The Flesh Eaters
A pilot, Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders), is hired to take an alcoholic actress, Laura Winters (Rita Morley) and her secretary Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin) to Province Town. On the way they have engine trouble and land on an island. Professor Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck) is on the island doing experiments. Laura finds a skeleton on the beach. The professor blames it on sharks. A storm is coming up so they batten down the hatches and ride it out.
Later Laura goes to the plane and finds her bottle. She gets drunk and passes out. The professor pushes the plane out to sea and puts the unraveled rope in Laura’s hand making it appear that she released the plane. After the storm the beach ends up littered with hundreds of dead fish. All the flesh has been dissolved off them. The professor says that it appears that a microscopic parasite has eaten the fish and to touch them may transfer the parasites to humans. They find Laura just waking up and the Grant, the pilot, accuses her of losing the plane.
They look out to see and there are millions of little shinny things in the water. The creatures will eat through anything to get to flesh. Then a raft is seen with a beatnik type guy on it. Somehow the beatnik, floating on a raft, manages to make it ashore safely.
The professor says that he believes electricity will kill the creatures. He has a giant solar battery on the island. By now you know the professor is actually a mad scientist and anything he says is really a lie. How does he manage to conveniently have a solar battery at hand? And what does electricity really do to the carnivorous amoebas?
“The Flesh Eaters” was made in 1964. Some scenes were considered graphic and extremely violent for it’s time. Due to it’s depiction of brutality it was considered one of the first gore films, especially considering the available special effects for that period. Now of course it would be considered much less violent. Still it developed a cult following due to, what was considered at the time, horrific death scenes. Critics were not all that nice to it, but critics don’t buy movies, fans do. As a low budget movie with limited special effects it earns it’s “B” movie status. Due to its cinematography and stylized composition it was also considered more of an artsy film in it’s time.
I realize the film is considered a classic in the real sense. Especially with the stylish visuals and the cinema first as a claim to fame. Despite the films staunch following it didn’t do that much for me. It was OK but it’s not one of my favorites. It wasn’t the monster I had a problem with, it was everybody else. None of the characters are all that likable. And they snap at each other all the time. Especially the drunken Laura and the mad ex-Nazi scientist Bartell. (Which Martin Kosleck can play in his sleep.) Plus, to me, the beatnik guy was just annoying. I also found the film just plodded along. All in all I just didn’t care if everybody got defleshed.