Color, 1966, 79 mins. 4 secs.
Directed by Michael Reeves
Starring Ian Ogilvy, Barbara Steele, John Karlsen, Mel Welles
Radiance / Raro (Blu-ray) (UK R0 HD), Raro (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD), Mediacs (Blu-ray & DVD) (Germany R0 HD/ PAL), Dark Sky (DVD) (US R1 NTSC), Minerva (DVD) (Italy R2 PAL) / WS (2.35:1) (16:9)

The strangest and Revenge of the Blood Beastleast respected of the three feature films credited to British director Michael Reeves Revenge of the Blood Beastduring his very short life, this U.K.-Italian co-production proved to be a reliable programmer on double and triple features thanks to its quick running time. Released in the U.S. as The She Beast (sometimes paired with The Embalmer), the U.K. as Revenge of the Blood Beast, and Italy as Il lago di Satana (Satan's Lake) and La sorella di Satana (Satan's Sister), it's a very shaggy riff on the "executed witch comes back decades later for revenge" formula, with the presence of Barbara Steele (brought in for only one very long day of shooting) making it a companion of sorts to her films for Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti. This also marked the first teaming of Reeves and his regular leading man, Ian Ogilvy, which would lead to the much more acclaimed The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General.

We begin in a big furnished cave in Transylvania where Count Von Helsing (Steele's 8 1/2 co-star Karlsen in ridiculous old-age makeup) reads a old book recounting the final days of dreaded and extremely ugly witch Vardella, who was murdered two centuries earlier by outraged villagers who drowned her in a lake. In the present day, British honeymooners Philip (Ogilvy) and Revenge of the Blood BeastVeronica (Steele) stop off at a bed and breakfast run by peeping tom Ladislav Goper (Welles) and have Revenge of the Blood Beastan awkward lunchtime encounter with Von Helsing. Soon after, the couple's car veers into a lake and Veronica is transformed into the monstrous Vardella, who's bent on wiping the descendants of those who wronged her.

Though it doesn't do anything to innovate the genre at all, The She Beast has lots of built-in cult value thanks to its participants alone and makes for an amusing time killer for monster fans. The mixture of supernatural mayhem and quirky Eastern European comedy is an uneasy one to be sure, and there isn't another Euro-horror film for the era that feels quite like it. This was an early effort for American producer Paul Maslansky, a buddy of Christopher Lee who had gotten started with the Italian oddity Castle of the Living Dead (which had Reeves doing some second unit work) and would go on to strike gold with the Police Academy series. Anyone who watches this for Steele is bound to come away confused as her screen time is confined almost entirely to the first act of the story, but she does get to wear some great '60s outfits and makes for a welcome presence all the same.

Revenge of the Blood BeastFirst released on U.S. home video on VHS by Gorgon, The She Beast was an infamous eyesore Revenge of the Blood Beastfor decades with its scope compositions brutalized by some of the ugliest pan-and-scan transfers ever inflicted on human eyes. That didn't do much for the film's reputation either, with numerous gray market labels slapping it onto budget collections on VHS and DVD for years

In 2009, Dark Sky gave the film its first worthwhile home video release courtesy of a widescreen DVD bearing the U.K. title and adding a great audio commentary (recorded in 2007) with producer Paul Maslansky, Ogilvy, and Steele, moderated by Severin's David Gregory. Steele enters later than the others but they all seem to be having a good time swapping stories about shooting in Italy, throwing this project together on short notice, and living through the swinging '60s with generous heaps of makeup. In 2017, Raro Video issued a Blu-ray in the U.S. (which went out of circulation fairly quickly for some reason) featuring a nice HD scan from the original camera negative, again retaining the Cromoscope compositions and making what it can out of the earthy color scheme. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono track is fine for what it is, featuring some of the actors' original voices and others overseen Revenge of the Blood Beastby dubbing maestro Nick Revenge of the Blood BeastAlexander (including a Steele soundalike). The one extra here is "A Bloody Journey to Italy" (28m30s), an audio interview with Steele about her time in Italy working with Fellini, enjoying great food, and crossing paths with figures like Bava and Riccardo Freda after her early days establishing a career in London. In 2024, Radiance Films added this to its slate of Raro Video U.K. titles with a greatly expanded and welcome special edition Blu-ray featuring the same solid scan, LPCM 2.0 mono English and Italian audio (both English SDH and English-translated subtitles are offered), and the audio commentary. The Steele interview is ported over here, but you also get two new featurettes starting with an Ogilvy interview featurette (12m57s) about his entry into acting, his friendship with Reeves, his hiring by Maslansky, the weird shooting arrangement with this being sold to the government as a documentary, and his less than stellar opinion of his performance quality here. Also included is a new interview with the always great Kim Newman (19m32s), who starts off contextualizing an infamous Reeves-Vincent Price anecdote and then parses out the strange place of this film in the history of the genre and the careers of everyone involved. The limited edition package also comes with an insert booklet featuring an essay by Kevin Lyons.

Reviewed on August 5, 2024