Calling all B-movie fans, calling all B-movie fans, have I got a gem for you.
Made with zero money, no notable actors and a rookie director who never directed a film again, somehow, The Flesh Eaters warmed my heart by keeping me genuinely engaged throughout. The film concerns harried transport pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders), endlessly hassled by debtors, who agrees to shuttle an unlikeable, drunk diva named Laura Winters (Rita Morley) and her genial assistant Jan (Barbara Wilkin) through harsh weather to a film shoot. Not surprisingly, the plane is forced to make a harsh landing on a desolate island. After running into creepy German scientist Prof. Bartell (Martin Kosleck, making an wonderfully spooky entrance), a skeleton, picked clean to the bone, washes up on the shore. asserts that it was sharks, but there is another menace afoot: flesh-eating bacteria! The film is well-put-together, far, far better than it has any right to be. The effects are simple and effective: bacteria itself has no business being anything but microscopic, and a little bit of overlay in the shimmering water does the trick beautifully. The film is also known as one of the first 'gore' films, coming on the heels of Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast, thought the very first. The opening sequence (which is so identical to the opening hook of Jaws that I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg stole it) sets the grisly tone right off the bat, and throughout The Flesh Eaters, the gore is ably applied, and would be acceptable in contemporary films as well (as evidenced by the gushing infection that attacks Murdoch's leg). The acting is also uniformly good. Most of the reviews seem to take it for a given that it has bad acting, but taken on its own merits, the actors have much success in crafting believable, three-dimensional characters (Our Hero Grant doesn't always make the right decision, Our Lush Diva Laura feels guilty about drinking and makes attempts to stop, and even Our Villain Bartell has motivations that aren't completely sinister and nonsensical). Really, the only character that comes off as a caricature is Omar (Ray Tudor), a hippie love magnet on a wooden raft that someone ends up floating into shore, narrowly avoiding the eaters (and has his chest eaten through from the inside by drinking some of them, in yet another effectively gnarly sequence).
Carson Davidson's cinematography (in what was, shockingly, also his one and only trip behind the lens) is far better than it has any right to be. Director Jack Curtis, was, hilariously, the voice of Pops in the English dub of Speed Racer. One-and-only-CREDIT Julian Stein's much is effective. The screenplay is by comic book writer Arnold Drake, whose only other film credit is the delightfully-named 50,000 BC (Before Clothing). Jack Curtis's cousin Roy Benson did the special effects and his work never appeared on another screen. Hell, even the production company Vulcan Productions was a one-and-done. In fact, it seems like the only position of any importance behind the camera to have a career that lasted more than the week and a half it took to shoot this film is editor Radley Metzger (pulling double-duty on the sound board, and whose credits are almost wholly porn), also doing fantastic work, as the film is a brisk 87 minutes, breezily-paced without being unfulfilling.
The Flesh Eaters isn't perfect (the less said about it's ludicrous and wholly unnecessary finale, the better), but as a B-movie connoisseur, I've sat through far too many movies where it was obvious that no one involved had any idea what they were doing, and honestly, the more names I click on and find one credit to their names, the more I feel shortchanged. There's so many directors, and writers, and composers, and effects men and production houses that pump out crappy film after crappy film after crappy film, and yet, get to keep making them. But with The Flesh Eaters, it seems like everybody gave their best effort, and called it a day.
If you're being scared away by the fact that it sounds too much like Cabin Fever, don't fret; that film is about as scary as a watermelon. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of trash, of exploitation, or grindhouse fare, you own it to yourself to track down a copy of The Flesh Eaters. The DVD has crisp sound, extra scenes, and a transfer so gloriously clean that Criterion couldn't have done a better job (and considering they occasionally release genre pics, all the work would be done for them!), yet another thing that it has going in its favor despite the fact that it has no right to have it so good.
Damn you, Jack Curtis. You are an enigma of missed opportunities. But alas, you were busy fixing the Mach 5, so I guess the blame for this one rests solely on the shoulders of Racer X. Or Chim-Chim.
