Search - She Creature on DVD

A wonderfully dark fairytale

03/31/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I really expected to dislike this movie. I found it while flipping around channels late one night on HBO. HBO was advertising it as a "modern" Creature Feature, that is reminiscent of "old time" creature features (ie Creature From the Black Lagoon). I was intrigued--especially when I heard it was about a mermaid--ever since I was a little girl, I've liked to read myth & folklore & I've always been a bit disappointed that in the movies mermaids were always depicted as being friendly & cheerful, when, in most legend, they were the total opposite.
Still, I thought that the movie had the potential to be really awful & cheesy. It certainly was not. It had wonderful acting & great writing for a horror movie--it was like a dark fairytale. Although the mermaid is quite vicious, she is still a complex character with feelings--you feel sorry for her even though she scares you. The cast is wonderful, and the mermaid is so beautiful! There was no CGI for a change (or at least, so little of it that I didn't notice it) , all the creature effects were made the old-fashioned way (by pure talent!) which was so cool.
I highly recommend this movie. It's alot of fun and stylistically very nice to look at.
A nice change for anybody who's sick of horror films with loads of computer animation & special effects but no storyline.
Or for those who'd enjoy a good, creepy, dark fairytale with a wonderfully unique feminist slant to it."

Jaws ... with Siren's Awesome Beauty Blessed!

ruzzante | UK | 06/23/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This may be my first DVD purchase from Sony Pictures "Creature Feature" collection but, if there are others with the same cynical tongue-in-cheek humor, imaginative twist of storyline, and horror- drama thrills, it will be the first of many! Thoroughly enjoyable! Who would have ever thought that the mysteries of the deep could be so deliciously dangerous!
Rya Kihlstedt plays the She Creature (the word "mermaid" lacks the depth and dimension to describe her) while Rufus Sewell and Carla Gugino (as Angus and Lillie) play an exploitative carnival-sideshow couple whose sense of humanity is sufficiently diverse to be exploited by a more subtle, more ruthless mind! Together they play an interesting variation on the menage-a-trois theme. The supporting cast does a praiseworthy job too! They magnificently keep the movie sailing on above the dramatic limitations of filming 95% of a story on board a poorly-lit wooden ship!
However, there's plenty of color added to the story by greed, sensuality, antagonism, distrust, patience, lies, seduction, past histories, propriety, humor, etc. Excellent sound effects and music help emphasize moments of possible telepathic communication and psychic possession (even impregnation of female by female!); also, precognitive dreams in restless sleep heighten the suspense and help define what dreadful fate awaits ... unless ...!
Anyhow, an atmosphere as dreadful as a mysterious Marie Celeste tale is created, then, with tensions heightened, tightened ... agonizingly tightened ... ah! But, you'd best view this movie yourself to know what happens next! If you enjoy horror-thrillers, you won't mind the suspense of the wait! And the movie? Well, you may even love it!"

Best of the series

Stacy | Iowa | 03/19/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Made for HBO's creature feature series a while ago, She Creature stood out as the best of the series. Although the other films in the series were no doubt entertaining, She Creature might have been one of the only ones to carry a sort of dark ambience with it throughout the film. She Creature has sort of a classical horror tale feel and held out on the over the top monster effects until the very end. This was a fantastic descion, because it creates a tension when watching. The beautiful mermaid has a hideous side, but we are only led to imagine at first. What is also fantastic about this film is how the viewer is lurched into cheering for the She Creature. Her horrendeous treatment more then justifies the death of ever man on the ship. It is also interesting when put under the "gender lense". It seems like this straight forward film could have a subcontext to it. Men exploiting the representation of the body of the feminine, and that mute passive beautiful concept exacting ferocious revenge on thoes very men, eating them whole, and then bonding with the one sympathetic female through their common "gender related" attributes. Fertility. It's an interesting film any way you look at it, and it is done beautifully."

Surprisingly good flick

C. A. Scott | Springfield, OR United States | 02/08/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"OK, I admit it: any movie Rufus Sewell does, I will watch and probably buy. That's just the way it is when you're an American fan of a British actor who isn't Hugh Grant! But I'm no horror movie buff, so I probably wouldn't have bothered with this one otherwise.And then, what do you know, it's better than I expected! Looks beautiful for the low-budget nature people keep mentioning, all dark and spooky but somehow lovely. Of course Rufus is in good form, as always... Carla's great, and the mermaid's so well-done and sympathetic that when she does go psycho you actually kind of root for her. (Except when she goes after our boy, of course! ) Wish the movie had taken more time with its characters, been maybe a half hour longer, but I guess that's the nature of the genre; this was the best of the four creature-features Cinemax/HBO did... I'd love to see the sequel implied by the last moments of the film, too.Would like to have seen more stuff on the DVD, but things like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings tend to raise your expectations there. Only films that make truckloads of money can go to those lengths! I'd buy this one even without the commentary and so forth. Great flick: fun, scary, pretty... more than you can usually say for a "creature feature!"