The Flesh Eaters (1964) Online

This movie made a major impression on me when I was a kid and turned on the TV halfway though it on a Saturday afternoon. It was right in the middle of the scene where the archetypical cartoon beatnik character is babbling moronically about his diet...within seconds, I was watching a grown man scream like a little girl while being literally devoured from the inside out. That's all I remember from back then, that and how uncommonly UGLY those monsters turned out to be. I mean HIDEOUS (I'm still convinced that the brain-bug in "Starship Troopers" is just a watered down version of these things).

Later I watched it again, and again.

They start out really small, the monsters, so small that you can't see them except as a swarm. They are electrified somehow--electrified carnivorous blood cells, I think, the result of an evil Nazi experiment--and just sort of twinkle at first.

At the end, one gets really, really big. Once they're big enough to see, you realize just how UGLY these things are. These are old-school special effects, the kind that required some EFFORT, even when they were bad, and I miss that.

To add to this, you have a stranded island-load of the most ridiculous, archetypical, two-dimensional characters saying and doing the dumbest things imaginable. A mad Nazi scientist, a drunken has-been movie starlet, a once-successful pilot with a dark incident that ruined his life, and the aforementioned cartoon beatnik. It's like ten bad movies rolled into one. I'm not even convinced it's unintenionally funny. I imagine the people behind this debacle were made jaded and cynical by their hardships in Hollywood and amused themselves during the filming of this hack work by at least making it fun. My favorite part is when the square jawed pilot asks for something to bandage a wound with, and of course the attractive young women immediately rips her shirt off.

Bad special effects, bad writing, bad acting, and, I'm telling you, the ugliest monster I've ever seen. If this doesn't sound good to you, don't rent it, and stay away from my house.

Reviewers have not mentioned the gorgeous cinematography of THE FLESH EATERS, which is the work of the director, Jack Curtis, working under a pseudonym, Carson Davidson. Virtually every scene was shot outdoors in the merciless sun of summertime Long Island, but Curtis's lighting banishes unsightly shadows from the actors' faces; indeed, in many moments the exteriors are shimmering, almost silvery in their beauty. Deep focus and shallow focus are utilized with particular effectiveness. The women in the film are very good-looking, and as captured on film, they appear warm and absolutely delicious.

Another useful note is that THE FLESH EATERS was scripted by comic book writer Arnold Drake (The Doom Patrol, Marvel's Captain Marvel, et al). Arnold storyboarded the film, so every shot has the careful, formalized composition of a well-drawn comic strip. One shot, a sterling example of deep focus, sticks with me: the right profile of the hero dominates the left-side foreground of the frame. In a moment, two or three tiny figures at the far-removed shoreline move left to right, from behind the hero's head, and in perfect focus. Self-conscious? Yes. Striking? Absolutely.

Finally, Curtis & Co. shot THE FLESH EATERS silent, which is NOT apparent.The post-production looping matches flawlessly to the performances, and the voices have weight and presence. (Curtis had experience in the dubbing of foreign films for the American market.)

The gratuitous but not uninteresting Nazi-lab sequence was not shot by Curtis, and has none of the visual beauty of the rest of the film. Its shock value, though, is strong.

I rate THE FLESH EATERS AN "8" not against all films, but against other films of its type. As B exploitation, it is ingenious, nastily amusing, and immensely satisfying.

Shucks, if you're looking for credibility and good acting, of =course= this is the wrong kind of movie! Myself, I watch a film like "The Flesh Eaters" precisely because it is implausible, even cruddy, and chock-full of overripe performances ... and further, of those delicious moments that "a serious film" or "a Hollywood moom pitcher" would never dare attempt.

And Martin Kosleck is always fun to watch. Check out his mini-bio and see if he doesn't deserve your immediate respect, even if he spent most of his U.S. career acting in junk.

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...

A pilot, a drunken actress and her female assistant, and a groovy beatnik all get stranded on an island where a German scientist (Martin Kosleck) is conducting experiments involving a strange silvery substance in the water that starts eating the flesh off fish and people. This is a cheaply made film that was shot in Montauk, New York, and saves a lot of money by taking place entirely on the beach (their "island"). But it's still fun and manages to overcome its limitations, and Kosleck makes for a good sneaky villain. The hero pilot (Grant Murdock) is pretty poor as an actor, and provides some laughs and funny lines. The beatnik character is a show in himself, man. Can you feel the love? **1/2 out of ****

This film is an updated for the 1960s version of the traditional late 30s-40s mad scientist tale but one with the surprising addition of gore, used very effectively for the time. Martin Kosleck here provides the mad scientist, a Nazi stereotype not uncommon to earlier eras. The Flesh Eaters themselves make for a memorable menace and the early scene with the two swimmers is an excellent bit of film making. The gigantic ones and their showdown with the hero at the end requires much suspension of disbelief but the monsters are also quite nasty-looking which makes for fun viewing if you're into seeing giant monsters. The final showdown actually reminds me a little of the film KRONOS.

