The Flesh Eaters

Truth to tell, I had not heard of this movie until recently, but after reading several laudatory reviews in various film books, and after hearing a coworker buddy of mine rave about it, I quickly put it at the very top of my list of films to rent. And boy, am I ever glad I did! "The Flesh Eaters" (1964), as it turns out, is nothing less than a horror minimasterpiece; a genuine sleeper whose relative obscurity may soon change, thanks to this crisp-looking DVD from the fine folks at Dark Sky. In it, an alcoholic actress, her hotty blonde assistant and their hunky-dude plane pilot are forced to land on a barren island near NY's Long Island, right before a hurricane. There, they encounter a scientist played by Martin Kosleck, who is working with the teensy critters that give this film its name. Kosleck, a German Jew who nonetheless excelled at portraying weasly Nazi types throughout the '40s, is superb in the lead role, but then again, all the actors in this film are surprisingly fine. The film also boasts beautiful, high-contrast B&W photography, utilizing bizarre camera angles and point-of-view shots; some highly effective gross-out scenes; and some truly original-looking monsters, both large and small. The film gets wilder and wilder as it proceeds,and offers some real surprises toward the end. Thus, this little independent shocker is just dynamite, and a real find for the jaded horror fan. It's also suitable for the kiddies...say, from 10 and up. It'll warp them a little, but they won't soon forget it, and will probably rave about it to THEIR coworkers one day...

Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin), the personal assistant to an alcoholic, washed up actress (Rita Morley), hires charter pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) on behalf of her employer. Grant is to fly them to Provincetown, but inclement weather forces them to land on a deserted island. There, a German accented scientist named Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck) is conducting experiments centered around the existence of tiny, silvery flesh consuming creatures that thrive in the water.

"The Flesh Eaters" is noteworthy for such things as being a very early gore film (one of the earliest NOT made by Herschell Gordon Lewis and Dave Friedman), for inspiring a musical act of the same name, and for forcing George Romero to change the title of his legendary "Night of the Living Dead", which was originally going to be called "Night of the Flesh Eaters". It's pretty entertaining as far as schlock horror goes, although it is somewhat overextended. Sometimes it does get silly, tiresome, and overly talky. How one responds to comedy relief beatnik character Omar (Ray Tudor) may be strictly a matter of personal taste. This viewer found his shtick amusing at first, but thought that he wore out his welcome quickly. It has decent atmosphere, good black & white photography (Carson Davidson was the D.P., John Carroll the operator), appropriate music by Julian Stein, and some enjoyably grisly makeup effects. The script by co-producer Arnold Drake has its moments, with some snappy bits of dialogue.

The acting is as bad as you come to expect from such fare, for the most part, with the jut jawed Sanders particularly clunky as the hero. Kosleck, fortunately, rises to the occasion with a wonderfully theatrical portrayal that is in the tradition of countless mad scientists in countless B pictures.

Not bad, for this kind of entertainment.

Future director Radley Metzger was the editor on this show.

Six out of 10.

Reviewers have not mentioned the gorgeous cinematography of THE FLESH EATERS, which is the work of the director, Jack Curtis, working under a pseudonym, Carson Davidson. Virtually every scene was shot outdoors in the merciless sun of summertime Long Island, but Curtis's lighting banishes unsightly shadows from the actors' faces; indeed, in many moments the exteriors are shimmering, almost silvery in their beauty. Deep focus and shallow focus are utilized with particular effectiveness. The women in the film are very good-looking, and as captured on film, they appear warm and absolutely delicious.

Another useful note is that THE FLESH EATERS was scripted by comic book writer Arnold Drake (The Doom Patrol, Marvel's Captain Marvel, et al). Arnold storyboarded the film, so every shot has the careful, formalized composition of a well-drawn comic strip. One shot, a sterling example of deep focus, sticks with me: the right profile of the hero dominates the left-side foreground of the frame. In a moment, two or three tiny figures at the far-removed shoreline move left to right, from behind the hero's head, and in perfect focus. Self-conscious? Yes. Striking? Absolutely.

