The Flesh Eaters (1964)

You won't be disappointed!

Sick Product of a Sick System

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

To paraphrase legendary film critics SISKEL & EBERT, in order for a movie to have a chance at being successful you have to like the main characters.There wasn't anyone in this film that should be alive by films end. The only scene worth viewing (while your pulling the legs off a spider you found on your ceiling)is when our Beatnik friend and Nazi scientist share a drink together.Omar the Beatnik swigs the flesh eater filled nectar and says, "BOY! THAT HIT THE EVER LOVIN SPOT!" 30 second later he's screaming in pain as he grabs his own abdomen which turns into a bloody mess. Nazi man records the screams.The rest is up to you to watch and I'm not talking about the gore but I'm writing about the horrible acting by our players in this thrown together production.Continue if you dare or change the contact paper on your kitchen shelves. You'll enjoy improving your kitchen as for this movie there's no room for improvement.

Just a couple of weeks ago I caught a flick on the Monster HD channel called "The Brain Eaters", so when this one followed I just had to be there. There's just something dreadfully intriguing about pictures this cheesy, and if you watch enough of them, you really get to form a weird perspective and insight. For example, when I first saw the skeleton that washed ashore in an early scene, I couldn't help but wonder if it was the same one that was used at the bottom of the swimming pool in the following year's "Teenagers From Outer Space". You watch enough of these and you can put together all kinds of connections that your friends and relatives will marvel at.Now if I didn't know better, I'd also be wondering if Omar's 'Rosebud' raft was an inadvertent tribute to 1941's "Citizen Kane". Geez, I can't believe I even came close to that one. But you know, this flick has it's share of great lines like the one in my summary above. Or how about Murdoch's excellent analysis of the stranded islanders' situation - "Let's face facts Professor, we've stumbled onto a living horror".Here's what I'm thinking. You take the basic set up, a number of people of diverse backgrounds on an isolated island in the middle of an ocean. Let's say you've got this professor, a washed up actress full of herself, a hot looking assistant that the viewer can immediately relate to. Throw in a rugged good looking hero, and as a foil, come up with a beatnik character for the young set. You might also want to add an eccentric wealthy couple whose money is no good in their current predicament. I guess there's no way of knowing which work came first or which one inspired the other, but in "Gilligan's Island", the laughs were at least intentional.

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...

Now, this is what I call a B-Movie! On a budget that looks like it cost all of $50 - until the final monster confrontation, that is - Jack Curtis crafts a classic monster movie.As if to demonstrate his intentions, the picture opens with a bikini clad girl lounging on a boat deck. Within 2 minutes, she's topless. Within 5 minutes, she's dead. This sequence strips the exploitation picture to its bare essentials. Okay, okay...bad pun.Truth be told, though, it captures the essence of THE FLESH EATERS. We've got women stripped to their bras, lots of liquor, skeletons galore, a beatnik, and a mad foreign scientist (is there any other kind?). And don't forget the flesh eater itself! It puts Roger Corman's Crab Monsters to shame.