Calling all B-movie fans, calling all B-movie fans, have I got a gem for you.

Made with zero money, no notable actors and a rookie director who never directed a film again, somehow, The Flesh Eaters warmed my heart by keeping me genuinely engaged throughout. The film concerns harried transport pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders), endlessly hassled by debtors, who agrees to shuttle an unlikeable, drunk diva named Laura Winters (Rita Morley) and her genial assistant Jan (Barbara Wilkin) through harsh weather to a film shoot. Not surprisingly, the plane is forced to make a harsh landing on a desolate island. After running into creepy German scientist Prof. Bartell (Martin Kosleck, making an wonderfully spooky entrance), a skeleton, picked clean to the bone, washes up on the shore. asserts that it was sharks, but there is another menace afoot: flesh-eating bacteria! The film is well-put-together, far, far better than it has any right to be. The effects are simple and effective: bacteria itself has no business being anything but microscopic, and a little bit of overlay in the shimmering water does the trick beautifully. The film is also known as one of the first 'gore' films, coming on the heels of Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast, thought the very first. The opening sequence (which is so identical to the opening hook of Jaws that I wouldn't be surprised if Spielberg stole it) sets the grisly tone right off the bat, and throughout The Flesh Eaters, the gore is ably applied, and would be acceptable in contemporary films as well (as evidenced by the gushing infection that attacks Murdoch's leg). The acting is also uniformly good. Most of the reviews seem to take it for a given that it has bad acting, but taken on its own merits, the actors have much success in crafting believable, three-dimensional characters (Our Hero Grant doesn't always make the right decision, Our Lush Diva Laura feels guilty about drinking and makes attempts to stop, and even Our Villain Bartell has motivations that aren't completely sinister and nonsensical). Really, the only character that comes off as a caricature is Omar (Ray Tudor), a hippie love magnet on a wooden raft that someone ends up floating into shore, narrowly avoiding the eaters (and has his chest eaten through from the inside by drinking some of them, in yet another effectively gnarly sequence).

Carson Davidson's cinematography (in what was, shockingly, also his one and only trip behind the lens) is far better than it has any right to be. Director Jack Curtis, was, hilariously, the voice of Pops in the English dub of Speed Racer. One-and-only-CREDIT Julian Stein's much is effective. The screenplay is by comic book writer Arnold Drake, whose only other film credit is the delightfully-named 50,000 BC (Before Clothing). Jack Curtis's cousin Roy Benson did the special effects and his work never appeared on another screen. Hell, even the production company Vulcan Productions was a one-and-done. In fact, it seems like the only position of any importance behind the camera to have a career that lasted more than the week and a half it took to shoot this film is editor Radley Metzger (pulling double-duty on the sound board, and whose credits are almost wholly porn), also doing fantastic work, as the film is a brisk 87 minutes, breezily-paced without being unfulfilling.

The Flesh Eaters isn't perfect (the less said about it's ludicrous and wholly unnecessary finale, the better), but as a B-movie connoisseur, I've sat through far too many movies where it was obvious that no one involved had any idea what they were doing, and honestly, the more names I click on and find one credit to their names, the more I feel shortchanged. There's so many directors, and writers, and composers, and effects men and production houses that pump out crappy film after crappy film after crappy film, and yet, get to keep making them. But with The Flesh Eaters, it seems like everybody gave their best effort, and called it a day.

If you're being scared away by the fact that it sounds too much like Cabin Fever, don't fret; that film is about as scary as a watermelon. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of trash, of exploitation, or grindhouse fare, you own it to yourself to track down a copy of The Flesh Eaters. The DVD has crisp sound, extra scenes, and a transfer so gloriously clean that Criterion couldn't have done a better job (and considering they occasionally release genre pics, all the work would be done for them!), yet another thing that it has going in its favor despite the fact that it has no right to have it so good.