Finally, Curtis & Co. shot THE FLESH EATERS silent, which is NOT apparent.The post-production looping matches flawlessly to the performances, and the voices have weight and presence. (Curtis had experience in the dubbing of foreign films for the American market.)

The gratuitous but not uninteresting Nazi-lab sequence was not shot by Curtis, and has none of the visual beauty of the rest of the film. Its shock value, though, is strong.

I rate THE FLESH EATERS AN "8" not against all films, but against other films of its type. As B exploitation, it is ingenious, nastily amusing, and immensely satisfying.

** STAY AWAY FROM THE SPOILERS! TURN BACK! ***

Not loving this movie is like kicking a smiling shaggy mutt. It's impossible to hate a low-budget black and white horror flick that delivers this many thrills and chills. File this one in the "trapped on an island with a monster" sub-genre amongst other non-greats such as THE KILLER SHREWS, TEENAGE ZOMBIES, and MATANGO, THE FUNGUS OF TERROR.

Lunk Armstrong, the All-American hero, (the character's name is Murdock, actually) is bribed into flying soused Broadway actress Laura Winters and her hot assistant Jan Letterman (add appropriate Dave Letterman related giggle here) to Provincetown for summer stock season.

He knew he would regret it! He just knew! But triple his normal rate is not for him to pass up. Sure enough, a bad storm forces their seaplane down to an "uninhabited island" for shelter. Only the place is not uninhabited at all! Aha! The plot thickens!

Pseudo-Nazi scientist (he's Hungarian actually) Peter Bartell is on the island doing what can only be described as very suspicious experiments. Before too long, dead fish wash up on the beach and ole Lunkhead gets some nasty bacteria on his leg (portrayed by burn marks on the film negatives), leading to one conclusion: the ocean is infested with lousy stinking killer microbes that strip the flesh off any living creature!! Lemme outta here!!

Soon enough stupid drunk Laura causes the seaplane to float away (or is something more sinister afoot?) and the stupid gang is all trapped. No radio either. So, we have the professor, the Skipper, the movie star, and the hot young girl. The only thing missing is a Gilligan. But wait! Soon enough an annoying beatnik on a raft with a wind-up Victrola (!) washes ashore, spouting more nonsense than a George Bush press conference. Thank Heaven he's the one who the evil scientist dispatches first.

It all gets only more confusing from there, but suffice to say that soon enough it's Mad Scientist versus everyone else, while the evil microbes fester in the ocean, and his laboratory experiments in a lead pan in the tent soon grow into a giant pulsating crab-brain monster that eats his pet parrot! For some reason he also runs electrical lines from a giant solar battery into the ocean, causing a giant version of the same creature to menace the entire island.

There's lots to talk about here and enjoy for monster movie fans, obviously. A lot of the cinematography is very distinctive and has a very Silver-Age-Comic-Book look about it. They did good work on a small budget. There are some monster effects which are quite good for a low budget film of that time.

But the thing that most people seem to find important or significant about the film is the pioneering use of gore effects, very seldom seen in a film from 1963. There's dead fish, human skeletons, stabbings, and lots of blood. This bad boy is supposedly coming out on DVD sometime in the hear future. I hope it does so; look out for it. It's a nice addition to any collection of drive-in movie horrors. If you don't dig monster movies, you won't like it at all.

UPDATE: It is currently available on DVD as of 2007.

This film is an updated for the 1960s version of the traditional late 30s-40s mad scientist tale but one with the surprising addition of gore, used very effectively for the time. Martin Kosleck here provides the mad scientist, a Nazi stereotype not uncommon to earlier eras. The Flesh Eaters themselves make for a memorable menace and the early scene with the two swimmers is an excellent bit of film making. The gigantic ones and their showdown with the hero at the end requires much suspension of disbelief but the monsters are also quite nasty-looking which makes for fun viewing if you're into seeing giant monsters. The final showdown actually reminds me a little of the film KRONOS.