Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Richard Chatten 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 ending, 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.

utgard14 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.

BA_Harrison Jack Curtis's The Flesh Eaters opens in fine style with a pre-credits scene that reminds me a lot of the first shark attack in Jaws: a couple frolicking on a sailboat end up in the water (the woman minus her bikini top) where they are both devoured by something lurking unseen beneath the surface. Could Spielberg be a fan of this cult flick? I know I am, 'cos it's got virtually everything I could ask for in a low budget 60s monster movie, and then some: a mad scientist, buxom females, a beatnik spouting incomprehensible 'beat-speak', a silly monster or two, graphic violence, and best of all, in the restored version I saw, a spot of Nazisploitation.Byron Sanders stars as seaplane pilot Grant Murdoch, who is hired by beautiful PA Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin) to fly herself and alcoholic actress Laura Winters (Rita Morley) to Provincetown. En route, the plane experiences engine trouble, and Murdoch is forced to land at a remote, supposedly uninhabited island where the pilot and his two passengers must wait for a storm to blow over; there, they meet marine biologist Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck), who is on the island running experiments on a microscopic parasite that lives in the surrounding waters. When a human skeleton is washed up on the beach (holding a bikini top), Bartell claims it to be the work of a shark, but Murdoch is not so sure, suspecting that the shifty looking scientist knows a lot more than he is letting on. Eventually, it transpires that the parasitic organisms in the water are microscopic flesh eaters, the result of Nazi biological weapons experiments during the war, and that Bartell intends to use these creatures for financial gain, and he isn't about to let anyone get in his way.Although the script for The Flesh Eaters is fairly routine for a 60s creature feature, with stock characters and clichéd dialogue, the film stands head and shoulders above most of its B-movie contemporaries thanks to an unusually grim atmosphere, some surprisingly gruesome effects, and its shameless Nazi plot device, which adds a delightfully lurid quality to proceedings. Most monster movies are guaranteed to feature a few characters that won't survive to see the end credits, but rarely do they meet their fate in such nasty ways as they do here, the death scenes including a man having his face eaten away and another being devoured from the inside out leaving a hole in his torso and his ribs and spine in clear view, a bloody gunshot to the eye, and a brutal stabbing. So graphic are these scenes that, even though the film is in black and white, some people still regard this as the first true gore movie, beating H.G. Lewis's splatter classic Blood Feast (1963) by a couple of years (the film was released in 1964, but completed in 1961).Perhaps even more shocking than the gore are the film's Nazi experiments, which predate similar exploitative scenes in films like SS Experiment Camp and Ilsa She Wolf of the SS by over a decade: shot in a documentary style, they depict female prisoners being stripped naked and forced into a test pool teeming with the man-made flesh eaters. The faux realism of these scenes makes them rather uncomfortable viewing despite the silly nature of the experiment itself. Fans of the Nazisploitation genre should definitely give this a watch purely for the sake of completion.The film ends in typically daft monster movie fashion, with the microscopic flesh munchers mutating into a single giant creature that can only be destroyed by an injection of plasma directly into its nucleus. Brave Murdoch risks his life to do so, ending the film with a suitably large explosion.8.5 out of 10, happily rounded up to 9 for the gratuitous scene where Jan takes off her blouse so that Murdoch can bandage his leg.

Michael O'Keefe 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.