Landau (Sanford Mitchell) and Maltby (J. Byron Foster) own and operate the Lotus Cat Food Company. The secret ingredient in the food is human flesh. It is a cheap source of meat and cats love it. The human flesh is supplied by various mortuaries as well as a body snatcher named Caleb (Warren Ball). He digs up corpses from the local cemetery and sells them to Landau and Maltby, for twenty cents a pound.
Even though their cat food is popular and expensive, they still experience some cash flow problems from time to time. They owe Caleb money, and he won’t deliver any more corpses until they pay up. To supplement their normal supply shortage Landau kills Willie (Charles Fox), one of his workers. They then branch out to skid row bums.
Lotus cat food is popular and cats all over are being fed the unusual food. The cats have developed a taste for human flesh and begin attacking and killing their owners. One of the owners that was killed was Annie (Mary Ellen Burke). Annie’s neighbor (Harry Lovejoy) kills the cat and brings Annie to the hospital, but Dr. Glass (Sean Kenney) tells him that Annie is already dead. Dr. Glass then learns that the woman was killed by her normally affectionate cat. Dr. Glass, along with his nurse Angie (Monika Kelly) becomes interested in what happened. He does a necropsy on the cat and finds human flesh in its stomach.
Dr. Glass and Angie become suspicious of the cat food that Annie fed to her feline. They investigate and eventually find Lotus Cat Food Company and Landau.
“The Corpse Grinders” was released in 1971 and was directed by Ted V. Mikels. It is a comedy horror film and a sort of splatter movie. The movie spawned two sequels, “The Corpse Grinders II” 2000 and “The Corpse Grinders III” 2012.
As a splatter movie, there’s not a lot of splatter. Sure, there’s a lot of grinding and what’s extruded is some kind of disgusting slimy substance, but the star killer is not an axe wielding maniac, it’s cats. And cats, although they can be vicious looking, don’t do anything on cue.
As for everything else, it is on par with your normal low budget bad acting totally unbelievable premise type independent movie. The editing is weird and intentionally choppy with random shots of cats added in. The movie is ridiculous but that’s what makes it enjoyable. It definitely qualifies as a so bad it’s good movie.
The movie was written by Arch Hall Sr. and Joe Cranston. Hall brought us wonderful films such as “Eegah” 1962. Cranston is the father of Bryan Cranston. Bryan starred in the television series “Breaking Bad”.