ngus Shaw (Sewell) has big dreams. No longer satisfied with being an anonymous carnival man traveling about Ireland, he longs to sail to America to make his way with the likes of the Ringling Brothers. And a crazy old man named Captain Woolrich (Aubrey Morris) just might help him do it.
Sent into a near-fit by one of Angus' freak shows—featuring the barker's best lass, Lillian (Gugino), as a sirenic mermaid—Woolrich eventually convinces the couple to return with him to his abandoned mansion of a home. There they discover the source of the old man's mania, a very real and very beautiful mermaid (Kihlstedt) held in tank, who Woolrich claims is responsible for the death of his wife.
Ignoring the captain's warnings about the creature's deadliness, Angus returns to the mansion later that night with a few of his fellow carnies and spirits her away, tank and all. The ambitious Irishman then smuggles his ticket to fame and fortune onto a ship headed for the legendary Land of Opportunity, promising all that are with him, most of all Lillian, great reward.
But then, as they often do at sea, things start to get weird. Not only does Lillian have a random, tense encounter with a sailor named Miles (Gil Bellows) who seems to know something about her shrouded past, but the beautiful young Englishwoman comes to be fascinated and frightened by the strange and alluring merrow more than anyone else on the ship. The creature is haunting her dreams, Lillian claims, and when Miles goes missing it drives her deeper into her obsession. Perhaps the diary that Angus took from Woolrich's home can help her figure out what the mystery of the mermaid is ... before it's too late.
Old-time horrific fun with a smart edge
Airing last year on Cinemax (and a number of its sister cable movie channels), She Creature was originally part of a series of films called "Creature Features," remakes (or revisionings, say, a la Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes) of several Samuel Z. Arkoff "classics." This
time around, though, the budget's not nearly as small.
Set in 1905, the film actually works fairly well as a period piece, both visually and thematically. Mood is further intensified by some good atmospheric uses of shadows and light, and there are a couple of genuinely scary moments. The acting's pretty decent, too, for a made-for-cable horror movie.
Sewell's Angus is a man who is at once hard-headed and soft-hearted—his passion for both success and Lillian is not only most present but is skillfully balanced, at that. And when the thrust of the (relatively smart) narrative eventually shifts to the complex Englishwoman-with-a-past, Gugino
meets the challenge admirably. From her not-quite-reserved sexuality to her frantic Pandora mode, Lillian is an interesting character to watch develop.
And although the carnies' sailor shipmates seem more like a slightly raucous cricket squad than a collection of rough and seasoned men of the sea, their transport's other passenger is largely a genuinely creepy article. Complete with webbed fingers and red hair that flows nicely underwater, Kihlstedt's mermaid is quite an otherworldly creature. Her inhuman mer-speak and siren song add to the effect. Likely few will be unengaged by her seductive gaze.
But perhaps the most appealing to some will be the involvement on the film of Stan
Winston, master of the monstrous. Not only is he responsible
for bringing the creature to life (in all her manifestations), but he also
receives a producer credit. And the "Creature EFX Commentary" by Winston
and co-producer/FX supervisor Shane Mahan, along with various other
making-of featurettes, production stills and conceptual drawings on the DVD
may well be enough for some viewers to get their creature-creation fix.
So, when all's said and done, while She Creature isn't always
grippingly compelling or stunningly fresh, it does contain a few
pleasant—or horrific—surprises.