Damn you, Jack Curtis. You are an enigma of missed opportunities. But alas, you were busy fixing the Mach 5, so I guess the blame for this one rests solely on the shoulders of Racer X. Or Chim-Chim.

{Grade: 8.25/10 (B+/B) / #14 (of 28) of 1964}

If you are going to sit down to watch this expecting some top notch special effects, intense acting, and a character driven plot, you deserve to be disappointed. Movies like this cannot conceal what they are or mislead people, so to criticize it for being cheap, hokey, and cheesy is sort like complaining that Star Wars takes place in outer space.

If you are hoping to be entertained, then this movie won't let you down! A reminder of how creepy these old movies can be if you were lucky enough to see it when you were under age 12, movies like this always benefit most when the viewer can suspend their cynicism and imagine they are 10 years old. The lack of any sets used in the film is probably because the actors chewed all the scenery, the gore, for its time, was pretty darn shocking, and the monsters are somehow easily destroyed by the same thing they eat.

Yes, skeletons shouldn't remain whole when the flesh is eaten off them. True, CGI effects blow away the lousy FX. Of course, a woman wouldn't tear off her shirt while the men stood by, still in their shirts and gawking when someone needed makeshift bandages. And I agree, Nazi scientists were not hiding out on Long Island in the 1960's. If you can accept these facts, and forgive the movie in spite of them (and many, many other similar flaws), you won't be let down for one second! Also, the song playing on the transistor radio in the opening scene, performed by a band called "The Teen Killers" is so catchy you won't stop whistling it for weeks!!!

**SPOILERS** Trying to get to Provincetown MA. for a play that she's staring in the famous and temperamental actress Laura Winters, Rita Morley, who's stranded in NYC, some 300 miles away, gets herself so smashed on gin that she'll have trouble remembering her name much less her lines. This has her very concerned agent Jan Letterman, Barbara Wilkin, get a charted plane to fly Laura there for opening night as a major storm approaches the New England coast.

Down and out shuttle pilot Grant Murdoc, Byron Sanders, who at first balks at flying through the dangerous cloud-cover changes his mind when Jan offers him three times the amount of cash that he usually takes for the flight. Airborne and on a due north course to Cape Cod with the storm overtaking his plane Murdoc is forced to land on this uncharted and , what at first looks like, deserted island in Long Island Sound. Murdoc together with Jan and the barley sober Laura are surprised to find this creepy-looking guy who claims to be a professor in marine biology Peter Bartell played Joseph Gobbels look-alike Martin Kosleck.

Acting normal, which is a herculean task for him, not to get his guests on the island suspicious to his real intentions Bertell is well on his way of perfecting this radio active and flesh eating algae or plankton. Who's formula he's planing to sell to the highest bidder, the US the USSR the UK and even Germany East or West. With which it, the country that Bertell sells it to, can not only conquer the waves but the world as well.

Things get a little muddled for Bertell when he loses himself in a fit of carnal and uncontrollable lust when he finds Laura sunning herself on the beach all by herself. Bartell tries to rape the drunken, but very well endowed, Laura who fights off the horny old guy. Laura had already gotten herself so drunk that the next day she completely forgot what happened to her. Which gives the hot in the pants Bertell a second chance at her which he does later in the film.

It's later that when this spaced out beatnik Omar, Ray Tudor, shows up on his raft that things really start to get out of hand. Omar together with Laura later discover what Bartell is doing which cost them both their lives. I turned out that the professor himself is, more then anyone in the movie, responsible for his own demise by thinking that he can fool with the laws of nature and get away with it. Bartell's mad experiments with the man-eating plankton which, after he electrifies it, turns into a glowing and flesh-eating crab-like monster. A monster which there's no way of him controlling or stopping from swallowing all life, human as well as fish and animal, on earth.

Really a Martin Kosleck movie with everyone else in the film, with the possible exception or the drugged out and mind addled beatnik Omar, just there going through the motions and nothing else. Kosleck or the person he's playing Proffesor Peter Bartell gives it all he's got as the crazed, in the flashbacks we don't really know for sure if he was or wasn't, ex-Nazi mad scientist who like his deceased and beloved Fuhrer wants to take over the world. In Bartell's case for a nice and tidy profit not to, like in German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler's case, National Socialize or Nazify it.

Like all movie about mad scientists Bartell screws himself up big time by him trying to create an army of killer and flesh-eating micro organisms he instead creates, by electrifying the waters off shore, a giant illuminating crab. The glowing crab has the crazed Bartell run for his life only to get attacked by flesh-eaters who make short order of him by turning Bartell into a bag of bones.

Murdoc who found out, through Laura's strange death, what can stop this crab-like creature and with a syringe of anti-flesh-eating serum, plain human blood, sticks it to it and puts an end to this insanity. An insanity of gigantic proportions that only a fruitcake, with lots of nuts in it, like Professor Peter Bartell could have dreamed up.

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.

Surprisingly effective low-budget horror film about a creep (Martin Kosleck) on an isolated island trying to replicate Nazi experiments with flesh-eating organisms. A pilot transporting an alcoholic actress and her assistant is forced to make an emergency landing on the island and business picks up from there. A good B horror flick with some nice cinematography and special effects that were gory for the time. Despite its budgetary limitations it's pretty neat. Most of the movie takes place in one location, on a beach. Several moments of unintended hilarity, such as Byron Sanders' character talking about his ex ("I actually loved that little tramp.") or every scene involving Ray Tudor's beatnik (I'm comin', my people, I'm comin'!"). Sexy Barbara Wilkin has a nice scene taking off her shirt to help bandage Sander's wound. Tame by today's standards of course. Martin Kosleck is good fun as the mad scientist and the rest of the cast is enjoyable enough. Worth a look even if it isn't going to change your life.

Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin), the personal assistant to an alcoholic, washed up actress (Rita Morley), hires charter pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) on behalf of her employer. Grant is to fly them to Provincetown, but inclement weather forces them to land on a deserted island. There, a German accented scientist named Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck) is conducting experiments centered around the existence of tiny, silvery flesh consuming creatures that thrive in the water.

"The Flesh Eaters" is noteworthy for such things as being a very early gore film (one of the earliest NOT made by Herschell Gordon Lewis and Dave Friedman), for inspiring a musical act of the same name, and for forcing George Romero to change the title of his legendary "Night of the Living Dead", which was originally going to be called "Night of the Flesh Eaters". It's pretty entertaining as far as schlock horror goes, although it is somewhat overextended. Sometimes it does get silly, tiresome, and overly talky. How one responds to comedy relief beatnik character Omar (Ray Tudor) may be strictly a matter of personal taste. This viewer found his shtick amusing at first, but thought that he wore out his welcome quickly. It has decent atmosphere, good black & white photography (Carson Davidson was the D.P., John Carroll the operator), appropriate music by Julian Stein, and some enjoyably grisly makeup effects. The script by co-producer Arnold Drake has its moments, with some snappy bits of dialogue.

The acting is as bad as you come to expect from such fare, for the most part, with the jut jawed Sanders particularly clunky as the hero. Kosleck, fortunately, rises to the occasion with a wonderfully theatrical portrayal that is in the tradition of countless mad scientists in countless B pictures.

Not bad, for this kind of entertainment.

Future director Radley Metzger was the editor on this show.

Six out of 10.

This is an early gore flick and is moderately amusing as both a horror film and unintentional comedy. The dialouge is ridiculous tripe, the actors aren't actually capable of acting, and the character's schemes are chock full of holes but this film manages to pull off some good old school gore (especially the scenes where the mad doctor gets it and the pilot's leg starts to get chewed off. The pacing isn't too bad, but overall this film just doesn't leave much of an impression.

Studly Grant Murdock (Byron Sanders), alcoholic star Laura Winters (Rita Morly) and her assistant Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin) are forced to land their plane (after it malfunctions) on an isolated island. There they meet German Dr. Peter Bartel (Martin Koslek) who seems to be examining marine life...but is he? They're soon joined by the incredibly annoying beatnik Omar (Ray Tudor) and find they're fighting "flesh eaters"--tiny little glowing bugs that love eating flesh.

There's a lot wrong with this film. For starters the plot is silly with some really questionable "science". The characters are all annoyingly predictable--the square-jawed hero, the good girl, the bad (alocoholic) girl and the odious "comic" relief. With the sole exception of Morly the acting is terrible and Omar has GOT to be one of the most grating characters I've ever seen. It gets dull too. But this has (for 1964) some pretty explicit gore--two deaths especially are pretty bloody and gruesome. This is also a prime example of an early 1960s exploitation movie. It was made on next to no budget with pretty unknown actors and (I heard) barely released. It's acquired quite a cult following over the years (more for the gore than anything else) and it was beautifully restored on DVD back in 2005. Horror fans will want to take a peak but it's no great shakes.

Martin Kosleck's number was in the Los Angeles phone directory,and I just happened to dial long distance on two occasions in 1982.The man himself answered the first time,and Christopher Drake the second,and between them,I had the opportunity to express my appreciation for "The Flesh Eaters"(1962).Mr.Drake(who also appeared in the film)related the sad news that the director,Jack Curtis,had died in 1970,and that all the filmmakers were justifiably proud of their efforts,though only the distributors saw much of the profits.He added that shooting was done on weekends over two successive summers,which confirms the impression that it was a labor of love.What I never learned until recently,is that the film was shot silent and completely post-dubbed,an amazing feat that is not obvious on first viewing.Rarely offered starring roles(and doing only a dozen features after 1948),Martin Kosleck here gets to play what I consider the most detestable villain in cinema history,and it is clearly his own voice on the soundtrack,done in the same dedicated fashion as the rest of the cast.While the beatnik character of Omar may be off-putting to some,his death scene is my favorite in the picture,as the doctor effortlessly convinces the ninny that they should drink a toast to friendship,which hits "the ever lovin' spot"(Omar's words),unaware that the doc has spiked his drink with a fatal dose of Flesh Eaters(which the audience is clearly shown).Far better written than just a clichéd mad scientist,there is never a point when Kosleck earns any sympathy,even when his death scene is shown to be just as horrific as Omar's.But at Universal in 1944-46,Kosleck was treated like a star,and fondly remembered one in particular,the 1946 thriller "House of Horrors," in which his villainous "starving artist of ill repute," driven insane in clichéd fashion by an unappreciative public,never once loses our sympathy as he induces a spine-snapping killer known as The Creeper(Rondo Hatton)to strike back at his enemies.The top-billed leads,Robert Lowery and Virginia Grey,are such a tiresome,colorless pair of boorish nincompoops(along with all of the big city critics on hapless display),you begin to wonder if Martin's character is written to be the hero! His roles in bigger films like Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent"(1940),"Confessions of a Nazi Spy"(1939),and numerous other Nazis were usually small,so it was these "forgotten little programmers" that gave him more exposure and garnered more fan mail.On a final note,he pointed out that the actor he most enjoyed working with was Basil Rathbone,first in 1940's "The Mad Doctor," then 1945's "Pursuit to Algiers." The former was not about your typical mad scientist but a complex psychodrama,with Kosleck snuffing out his share of victims,the latter was one of the last Sherlock Holmes adventures,with Kosleck as another homicidal maniac,whose knife-wielding abilities are negated by Holmes' swift actions.There aren't many left from Hollywood's Golden Age,and there won't be another due to changes in technology,the death of the drive-ins,and the radicalization of Tinseltown.The films will survive the people who made them.

This is one of those shockers that I fondly remember for the silliness of it all, and the sudden gore factor....

*********Spoiler******** The most memorable scene in the film is when the beatnik (Omar) is given what he thinks is a shot of whiskey, when in fact it's a drink containing "flesh eaters". I love it when he rubs his belly and moans. "That sure does hit my spot." A few minutes later, he's holding his guts in his hands, and screaming in terror. I never did understand how the flesh eaters decided to leave the rest of him whole.

Bad acting, silly story, but worth watching for the sheer silliness of it all. Very low-budget! If you buy this black and white film, make sure it contains the "sudden color" scene uncut, or you're missing the true effect of it.

Memorable, but don't expect a lot.

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.

Several folks find themselves stranded on a remote island where renegade mad scientist Professor Peter Bartell (a nicely slimy portrayal by veteran character actor Martin Kosleck) is conducting experiments on tiny flesh-eating monsters.

Director Jack Curtis relates the enjoyable story at a constant pace, makes the most out of the isolated setting, and ably crafts a pleasing creepy atmosphere as well as builds a good deal of tension. Moreover, this film has several moments of nasty violence and fairly graphic gore that are pretty harsh and shocking for a movie from the mid-1960's. (There's also a satisfying sprinkling of semi-nude female skin that was pretty risqué for the time, too.) The acting by most of the cast is on the hammy side (the guy who plays flaky beatnik Omar in particular is a total hoot throughout), but this only adds to the film's considerable entertainment value. Julian Stein's spirited shivery score hits the shivery spot. Carson Davidson's crisp black and white cinematography provides a neat stark look. A fun little flick.

