effects. Most promising.
Tyranist's buddy, Rufus Sewell stars, along with the lovely Carla Gugino, as English carnies at the turn of the century who discover a real, honest-to-god mermaid, and, with dreams of fame and fortune, load her up in a ship to take to America. But the creature is seductive, dangerous, and not meant to be caged. Hilarity follows.
I'm not sure if this was made for cable (it almost seems like the "Creature Features" label was put together by Showtime), but it sure has great period production values, especially if it was. The script is really nice, with a great beginning, and a little more attention to detail than is normal for this type of picture.
A highly underrated actress, Gugino is elegant and pulls off a convincing British accent. TV's Gil Bellows plays a sailor and Rya Kihlstedt portrays the mermaid, a character both attractive and fearsome. And constantly naked, by the way. The mermaid, whether you believe me or not, is actually really scary. An excellent monster, even if she looked a bit too much like Winston's alien queen.
Parts of this film were really wonderful, though the ending leaves a tiny bit to be desired. Odd, it's like they took their time with the whole movie, then had to rush the ending. It got a lot of Skulls, but very few of the bad ones. This was another of those films that I grabbed with low expectations and had them easily exceeded. Except for a third act that really drags, this is a close to perfect little film. Highly recommended.
Best Scare: One mirror scare made me yelp out loud. Always a good thing.