Creature of Destruction 1967

Dr. Basso Les Tremayne, a suave, silver-haired stage hypnotist and self-proclaimed clairvoyant, runs experiments in hypnotic regression that pull his unwilling subject Doreena Pat Delaney back to a prehistoric past life as an amphibious humanoid—the Gill Monster. Using the entranced Doreena to summon the hideous fish-faced creature from the depths of a nearby lake, Basso commands the savage she-beast to commit brutal murders, partly out of revenge on a world that mocked his occult theories and his unshakable belief that mindlessly destructive primeval monsters still lurk within us all, and partly for the notoriety they bring to his performances when he predicts the killings before they happen.

While detective Lt. Blake Roger Ready suspects the misanthropic mentalist behind the crimes, the police have little real evidence—only a webbed footprint at the first crime scene and an eyewitness sketch of a creature, leaving them seemingly powerless to stop Basso’s reign of terror.

Handsome Air Force psychologist Captain Ted Dell [Aron Kincaid], a respected scientist in psychic research, becomes involved when his fiancée Lynn [Suzanne Roy] drags him to a party hosted by retired business tycoon Sam Crane [Neil Fletcher] at his Tanglewood Country Club and Resort, where Basso is providing the entertainment. Sam Crane views Basso as just another con artist hoping to cash in on gullible audiences, but Ted grows fascinated with Doreena—the true source of Basso’s paranormal power—and vows to free her from the unhealthy mental domination that the romantically obsessed Basso has over her.

With Ted’s help, Doreena begins to gain the willpower to resist Basso, but the police confront the murderous Gill Monster down at a closed-off beach, and bullets prove useless against the indestructible creature. Angered by Ted’s interference, Basso turns the gun on him, but Doreena leaps in front of the shot and is killed instead. Her death causes the Gill Monster to slump to the ground and vanish back into the distant past. Heartbroken by the loss of the only person he has ever loved, Basso turns the gun on himself and ends his own life.