review

The Flesh Eaters

THE FLESH EATERS has the dubious distinction of being one of the first gore films. A riotous little gem from the golden age of the b-film, it has a bit more to offer than that. THE FLESH EATERS is subversive and surprisingly cold-blooded, but also undeniably fun. There's a certain charm in all the nonsense about Nazi scientists and flesh eating microbes. It's cast of characters are a mishmash of all the assorted character types found in these kinds of films - an alcoholic actress far past her prime, her comely assistant, a beatnik, an evil German marine biologist and a strong-jawed, no-nonsense alpha male there to save the day - all played by performers who seem to know that the picture they are making is absolute nonsense, but play it all with straight faces and a good degree of conviction regardless. If anything, you can tell that director Jack Curtis and his ragtag team of co-conspirators are having a total blast.


Jack Curtis' The Flesh Eaters

After a brief prologue featuring a very yummy Barbara Wilson being eaten by something strange in the water, we're introduced to the stumbling alcoholic actress, Laura Winters, and her assistant, Jan Letterman. They're in a rush to get to Provincetown for Laura's appointment so they hire down-on-his-luck pilot Grant Murdoch to fly them there. After mechanical problems and a tropical storm force them to land on a small deserted island, they meet German scientist Peter Bartell. When a dime-store skeleton washes up on shore - soon followed by hundreds of fish skeletons - they quickly realize that something is amiss. Turns out there's something in the water: millions of flesh eating microbes that Bartell probably knows more about than he's letting on. A day or two later, a peace-loving beatnik comes ashore on a raft, their planes washes away, and Bartell's calm demeanor is beginning to show signs of cracking.


The Flesh Eaters.

The screenplay, by comic book author Arnold Drake, is particularly self-aware and refreshingly funny. Drawing squarely from the conventions of the b-film, Drake manages to squeeze every cliche for all it's worth and creates a lively, humorous banter between the five main characters. Omar the beatnik is the kind of obnoxious character seen repeatedly throughout b-films of the 60s and it's obvious Drake wrote the character for the sole purpose of being able to torture and murder him in the most agonizing way possible. For a film made in 1962 - though not released until 1964 - the sadism in the film is startling at times. Poor obnoxious Omar is given a cocktail by Bartell containing some of the flesh eating microbes. Bartell records Omar's screams as the flesh eaters eat their way out of his guts. He then ties the corpse to a raft, setting it out to sea with the tape recorder playing in an attempt to cover up his crime. Pretty rough stuff. Add to that a scene of someone being shot in the face, a bloody suicide, various body parts dissolving, and a do-it-yourself flesh eating microbe removal surgery and you got a film that delivers on it's reputation.


Martin Kosleck in Jack Curtis' The Flesh Eaters

To be perfectly honest with you, dear Reader, I don't particularly like science fiction films. With very few exceptions - Carpenter's THE THING, for example, or 2001 - the kinds of sci-fi films I enjoy belong to the b-film. THEM, THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, THIS ISLAND EARTH... those are the kinds of science fiction films I tend to enjoy. They were films with little in the way of moralizing and even less in the way of serious ambition. They were films designed to be entertaining and, more importantly, fun. If a film featured a giant monster of some sort destroying large sections of over-populated cities, all the better! So I will admit a little personal bias in my appraisal of THE FLESH EATERS. But you don't have to have any personal affinity to the sci-fi b-film to enjoy THE FLESH EATERS. All that is required is a sense of humor. Without it you might be hard-pressed to enjoy a film featuring flesh eating microbes that have a deadly allergy to blood.


Byron Sanders and Rita Morley in The Flesh Eaters

"Pretty kooky idea, huh"?


"Yes... very kooky".


Highly recommended.


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