{Grade: 8.25/10 (B+/B) / #14 (of 28) of 1964}
Made with zero money, no notable actors and a rookie director who never directed a film again, somehow, The Flesh Eaters warmed my heart by keeping me genuinely engaged throughout. The film concerns harried transport pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders), endlessly hassled by debtors, who agrees to shuttle an unlikeable, drunk diva named Laura Winters (Rita Morley) and her genial assistant Jan (Barbara Wilkin) through harsh weather to a film shoot. Not surprisingly, the plane is forced to make a harsh landing on a desolate island. After running into creepy German scientist Prof. Bartell (Martin Kosleck, making an wonderfully spooky entrance), a skeleton, picked clean to the bone, washes up on the shore. asserts that it was sharks, but there is another menace afoot: flesh-eating bacteria! The film is well-put-together, far, far better than it has any right to be. The effects are simple and effective: bacteria itself has no business being anything but microscopic, and a little bit of overlay in the shimmering water does the trick beautifully. The film is also known as one of the first 'gore' films, coming on the heels of Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast, thought the very first. The opening sequence (which is so identical to the opening hook of Jaws that I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg stole it) sets the grisly tone right off the bat, and throughout The Flesh Eaters, the gore is ably applied, and would be acceptable in contemporary films as well (as evidenced by the gushing infection that attacks Murdoch's leg). The acting is also uniformly good. Most of the reviews seem to take it for a given that it has bad acting, but taken on its own merits, the actors have much success in crafting believable, three-dimensional characters (Our Hero Grant doesn't always make the right decision, Our Lush Diva Laura feels guilty about drinking and makes attempts to stop, and even Our Villain Bartell has motivations that aren't completely sinister and nonsensical). Really, the only character that comes off as a caricature is Omar (Ray Tudor), a hippie love magnet on a wooden raft that someone ends up floating into shore, narrowly avoiding the eaters (and has his chest eaten through from the inside by drinking some of them, in yet another effectively gnarly sequence).
Carson Davidson's cinematography (in what was, shockingly, also his one and only trip behind the lens) is far better than it has any right to be. Director Jack Curtis, was, hilariously, the voice of Pops in the English dub of Speed Racer. One-and-only-CREDIT Julian Stein's much is effective. The screenplay is by comic book writer Arnold Drake, whose only other film credit is the delightfully-named 50,000 BC (Before Clothing). Jack Curtis's cousin Roy Benson did the special effects and his work never appeared on another screen. Hell, even the production company Vulcan Productions was a one-and-done. In fact, it seems like the only position of any importance behind the camera to have a career that lasted more than the week and a half it took to shoot this film is editor Radley Metzger (pulling double-duty on the sound board, and whose credits are almost wholly porn), also doing fantastic work, as the film is a brisk 87 minutes, breezily-paced without being unfulfilling.
The Flesh Eaters isn't perfect (the less said about it's ludicrous and wholly unnecessary finale, the better), but as a B-movie connoisseur, I've sat through far too many movies where it was obvious that no one involved had any idea what they were doing, and honestly, the more names I click on and find one credit to their names, the more I feel shortchanged. There's so many directors, and writers, and composers, and effects men and production houses that pump out crappy film after crappy film after crappy film, and yet, get to keep making them. But with The Flesh Eaters, it seems like everybody gave their best effort, and called it a day.
If you're being scared away by the fact that it sounds too much like Cabin Fever, don't fret; that film is about as scary as a watermelon. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of trash, of exploitation, or grindhouse fare, you own it to yourself to track down a copy of The Flesh Eaters. The DVD has crisp sound, extra scenes, and a transfer so gloriously clean that Criterion couldn't have done a better job (and considering they occasionally release genre pics, all the work would be done for them!), yet another thing that it has going in its favor despite the fact that it has no right to have it so good.
Damn you, Jack Curtis. You are an enigma of missed opportunities. But alas, you were busy fixing the Mach 5, so I guess the blame for this one rests solely on the shoulders of Racer X. Or Chim-Chim.
{Grade: 8.25/10 (B+/B) / #14 (of 28) of 1964}