This is problematic, the movie frequently suffers from good writing by Arnold Drake, and good acting by the ensemble cast. Mark my word, It's a bad exploitation movie that came out of the early sixties. One forgotten by the books, one that surprises and exceeds expectations that are not set too high, anyway; ( Spoiler alert, I will be talking plot details). It is watchable. and seemed serious in intent, in spite of the rampant cliche's' a no name cast that works earnestly to overcome the cardboard characters they represent. and a low, low budget. Surprisingly it works, Barbra Wilkin and Rita Morley start the ball rolling, as "The star of stage and screen" Alcoholic actress, Laura Winters, played by Morley, and her smart personal assistant played by Wilkin, They decided to take a flight to their next destination through a storm, they enlist the "tough as nails" all American pilot Grant Murdock, played by Byron Sanders. The plane is grounded on a small island, due to the tropical storm. There they meet the shifty eye'd marine biologist Peter Bartell, played by Martin Kosleck. All is not as it appears, and Bartell has a nasty history behind him. He turns out to be a Nazi in hiding, still doing research on a deadly organism, the Flesh Eaters of the title. Enter into the scene, the obligatory fall guy, A Gilligan like hippy "Omar" played by Ray Tudor. creating a "Maynard Krebbs" type figure, in the middle of a grim horror show. On occasion Ray gives his character a flash of insight, one wishes the writer had made more of it. The Acting all around is decent. Even good. Rita Morley steals the show. Sander's, plays the pilot with a rock jaw, and a nose for suspicion. Also an anger streak, but still somewhat slow in catching on. But here, the Villein is a real monster. He not only knows about the monsters, he is responsible for them. No big surprise. The cinematography is clean, lots of outdoor shooting. and the film is well directed by Jack Curtis, this was his first and only directed movie. A decent effort. Now then, something that I noticed that confused me. Here is the big spoiler alert. In the big fight at the end. The bad guy is finally fighting it out with the good guy, the good guy is winning and has the bad guy, in a black divers suit, pinned. then the bad guy flips the good guy, into the tide of the killer flesh eaters. I think to myself, "Wow, that was an unexpected twist", now the only two survivors are the bad guy, and the smart girl. But wait. The good guy wasn't killed. What ? I went back and viewed it twice.same conclusion, The good guy and the smart girl kill the monster. This was the cosmic goof of all time. Even showing the good guy in a light diving suit, after his "death scene", one that he was not wearing before, does not save the skewed continuity. Too bad the writers could not come up with a good reason to explain it. I can only assume leaving it as an enigma was the directors choice. A much better then expected little movie, I would give it Seven out of Ten "Clean to the bone" Stars.

This early 'roughie' has acquired legendary status as the first really gory horror film to be made in America since the introduction of the Production Code of 1934.

Montauk, Long Island provides a suitably desolate and atmospheric backdrop, well-used by director/cameraman Jack Curtis, and which saved on the construction of sets during a production that Martin Kosleck later recalled took place in fits and starts over a three year period. The visual punch of the exteriors also owes a lot to scriptwriter Arnold Drake, who brought his experience in comic books to bear by storyboarding the film in advance; while vivid visual effects were achieved by such low-tech means as scratching holes on the negative with a pin to create the eerie glowing points of light that depicted the creatures in their miniature form. Drake's script also has a dry wit that enhances the far-fetched proceedings, along with Radley Metzger's editing and Julian Stein's score.

The four leads are all good (although surely they could have come up with a more original name for the hero than Grant Murdoch?). Barbara Wilkin and Rita Morley satisfyingly metamorphose from figure-hugging dresses into figure-hugging slacks upon arrival on the island, and the latter's performance as drunken diva Laura Winters improves considerably when her character eventually sobers up. It's probably not Ray Tudor's fault that Omar the beatnik has already outstayed his welcome before he even sets foot on dry land, since he was obviously written that way; but it makes his gruesome death all the more eagerly anticipated.

The finale, however, comes as a bit of a letdown, since the flesh eaters were ironically a far more interesting and unusual menace while they were microscopically small; when they ultimately coalesce into one enormous and repulsive monster, the film's conclusion becomes disappointingly conventional. The gruesome gore effects that give this film its legendary status derive from the disgustingly intimate nature of the corrosive havoc they wreak on their victims - stripping flesh bare, tearing them apart from inside, and so on - in ways that derive directly from their tiny size.

