…and I am astounded at what I will sit through.
Amazon’s Prime Video appears to be the gift that keeps on giving. They seem to be topping off their video offerings with a lot of classic movies that I was wishing that Netflix would add until I gave up caring about Netflix. They are also overstocking their bargain basement with some remarkable schlock that I haven’t seen since the late, great Doctor Shock ruled Saturday afternoons in the broadcast regions around Philadelphia, PA. Such is the case with The Astounding She-Monster.
The Astounding She-Monster is a terrible movie that looks like it was shot on a budget of $27. It involves an affable geologist running afoul of a trio of ruthless kidnappers and their victim. The crooks hole up in the geologist’s cabin and try to figure out how to extract a ransom out of the victim’s old man. That’s when the buxom alien lady wearing a skin tight outfit shows up and starts to kill the cast off one by one with a radioactive touch. They didn’t spend much on effects. The she-monster glows and shimmers as if vaseline was smeared on the lens, and her victims simply scream and die when touched. It doesn’t matter. I love these poverty row movies. They always feel as if they were made by people who couldn’t possibly hold down a regular job and the casts are usually rounded out by has-beens, junkies, strippers and communists. Cheesecake model Shirley Kilpatrick is terrific as the alien.
I captured the image of the lovely Miss Kilpatrick above and played around a bit with Photoshop. The original is in black and white, but a colorized version would be very interesting.
