The She-Beast (Revenge of the Blood Beast)

This review is for the Blu-Ray version of 'Revenge of the Blood Beast' better known as 'The She Beast'. I'm not sure why they released this with it's Italian cover and title 'Il Lago Di Satana'. I think it's a mistake as it gives the impression that this release is not in English.*****NOTE***** Despite the foreign title on the cover of this release, this movie is an English language version.RECOMMENDATIONS: I'm giving this movie a 3 star overall rating. I'm giving it 4 stars for the pictures. I'm giving it two stars for the extra's. I'm giving it 1 star for the movie itself. I'll add another star if you want to view this as a comedy.I bought this thinking it was a horror movie. I've seen 2 other movies from the director Micheal Reeves ('Witchfinder General' and 'The Sorcerers') and they make a point of making sure you know that by prominently putting his name on the cover. What you get is a movie that starts out as a horror movie but in effect turns into a comedy.I'm not sure who to recommend this for. This movie is basically Mystery Science Theater 3000 material. I can only recommend it to people who actually like the movie and want the best picture available and fans of Barbara Steele (I'm not sure even they would want this...more on that later.)BLU-RAY & EXTRA'S: The picture is quite good. It is a new HD transfer and it is 16:9 aspect ration. The audio is in English and Italian. An 8 page booklet is included with photographs and a history of the director, MIcheal Reeves. There is a pretty good interview of Barbara Steele included. While it is an audio interview and you don't see her, you do see plenty of pictures and film clips as the interview goes on. I didn't check the time but I'm guessing it was around 30 minutes. The interview focuses on her years in Italy. She tells how she ended up there and tells stories about the famous directors she worked along with tidbits about the movies she was in. There are some errors in the booklet and back cover. There is a photo of girl with a disfigured face that does not appear in the movie.PLOT/SUMMARY: (***Lots of Spoilers***)The movie opens with the town villagers being led by the local pastor hunting down a witch, Vardella. The capture here and bring her to a lake for execution. They are warned that the Count (Van Helsing) must be the one to stop the witch or they will be cursed for generations. The villagers ignore the warning and Vardella is drowned in the lake.200 years later...Phillip (Ian Ogilvy) and Victoria (Barbara Steele) are newlyweds and have gone to Transylvania for their honeymoon. They are lost and end up staying in a run down town for the evening. There, they meet a perverted innkeeper, Groper, and a strange old man who calls himself Van Helsing. Van Helsing tells them of the local legends and offers to give them garlic for protection (there are no vampires in this movie.) They agree to meet Van Helsing the next day but they are just humoring him. They take off the next day and crash into a lake. It is unclear if they had an accident due to bad luck, Groper messing with the car or a curse due to leaving behind the garlic. A truck driver comes along and saves Phillip and fishes out what he believes is Victoria. They are brought to the hotel and left with Groper. Van Helsing comes in and notices that the body is not Victoria but is Vardella the witch. He tells Phillip that he can get his wife back. They go back to Van Helsing's cave (he lost his ancestral home to the current government!) He gets out his ancestor's book on Vardella and reads to Phillip. Phillip thinks he's loony and heads back to the town on foot. Van Helsing takes off after him. Phillip reaches town where he is promptly knocked out by a drunk Groper. Groper then gets killed by Vardella, who has come back to life. Van Helsing finds Phillip and together they go after Vardella. They find Vardella, who has been killing people, and they drug her using a syringe. Van Helsing tells Phillip that he has to perform an exorcism to get his wife back. All that remains is for them to wait for the designated time. They leave Vardella in a refrigerator where she will stay unconscious (that's what Van Helsing says anyway.) The local police come by and find Vardella's body and believe her to be dead. They take off with the body. Of course Van Helsing and Phillip have to recover the body and a 'Keystone Kops' like chase ensues. Eventually they get the body to the lake where they perform the ritual and Victoria is reborn (I guess?) in the water... and they lived happily ever after.PRODUCTION:-Michael Reeves died of a drug overdose at the age of 24. After this movie, he would go on to make the excellent 'Witchfinder General' starring Vincent Price but his career would be over shortly thereafter.-This was Ian Ogilvy's first lead role. He was friends with Michael Reeve's. He would also appear in Reeve's next movie.-John Karlson plays the alcoholic witch hunter, Van Helsing.-Barbara Steele was paid $1000 to work for 1 day. She is not in the movie for long. After her scenes in the early part of the movie, she appears briefly for one final scene at the end.-Mel Welles plays the perverted innkeeper Groper. I felt that he was easily the best thing this movie had going for it. Welles would go on to play the pharmacist is the teen classic "The Last American Virgin".THOUGHTS/CONCLUSIONS:-I liked the idea of bringing in a descendant of the original Professor Van Helsing. The main issue I have with this movie is that it turns into a comedy. I'm not sure why the movie goes in that direction. Perhaps it was because the director felt he didn't have the budget to make a good movie. Maybe Reeves thought the makeup did not look good and would generate laughs.-Barbara Steele was forced to work 18 hours for that 1 day and it shows. I thought she definitely didn't look her best in this movie and afterward I read about her participation and then it all made sense. For her scenes she pretty much looked like she just rolled out of bed. I was never a big fan of hers anyway. She's one of those English stars that in my opinion has overrated looks. Martine Beswick also comes to mind. That's not to say they are unattractive, I'm just saying I don't think that they are the 'babes' that they have the reputation for being.-I thought the scene where Phillip beats up Groper was too much. He smashes his head against the wall and there is an awful lot of blood. It gave the impression that he was dead. Phillip acted as if he just gave him a simple beating and walked away as if nothing was wrong. Well he was right.-The makeup of the Witch was just awful. I know she was supposed to look repulsive. I guess I felt like a lot of the characters should have been more repulsed by her looks than what they were.-The movie gives the impression that Phillip and Victoria are well off but they are driving around in a beat up VW beetle. I guess they rented it?-I did not like turning this movie into a comedy. I think that it is deceptive and just doesn't help. It's ok to have comic relief. Groper's character was terrific. Even Van Helsing being an airhead was OK. But once they turned the police into the Keystone Kops(I don't mean this literally) it became just too much.

More suspenseful and terrifying than The Amityville Horror. Makes A Nightmare on Elm Street seem like a lighthearted romp in the countryside. Your blood will boil and your feet will surely stink after this one. Barbara needed the money! Do it, rent it, buy it... You know you want to. Com'mon it's like pushing the red button somebody told you not to! I'd give it six stars if Amazon would let me.

Phillip and Veronica decide to take their Honeymoon in rural Transylvania. This basically guarantees that either he will be seduced by a female vampire or she will be bewitched into becoming the vessel for an ancient evil bent on revenge. I think it is the fine print of all tourist brochures. They take their VW Beetle to remote little town where they run afoul of a sleazy innkeeper and end up crashing their car into the lake. The lake of course was the sight of the ducking of a witch 400 years ago. This course leads to Veronica being possessed by the witch who runs amok in the area killing people while the hapless police are incapable of stopping her. It is up to Phillip and Count Van Helsing, who has been reduce to living in a cave because his ancestors killed off all the vampire leaving him with no means of support, to defeat the witch and save the day.Not the greatest of the 60s Italian horror movies, take place too much during the day for good gothic mood, but with the tiny budget they did the best they could. They had Barbara Steele for exactly one day and she makes the absolute most of her short time in the film. If not for her it would definitely be a totally forgotten film. Mel Welles, a Corman regular, plays the absolutely hideous innkeeper, you can practically feel the grease stain he gives off whenever he’s on screen. The story is pretty thin but the movie just barrels through and never looks back. It has this full speed ahead energy that keeps the movie from getting dull over what is a fairly short runtime but it uses all of its time well. Then there is the car chase at the end. It feels like a Benny Hill sketch suddenly beamed down into the movie. It has sped up film, hapless police, the only thing missing is the woman in her underwear, but I guess maybe you can have the witch stand in for that. It is so thoroughly out of place it gives the movie that extra dash of weirdness that makes this more than just a quickie low budget Italian horror movie.

Just to be clear, the packaging for the Il lago di Satana (Revenge of the Blood Beast) blu ray put out by Raro Video has some misinformation on it.1. It states that both Italian and English audio are included. That's false. Only the English dub is on here.2. It also mentions a new and improved English subtitle translation. Also false as no subtitles of any kind are included.3. It says there's a documentary about the making of the film. Instead, there's "A Bloody Journey to Italy", a nearly half-hour long interview with Barbara Steele.

this movie has many different aspects to it that somewhat mix well. barbara steele is a victim of being taken over by an ancient witch. she then is missing for most of the rest of the movie. her husband and a nutty professor try to reclaim her. in this mix are some comic bits with eastern european police. wacky car chases, mix with a would be rapist peeping tom inn keeper played by the owner of the flower shop in the little shop of horrors. the witch make up is poor and there is some blood and violence. it plays like a mix between a hammer movie and the fearless vampire killers in modern for the 1960's times. the print of this movie looks very good throughout. if you are a fan of barbara steele or the director michael reeves, then this movie is well worth picking up. p.s. why is there a picture of the girl from she freak on the back cover?

Best thing about this oddity is getting to see the incredible Barbara Steele dressed in 60's "mod" style!Oh yeah.. remember Arnold's famous line from The Terminator... "I'll be back.."... you hear it here first folks.. Spoken by the lovely Ms. Steele!