What can be said about a movie that is so bad in special effects, acting, storyline, writing and directing...it is so bad it is oddly likable. That is not to say that The Astounding She-Monster doesn't take some definite willpower to sit through, because it most definitely does. This movie is so bad that one almost feels compelled to watch it out of pity for the cast and crew who put this on celluloid.The Astounding She-Monster is so astoundingly bad that it defies words, but it is definitely a must see for fans of bad cinema; or at the very least one should see it just to make every movie you will ever see or have seen seem just that much better.

A svelte alien space-babe with alarming eyebrows and a sprayed on silver body stocking threatens Robert Clarke, a bunch of gangsters, and a bimbo in this awful 1957 sci-fi clunker. Almost unbelievably cheap (the movie only has one set), loaded with pointless running around in the woods, pointless running in and out of Clarke's mountain cabin, and one not so special effect, this has got to be the longest 61-minute movie ever filmed, and makes Clarke's next film, "The Hideous Sun Demon", play like "The Tragedy of Hamlet". Stunningly bad. Even when I first saw this movie as a kid, I thought: "This movie is stupid". Chances are, you will, too.

Gangster: "Shut up, you lousy drunk!" Floozy: "I prefer to be referred to as an alcoholic!" If you view this as a sci-fi movie, it doesn't rate. As existentialist film noir, it's off the scale. Two aging gangsters and their gin-soaked moll kidnap a Beverly Hills socialite who looks like the cadaverous victim of a 1930's vampire movie. Through a series of misadventures, they end up in a remote geologist's cabin being stalked by an iridescent stripper from outer space. Every time the alien enters the cabin, they run outside and get in the jeep. Then she corners them on the road and they run into the woods. Then she finds them in the woods and they go back into the cabin. This sequence is repeated three or four times as characters are killed one by one. Imagine "Ten Little Indians" if it had been written by Sartre instead of Agatha Christie. The socialite gets lines like, "But, Dick, isn't radium in solid form a metal?" and my favorite, "I had no idea that a geologist used so many acids in his work." The hyper dramatic voice-over for several long sequences reinforces the idea that the plot for the film was actually developed in post-production. But then, existentialist film noir should be improv, shouldn't it?

Only an hour long with a paper-thin plot, this piece of 50s sci-fi cheese is the kind of inept classic that Ed Wood has become famous for. Lots of time is taken up with random footage of the She-Monster (Shirley Kilpatrick in a skintight glitter suit) wandering around in the woods. Four people in a cabin fight and get killed off by the lethal touch of this alien gal. Given that she doesn't say a thing, Kilpatrick really does carry this amateurish film with her menacing look and sexy outfit with a camera blur added to make her look out of this world. Lead actor Robert Clarke was so impressed with the money this film made that he went out and made his own monster movie, THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON. Rumor has it that Shirley Kilpatrick gained a lot of weight in later years and became character actress Shirley Stoler of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS and PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE.