By JOE WINTERS

Tired of being overweight? Desperate to shed those unwanted pounds and inches? You’ve tried dieting, painful exercise, thigh-masters, butt-busters, you’ve considered expensive liposuction, and who knows what else. Well, there is a faster way…not a better way, but a faster way. Only a select few have been aware of this solution, but now, absolutely free of charge, the secrets of looking thin…really thin…can be revealed to all, courtesy of…The Flesh Eaters!

Just as films like Black Sunday (1960) helped bridge the gap between the golden age 30’s & 40’s monster movies and the more graphically violent films of the Sixties onward, so did it fall to certain films to link the sci-fi monsters of the Fifties to their more graphically violent kin from the Sixties onward. One such movie was a little low-budget thing called The Flesh Eaters (1964).

Our story opens as a young couple, out for an ocean boat ride, take time out for some fun in the sun. No sooner does the dude tug his girlfriend’s bikini top off, than she dives into sea. Being a chivalrous chap, Freddy dives in after Ann, presumably to return that vital article of clothing…or maybe just to get a better look. We’ll never know, as the young man disappears underwater, only to be replaced by pool of blood and a shimmering mass which then envelopes the screaming woman.

Cut to: The Big City, where Jan Letterman (Barbara Walken) offers big money to pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) if he’ll fly her and her employer, drunken actress Laura Winters (Rita Morley) to Provincetown.

In spite of the threat of an oncoming tropical storm, Murdoch agrees. Not long in the air, the plane sputters. "Is it bad?" asks Jan. "It’s not good", replies Grant. Before we can hear any more such fascinating exchanges, the plane sets down near one of the islands believed to be uninhabited.

But no sooner do the trio stagger to the shore, than out of the water emerges …a man in a diving suit! "I’m very sorry if I frightened you," says the German-accented man. "This equipment must make me look like one of those creatures from a horror film." The man introduces himself as marine biologist Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck), there to study shellfish.

Sound fishy enough for you? Almost immediately after all the hasty introductions have been made, another guest arrives in the form of a skeleton that washes up on shore…a skeleton holding a bikini top in its boney hand! Ah, the things people hold on to, even at the end. There’s little time for curiosity or remorse, as the advance winds of an oncoming hurricane make their presence felt. Bartell notes that "With this hurricane coming, we’ll have to batten down the tent further," then adds, "I can assure you we are in for a good pounding." A tent…in a hurricane…I should say so.

But it’s the movies, so soon the worst is over, and Jan informs Grant that Laura’s ready for lunch. "Sorry," proclaims Grant, "the liquor stays on the plane." Luckily Laura had something stashed away, and later after Bartell attempts to woo the floozy with words, then insults, then force, she resists and retreats to her "medicine". Meanwhile, Professor Bartell is delighted to find that his glowing "little lovelies" have been carried back to the island by the winds of (mis)fortune.

The next morning, Murdoch and the Professor discover fish skeletons, while Laura apparently has managed to lose the plane, but she can’t remember! Ah, booze…is there nothing it can’t accomplish? Around this time, Murdoch sees the flesh eaters glowing in the ocean and makes the connection to the fish skeletons. He then has to rescue the sad and staggering Laura from the little nasties, getting some of them on his leg for his trouble. Bartell cuts into Murdoch’s leg, then exclaims, "We’ll need bandages…strips of cloth…anything!" So off comes Jan’s blouse, then Grant’s shirt. Is everybody happy?

While the group waits for the Professor’s supply ship to arrive, they are joined by a beatnik named Omar (Ray Tudor) who arrives by wooden raft. Referring to the flesh eaters as "the geek" while claiming to possess "the love weapon," Omar sees the aforementioned human skeleton and concludes "What a way to go! That’s one lovin’ appetite, man! Ya think they want the world to hate ‘em? Ya think they just kooky?" Bartell is quickly annoyed by Omar’s prattle, and wanders off to collect specimens, while Grant takes the opportunity to tell his life story to Jan. The two then practically stumble across the granddaddy of all solar batteries generating thousands of volts. Electricity is apparently fatal to the flesh eaters, so Professor Bartell announces plans to use the solar battery to electrify the beach ocean.

The supply boat the Professor was expecting arrives a day early, but it’s skipper gets a splash of flesh eaters, and, viola…instant skeleton.

After splitting up to search for a less contaminated side of the island in which to electrify the water, Bartell fixes Omar a drink. "Here’s to life," says Bartell. "I’ll drink to that," replies the bothersome beatnik, who immediately gets a searing feeling in his stomach, but it’s not heartburn, it’s all burn. Bartell casually tape records Omar’s screams, so that later, when the others see the young man in the distance on his raft and hear the screams, they don’t suspect the Professor. Later, Laura suspects Professor Bartell knows more than he’s telling, and she decides to play up to him.

He suspects that she suspects, and so he sticks a knife in her, then buries the body. Meanwhile, back in the tent, Professor Bartell’s current experiment continues to grow under its cover like out-of-control Jiffy-Pop.

Grant and Jan begin to put the pieces of the missing plane story together and conclude that Bartell could have set it adrift himself, then framed the drunken Laura. When they confront Bartell with their theory, he pulls a gun.

Then comes the origin story of the flesh eaters. Shortly following World War II, Bartell uncovered the notes for a secret Nazi war project. Flashback time, as naked women (yes, naked women!) are dipped into a vat of flesh eaters and further stripped about as much as a human being can be…to the bones. Next, the naughty Nazis toss in an already-dead dude who at least got to keep his BVD’s. And guess what? Just like in the "Off" insect repellent ad, the flesh eaters don’t bite…they don’t even light! What can this mean? Who cares? With the Hitler crew out of business, Bartell spent years tracking down the silver things and now plans to sell the creatures to the highest bidder.

But first, the mad doctor plans to use Murdoch to test for any surviving flesh eaters after electrifying the ocean. Well, sending a charge into that water creates a super flesh eater, impervious to Bartell’s bullets. Then, to make matters worse for the Prof., Laura staggers back from the grave and lunges toward him with the same knife he stabbed her with earlier.

This time he shoots the woman and rolls her dead body toward the monster as a snack offering. Laura’s blood goes directly into monster via a stab wound from the dead woman’s knife, and the creature explodes! The end of one monster, but one a hundred times as large is about to emerge!

More blood is willingly donated by and extracted from the three human survivors to prepare an appropriate weapon, but Bartell prepares to pull another fast one. How will it end? Will it end? You bet, and in a burst of red, the movie’s only moment in color.

Suffice it to say, The Flesh Eaters is no "Black Sunday", but the movie has some stuff going for it. Low budget? Absolutely! Wouldja believe some of the flesh eater effects were created by punching holes in the film?

While at other times, the technicians just dropped good old dry ice into the water. Who needs CGI effects? This movie keeps moving and doesn’t get dull, with decent direction by Jack Curtis who apparently died that same year. There’s some fun, campy dialog by screenwriter Arnold Drake, who also co-produced and composed the music. Comic book fans of the Sixties may know Drake as the man who wrote "The Doom Patrol," among others. Film editor Radley Metzger would go on to direct a series of stylish, and acclaimed, soft-core sex films, as well as the 1979 remake of The Cat And The Canary.

The cast of The Flesh Eaters were not household names, though they did seem to give it their all. German-born Martin Kosleck, however, may be familiar to fans of Universal's Forties horror flicks, including House Of Horrors, The Mummy’s Curse and She-Wolf Of London, as well as appearing in the Universal Sherlock Holmes programmer Pursuit To Algiers, with Basil Rathbone, and as Rathbone’s murderous companion in Paramount’s The Mad Doctor. In addition, Kosleck portrayed famed Nazi Joseph Goebbels a total of five times!

Combining Nazis and monsters was hardly a new idea. In everything from Revenge Of The Zombies (1943) and She Demons (1958) to They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1961) and The Boys From Brazil (1978), these baddies are the kind you love to hate. And in The Flesh Eaters the tradition continues, as the movie serves up the blood and gore, though not quite on the ludicrous level with Herschell Gordon Lewis’ original "splatter" film Blood Feast, released the previous year.

I was never a big fan of the once-popular, now-laughable film The Blue Lagoon or the currently popular, and soon-to-be laughable TV show Survivor. Something was always missing, and now I know what it was…what else?…Flesh Eaters! Now that, as our late friend Omar might say, would have been kooky. And as the late, un-lamented Professor Bartell might happily add, "Verrrry kooky."

Right, Joe!  Very kooky (but not Kookie, and you're dating yourself if you know what we mean) and very entertaining.   By the way, if you're interested in Joe's weight-loss plan, we guarantee results...to your next of kin...

Article copyright © Joe Winters

Return To Archives