Flesh Feast

This is a legendary, seedy and satisfying horror movie. The camera work and special effects are outstanding considering the production date of this scary masterpiece. The story line could have been ironed out allot more before production, but who would have ever dreamt up a movie about flesh eating maggots? I recommend you watch this film before making any purchase, but I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

Flesh Feast is a film not worth viewing or seeing, it was sad to see Veronica Lake make this her last film. She was a pin-up girl for our G.I.'s during World War II and had great sex appeal with her sexy hair style covering her eye. Veronica was not appreciated by the film industry who placed her in B movies throughout her career. This film was her last effort to get back into the business after a long struggle with drinking problems. Flesh Feast and its maggots are all for the garbage can.

I'm always game for low budget films of any genre because every now and again you run across a gem. "Detour" has popped up as a noir masterpiece and "Night of the Living Dead" has become a cult classic. So maybe "Flesh Feast" would be worth a look. That was my first mistake.

It appears that there is not much story line and what there is makes no sense...maggots that chomp on your face and reverse the aging process....huh?? And then Adolph Hitler pops up. But besides this weak premise, there is absolutely nothing to recommend about this film. It appears to be shot in somebody's basement with an old Bell and Howell home movie camera. The acting of all involved is atrocious which leads me to Veronica Lake.

I realize that Miss Lake was down on her luck and had alcohol and mental problems but was it so bad that she had to end her career with this horror? I don't have to review her career from the 1940s and her wonderful films with Alan Ladd. She was the pin-up girl with the hair to die for. Her descent into oblivion really started when she cut her peekaboo hair and it was suddenly revealed that she really wasn't quite as beautiful as she appeared. Since her stardom depended upon her looks rather than her talent, it was all down hill. Luckily, many of her fans don't even know that this film exists and it is just as well. To see her fall to these depths is so very sad. She was such a treasure of her time.

Avoid this film at all costs. It has no redeeming qualities and will only depress you to see Miss Lake hitting bottom.

Flesh Feast (1970)

BOMB (out of 4)

Yes, sadly Veronica Lake's final film is as bad as you've heard. In the film a newspaper editor starts to do some investigating after his star reporter phones him up on a hot story only to soon after be murdered. The story then turns to Dr. Elaine Frederick (Lake), a mad scientist who is doing work on dead tissue for a secret experiment. FLESH FEAST is without question one of the worst horror films out there and the only question it really leaves the viewer with is if it's actually worse than director Brad F. Grinter's next movie BLOOD FREAK. No matter how you slice it this is a really bad movie that has very little going for it. I read a lot of posts with people asking why Lake would appear in something like this but the biggest question is why she'd put her own money up for a project like this. However, if you really think about it it's rather clear that her career wasn't going anywhere and I'm sure many told her that appearing in a film like this would get her name back out there and that the genre was easy to make money in. I'm really not sure where to start on the badness of this film but lets just say that there's really nothing good to mention. The performances are all extremely bad, although Lake doesn't come off as bad as she could have. Just check out the one lady who witnesses some "meat" in a basement around the forty-eight minute mark. The woman goes into a hysterical scream but before she runs out of the basement she turns to check out what made her scream again. The direction really can't be found but I'm going to guess that the main job was to bring it in on budget. The story itself is all over the place as it seems to jump around whenever it wants and without any explanation. The only half-way decent thing going on is the big twist in the final minutes, which has sadly been ruined by most reviews (even Leonard Maltin) that give it away. It's certainly campy to the extreme and it's a shame the rest of the movie wasn't as campy so that it would have been more entertaining. The 72-minutes really drag along and there's really nothing more that can be said.

Once upon a time, way back in the 1940's, there lived an actress named Veronica Lake. A beautiful, talented young woman who was once in high demand for many big-budget, Hollywood pictures. Fast Forward to the late 1960's, age, alcoholism, and all-around bad luck has tarnished everyones favorite actress. Now a hasbeen, Miss Lake decides the time has come to follow in the foot steps of her peers(?), Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis, and fall back on good ol' reliable Horror. But Flesh Feast? Really? She couldn't have possibly been that washed up. To put it delicately, Flesh Feast is a lifeless pile garbage, possibly one of the top 5 worst films I've ever seen, and I've seen them all. Lake plays a scientist, who is plotting, with Nazi's, to bring Hitler back to life, with youth restoration experiments involving maggots, that's right, maggots. Unless you're a huge fan of Heather Hughes, run away and never look back!!

I know very little about this Veronica Lake person, as well as 40's flicks, but to think that such a successful career actually became that dismal, is actually pretty sad. Flesh Feast is almost impossible to get through, and by almost, I mean absolutely. Directed by Brad Grinter, director of Nudist Camp pictures, and the man who, coincidentally brought us the greatest B-movie ever made, Blood Freak, just a couple years later. One has to wonder, is this what Blood Freak would have been like if Grinter hadn't co-directed with Steve Hawkes? If so, then God bless Steve Hawkes. You wouldn't think that a Religious, dope-blood craving, Turkey Monster could be THAT much better than experiments involving Maggots and Hitler, but it really, really is. So forget you ever heard of this one and go find Blood Freak, it's just waiting to entertain you. Fast Forward a couple years later, Veronica Lake dies of Hepititas, broke, and forgotten. The End. I hate you, Flesh Feast. 1/10