Tonight's movie was "The Flesh Eaters", a title I knew only as the name of a punk rock band until recently. I wasn't aware there was a film of the same name until it popped up on a Youtube list a few weeks ago. I've been avoiding it for one of the usual reasons; in this case because it was long by our current standards, 91 minutes, but tonight I needed something in a pinch. The hour was late and I couldn't find anything salvageable, so I went with "The Flesh Eaters". It turned out to be a mixed bag.
The premise was interesting. After a brief opening scene, in which a young couple disappear while boating, we cut to a pier in New York. An actress (Rita Morley) and her assistant (Barbara Wilkin) hire a pilot to fly them to Cape Cod, where the actress can get some rest and relaxation. She's an alcoholic, and drunk at the moment so her assistant does all the talking. The pilot (Byron Sanders) doesn't want to take them. Besides the hammered actress, there's a storm brewing. They might not make it to their destination. But he can't turn down their offer of double his usual fee, so away they go.
Out over the ocean they experience engine trouble. "I think the carburetor is icing up! We'll have to find a place to land"!, the pilot exclaims. Fortunately, the assistant spots a small island through heavy cloud cover. The pilot guides his balky seaplane to a landing just off the beach. They are safe for the moment. But as he and the two women walk to shore, they are startled to find a human skeleton on the sand. We in the audience are aware it belongs to one of the boaters from the opening scene.
As they are examining the skeleton, a rubber-suited figure emerges from the ocean. No, it's not a Monster, but a man wearing scuba gear. He introduces himself as "Professor Peter Bartell" (Martin Kosleck), a marine biologist. "I am doing research here. It is lucky you found me". As for the skeleton, the Professor figures it's the work of sharks. The pilot isn't so sure. "Don't sharks usually bite through bone and tear an arm or a leg off? This looks awfully clean. The skeleton is intact and there isn't a scrap of flesh".
"I have seen it many ways", says the Professor.
"Alright, well.....you're the expert", the pilot replies, dropping the matter for the moment.
The Professor takes the trio back to his tent for some tea. "You can try to fly out in the morning", he suggests. The actress, needing her booze, asks the pilot to go back to the plane to retrieve her suitcase, in which a bottle is stashed. Knowing it will go easier for everyone if she gets her fix, he agrees. While he is walking back through shallow water, he sees a phosphorescent glow in the foam. "Hey! Professor Bartell! Come and look at this"! The Professor comes running from his tent, followed by the two women.
"Oh, my goodness", says Bartell. "Don't move! Stay right where you are".
Bright little critters are in the water, lit up like fireflies and about the same size. The pilot raises a foot - big mistake! - and at that, several of the critters attach themselves to his shin. Holy smokes! There are boring holes in his skin, as if they are secreting acid! It's totally gross, his leg is turning into raw meat and.........just in the nick of time, the Professor digs the critters out with his knife. He bandages the pilot up with strips made from the assistant's blouse, and they all return to the tent for the second time.
But at least the actress now has her whiskey. In fact, they all could use a shot.
"What do you think they are, Professor"? asks the assistant, referring to the glowing critters.
"Some kind of marine life", replies Bartell, stating the obvious. "They might come from the deep, which would explain the phosphorescence. Perhaps they were washed ashore by the storm. I've never encountered them before, but they're obviously deadly".
He's not being honest here. Keep in mind that Professor Bartell is a German (pronounced CHermann, much in the same way as one pronounces CHames May-son). We're only one generation removed from the war, and not all the Nazis were captured. In truth, Bartell knows exactly what the Glowing Critters are. But we aren't there yet, so allow me to continue.
The next morning, the pilot goes out to try and start the plane, but finds it washed out to sea. The actress is passed out nearby, her bottle in one hand, the airplane's anchor rope in the other. It looks like she got drunk and untied the anchor for some crazy reason. Now the plane's beyond reach and they're stuck. We know it's not the actress's fault, but the pilot doesn't. He's furious. Worse, he notices that the phosphorescent foam has now spread out along the coast. Whatever these things are, they're multiplying! (following an ironclad rule of sci-fi).
Suddenly he's got more important things to do than yell at the actress. "We've gotta go alert the Professor"! But wait! The actress is pointing toward the water. A man on a raft approaches. He can save them! They try calling out to him, to warn him away from the shore, but he can't hear them because he's spouting mantras. He's an early prototype Hippie, circa 1964. Somehow he makes it past the glowing foam and lands his raft on the beach, where we can get a closer look at him. In those days, before Flower Power debuted, the Hippie Paradigm had yet to be established. In the early 1960s, what became known as a Hippie was usually portrayed as a kaftan-and-sandal wearing Health Food freak with an Eastern philosophy and a Beatnik vocabulary. The pre-Hippie almost always had shorter hair than his successors, rarely past the collar. All of these things are in evidence here. The rafter even has an Eastern name, "Omar", though he speaks with a Texas accent. He's clearly on scene to provide comic relief, which he does admirably, but Professor Bartell is eventually gonna have to get rid of him, because he can't allow anyone to leave the island.
He has a generator, you see, a huge, solar powered thing that can produce a million volts. He even shows it to the castaways, telling them he can use it to kill off the spreading band of "flesh eaters" that by now are surrounding the island. "We'll use one of my cables to create an electrode, and throw it into the ocean. Hopefully that will destroy them"! What he doesn't say is that the electricity actually has the opposite effect - it makes the doggone things grow, and multiply. He's the maniac who created them.
"The Flesh Eaters" is really well done in many ways. It has great characters (Rita Morley and Martin Kosleck stand out as the Actress and the Professor), an interesting story, a comic element (the rafter) that's introduced at just the right time, and excellent black and white photography that includes art house camera angles. It has unique special effects - the acidic, luminous "flesh eaters", and it's got a great villain (the Professor again). It's even got a Nazi backstory the Professor explains near the end, with death camp experiments shown in flashback.
Howwwww-ever........now just a moment - we'd better pause. Can you handle an extended however? Okay then, let's do it, because it's needed to complete the review. All together now : Howwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww - evvvvvvvvvvvver, despite all these positives, there is one major drawback to this movie.
It drags on for-evah. Can we do a Barbra Streisand accent on that word? Can we say "for-evah"? Better yet, "for-EVAH", with the accent on the second syllable.
Yeppers and yes indeedy, folks. 91 minutes is waaay to long for a movie like this. It should've run about 65 to 70, tops, but instead it's padded out with endless scenes of drunken arguing and pointless character development. The Actress character gets to do her Method Thing as a sarcastic alcoholic, and it sure gets tedious after awhile. Also, the "reveal" that the Professor is behind the creation of the flesh eaters comes way too late and is obvious from the early going. He's a German for God's sake, and this is 1964, so of course he's a Nazi. These factors do unfortunately take away from the end result, and while "The Flesh Eaters" still merits a positive appraisal - Two Regular Thumbs Up - it's a little bit hard to sit through. Toward the end, I found myself looking at the corner of the screen to see how much time was left. I'm still gonna recommend it because of all the good things mentioned above (and some of the fans love it), but you may wanna bring along a pillow if you need a quick nap. //////
That's all I know for the moment. I'm gonna go for my CSUN walk now, as the sun is setting. I hope you had a great day, and I'll see you later tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment