The Corpse Grinders

I was almost going to totally write off Ted V. Mikels as one of the most talentless and boring directors of all time after watching his tedious turkeys 'Blood Orgy Of The She Devils' and 'The Doll Squad'. But after watching 'The Corpse Grinders' I'm now not so sure. This is arguably his best known movie, and the thing is it's actually quite good! Not "great" or "hilarious fun" mind you, but "quite good", and for him, that's high praise indeed. It's cheap, tacky and amateurishly acted, but strangely entertaining just the same. A doctor and his nurse girlfriend (Sean Kenney and Monika Kelly) investigate a spate of cat attacks (!) which they suspect has something to do with gourmet cat food. And it does, but in not exactly the most obvious way. This is a very stupid movie but surprisingly enjoyable, especially when you see that it was co-written by Arch Hall Jr, of 'Eegah' infamy! The best parts for me are the cat attacks, which have to be seen to be believed, and the oddball bodysnatchers played by Warren Ball (Caleb) and Ann Noble (Cleo), who are both wacky and creepy. I can't hardly believe I'm typing this, but I actually LIKED 'The Corpse Grinders', and I recommend it to trash lovers, especially fans of (early) Roger Corman and Herschell Gordon Lewis.

"She loved that old tomcat.Yes she did." Too bad Annie's old tomcat was fed Lotus cat food. Made from the ground flesh of corpses, Lotus cat food is the product of a greedy plot to make easy money from cat owners looking to feed their cats. But, the trouble (according to the doctor's encyclopedia entry about flesh-eating cats)is that the cats fed the Lotus cat food become accustomed to the taste of ground human flesh, and quit hunting the flesh of faster animals. Makes sense to me. Cats begin attacking humans in the town, leaping into the neck, and shredding the flesh. Oddly, the cats refrain from actually eating the humans,or even making much of a mess of the corpses by, say, drinking the blood or something, contrary to the explanation given by the encyclopedia article.

Corpse Grinders is a good film. Any movie with the following elements can't be too bad: every character lacks peripheral vision (such a common affliction among characters in B films); the batty wife of one of the racketeers tenderly cares for a pint sized baby doll while complaining of bodies piling up in the living room; the pointless inclusion of a mute chick with a crutch and the miraculous ability to communicate using pidgin sign language; and the music from Blood Feast playing during a rather Blood Feast-like killing scene. However, the film is kind of lacking imagination. Despite the couple of odd characters, it's pretty straight forward camp. Still, I'd rather watch this than countless other films. Also, if you're watching the DVD version, make sure to sit through the (brief) credits in order to see the awesome trailer, which I would give 10/10, if I could rate it alone.

What happens when dead corpses are ground into meat and added to grain for a canned cat food factory is the heart of what The Corpse Grinders is all about. It turns out that this canned cat food has an effect on the cats, having given them the taste of eating man, now instinctually placing within them the desire to eat more human flesh....dead or alive. Pussy cats all over Southern California begin their preying on human owners due to their newly initiated killer man-eating instinct(Hey, I didn't make this up...it's the explanation used in the film!). Ted V. Mikels is responsible for this low-budget film geared at repulsing the audience rather than scaring it. Mikels tries to pull off a Herschell Gordon Lewis shocker here, and is, well, fairly successful. Yep, there is real bad acting. None of the actors looks sincere, but there are a couple of real hot babes. One is the much talked about secretary that disrobes to panties and bra and watches TV with a can of beer prior to being attacked. Monika Kelly plays the inebriated doctor's very busty blonde nurse who seemingly needs to change every time she goes out. Ok, I can live with it if I must. The rest of the "cast" is a who's who's of amateurish performers. Caleb and his dotty English-accented wife are truly some of the most ridiculous characters to be seen in any film. He goes around barking orders like someone totally unrehearsed in the art of stagecraft while she clutches a baby doll and screams being chased in one scene, stopping long enough for her attacker to hear her and then begins to scream again. Sanford Mitchell as the lead, the head of the factory, is just awful. These performances are not real boring though. They are so bad that they are very amusing to watch and that really sums up this film in a nutshell. It is very, very, very bad and yet a real hoot to sit through. I thought I was in for another snooze-fest like Astro-Zombies before sitting down to The Corpse Grinders, but I was pleasantly surprised. This film is nothing like that film other than it is equally very cheaply and ineptly made, but it has far more interesting scenes and is what is known as a "so bad it is good" film.

THE CORPSE GRINDERS is a film that wallows in its own cheesyness, and that's meant as a compliment! On a bigger budget it would have been just another lackluster horror flick, but with its meager budget the premise works. Seems a maker of pricey gourmet cat food needs a cheap ingredient source and turns to buying corpses from a corrupt gravedigger. The cats who eat the food turn psycho and attack their human masters and eat their flesh. A doctor and his blonde nurse play detectives and try to find out why the cats are attacking. The acting is pretty lame coming from some of the actors(the guy playing Landau, the head procurer of corpses for the cat food people, seems to think menace can be conveyed by whispering in a flat monotone), and the corpse grinding machine looks like it was constructed by 8th graders, but the real joy of this film is Ann Noble, writer and star of the film SINS OF RACHEL, as the gravedigger's wigged-out(and bewigged)wife. Noble wanders in and out of the movie, toting a grimy, naked doll that she talks to and feeds soup, and ultimately meets an untimely end at the hands of Landau and his crony. An odd character in a film otherwise populated by standard types.

If you're going to watch movies like this, you have to expect a certain amount of stupidity. You can't question why a surgeon and his nurse/lover spend all their time acting like forensic scientists and cops. You can't question why a cat food factory would leave it's door unlocked all night or why it would have purple and green lights inside.You just have to roll with it. A cat food company that puts humans in its product is a decent idea. The story can get a bit slow at times and maybe you can easily predict what's going to happen but for a fifty year old low budget horror flick, it's not really that bad. I loved that they had a one legged, deaf mute ginger working there. That's was awesome. Not to mention the poster in the owners office that says "Cat Food For Cats Who Like People". That made me chuckle every time I saw it. If you like horror movies, you have to give this a chance.