The only people who will not be STERILIZED with FEAR are those among you who are already DEAD! The Flesh Eaters is a 60's film which is all but forgotten. I don't know why, because it's pretty damn good especially considering it was the director's only film and the cinematographer's use of black and white and unusual camera angles made the film even more interesting.

There are some gruesome effects in this as well which was something probably not seen much at that time. As the title implies, these microbial monsters devour human flesh at an alarming rate, so we see a few choice scenes of what I'd call "gore" in this film. However, there are some weird composite FX shots which don't work very well, and at times the movie drags with some long dialog scenes. The acting is very good though, and if you can find it check out the version with the Nazi experimentation scene in it.

I'm not usually into remakes, but I think the Flesh Eaters could be remade well if placed in the right hands.

The Flesh Eaters starts in New York as Jan Lettreman (Barbara Wilkin) the secretary of alcoholic stage & screen star Laura Winters (Rita Morley) hires pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) to fly them to Province Town for a casting call, Murdoch agrees but warns the two ladies that a large tropical storm may cause problems. While flying the plane gets into trouble & is forced to land on an isolated island, at first they think they are alone but soon find out German marine biologist Professor Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck) is stationed on the island carrying out some experiments involving tiny flesh eating creatures that infest the waters surrounding the island. They quickly find themselves trapped on the island as the flesh eaters strip flesh to the bone within seconds, somehow they must find a way to kill the flesh eaters & leave the island for safety but their troubles aren't just confined to the flesh eaters in the water...

Co-produced & directed by Jack Curtis this piece of early 60's exploitative sci-fi horror turns into a creature feature by the end with the obligatory giant monster running amok but it's far better than one might expect & far better than most of it's peers from the period. The script flips between fairly serious sci-fi & horror themes about Nazi experiments & flesh eating creatures & fairly laid back humour with a nice line in bickering between Murdoch & the alcoholic Winters & then there's goofy hippie character Omar whose dialogue is often laugh out loud but in a cute amusing sort of way & he ends up getting horribly killed anyway so that's a nice satisfying moment. At 87 minutes long it moves at a decent pace, it starts off fairly mysteriously with Professor Bartell's motives & identity in particular kept a mystery before a climax involving a giant monster that was probably included because of the period it was made & giant monster films were quite popular back them I suppose. Of course it's not perfect by any means, the scene when Murdoch rescues Winters from the rocks is strange as I was just sat thinking to myself why doesn't she just go back the way she got out there in the first place? Then there's the dumb revelation that blood kills the flesh eaters, now if we think about that for a moment are the makers of this seriously trying to say that creatures that eat nothing but flesh, muscle, skin & bodily organs only weakness is being exposed to blood? No offence but how do they eat flesh & avoid blood anyway? It just doesn't make sense. Then there's that coat bit, Murdoch covers a skeleton with a coat & then the next day after a huge tropical storm the skeleton is there where they left it & the coat is as well having somehow not blown away. Then there's a daft bit at the end when Murdoch manages to get Bartell's pistol off him but within five minutes lets him get it back through stupidity & how exactly is Bartell planning to control these flesh eaters anyway? Although clichéd the character's are quite likable expect for Bartell the bad guy who just happens to be German, the dialogue is surprisingly snappy & quite amusing at times & it's a fun watch that holds up quite well & some decent gore & a decent final monster also help.

Apparently filmed in 1961-ish & the copyright date on the credits reads 1962 this wasn't released until 1964, I suppose you could argue that The Flesh Eaters was the first true gore film but it's not that gory, the black and white photography lessens the impact & although made later Herschell Gorodn Lewis' Blood Feast (1963) is gorier, in colour & was actually released the previous year. There's some gore here, there's some blood splatter, a melted face or two, someone cuts a chunk out of someones leg & someone is seen with a great big hole through their body. The economy of the film is quite admirable with the entire thing taking place on one beach front & in a tent but it never feels cramped or like the makers were compromised & there's some surprisingly effective cinematography here too. Apparently while shooting on location a real hurricane destroyed sets & equipment & the production was delayed for a year & legend has it that Terry Curtis wife of director Jack won $72,000 on a game show & some of that was used to finish it.

With a supposed budget of little over $100,000 this looks pretty good & although the monster at the end isn't the greatest I can name a lot of monsters from this period that look worse, also available in a colourized version. Shot on location on Long Island in New York. The acting is alright although some if not all of them appear to be dubbed.

The Flesh Eaters is a nice little sci-fi horror exploitation film that I enjoyed, sure some of it doesn't make sense & the science is questionable to say the least but it entertains for the right reasons & I liked it, so shoot me.

** STAY AWAY FROM THE SPOILERS! TURN BACK! ***

Not loving this movie is like kicking a smiling shaggy mutt. It's impossible to hate a low-budget black and white horror flick that delivers this many thrills and chills. File this one in the "trapped on an island with a monster" sub-genre amongst other non-greats such as THE KILLER SHREWS, TEENAGE ZOMBIES, and MATANGO, THE FUNGUS OF TERROR.

Lunk Armstrong, the All-American hero, (the character's name is Murdock, actually) is bribed into flying soused Broadway actress Laura Winters and her hot assistant Jan Letterman (add appropriate Dave Letterman related giggle here) to Provincetown for summer stock season.

He knew he would regret it! He just knew! But triple his normal rate is not for him to pass up. Sure enough, a bad storm forces their seaplane down to an "uninhabited island" for shelter. Only the place is not uninhabited at all! Aha! The plot thickens!

Pseudo-Nazi scientist (he's Hungarian actually) Peter Bartell is on the island doing what can only be described as very suspicious experiments. Before too long, dead fish wash up on the beach and ole Lunkhead gets some nasty bacteria on his leg (portrayed by burn marks on the film negatives), leading to one conclusion: the ocean is infested with lousy stinking killer microbes that strip the flesh off any living creature!! Lemme outta here!!

Soon enough stupid drunk Laura causes the seaplane to float away (or is something more sinister afoot?) and the stupid gang is all trapped. No radio either. So, we have the professor, the Skipper, the movie star, and the hot young girl. The only thing missing is a Gilligan. But wait! Soon enough an annoying beatnik on a raft with a wind-up Victrola (!) washes ashore, spouting more nonsense than a George Bush press conference. Thank Heaven he's the one who the evil scientist dispatches first.

It all gets only more confusing from there, but suffice to say that soon enough it's Mad Scientist versus everyone else, while the evil microbes fester in the ocean, and his laboratory experiments in a lead pan in the tent soon grow into a giant pulsating crab-brain monster that eats his pet parrot! For some reason he also runs electrical lines from a giant solar battery into the ocean, causing a giant version of the same creature to menace the entire island.

There's lots to talk about here and enjoy for monster movie fans, obviously. A lot of the cinematography is very distinctive and has a very Silver-Age-Comic-Book look about it. They did good work on a small budget. There are some monster effects which are quite good for a low budget film of that time.

But the thing that most people seem to find important or significant about the film is the pioneering use of gore effects, very seldom seen in a film from 1963. There's dead fish, human skeletons, stabbings, and lots of blood. This bad boy is supposedly coming out on DVD sometime in the hear future. I hope it does so; look out for it. It's a nice addition to any collection of drive-in movie horrors. If you don't dig monster movies, you won't like it at all.

UPDATE: It is currently available on DVD as of 2007.

"Grant Murdoch" (Byron Sanders) runs a charter airplane which two young ladies named "Jan Letterman" (Barbara Wilkin) and "Laura Winters" (Rita Morley) hire to fly them to Provincetown out near Cape Cod. Unfortunately, a hurricane causes them to make an emergency landing on a semi-deserted island. The only occupant is a marine biologist by the name of "Professor Peter Bartell" (Martin Kosleck) who helps them survive the hurricane. They soon discover that they are stranded and that there is a flesh-eating microorganism which is gradually making its way inland. At any rate, rather than disclosing all of the details and risk spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this was a strange and campy horror film from the early-60's. Although it had good camera work, some pretty actresses and some decent performances there really wasn't anything unique about the movie that separates it from typical grade-B movies made during this time. Even so, I suppose it's worth a look for those who enjoy films from this time-period. As such I rate it as average.

Salty buttered popcorn and snuggled up to your date...and good drive-in flick. Evocative of the early 1960's scare fare. Not really a monster movie, but a creature feature. Obvious low-budget black and white. A pilot, Grant(Byron Sanders), is forced to emergency land on an uncharted island. His passengers are the boozed up movie diva Laura Winters(Rita Morley)and her secretary Jan Letterman(Barbara Wilkin). The three figure they are trapped on a deserted island; but no, Professor Peter Bartlell has been there quite some time carrying out experiments with flesh eating amoebas. The skeleton of a swimmer and a large number of fish bones was ashore. The professor is reluctant to tell his trapped visitors what they are in for.