- "I'll tell you what it is! There's something weird out in that water. Something that eats the skin right off ya. And now we're stuck here, because your drunken friend dumped the plane."
- ―Grant Murdoch
| The Flesh Eaters | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Credits | |
| Title: | The Flesh Eaters |
| Directed by: | Jack Curtis |
| Written by: | Arnold Drake |
| Produced by: | Jack Curtis Arnold Drake Terry Curtis |
| Music by: | Julian Stein |
| Cinematography: | Carson Davidson |
| Edited by: | Radley Metzger |
| Production | |
| Distributors: | Vulcan Productions, Inc. Cinema Distributors of America |
| Released: | March 18th, 1964 |
| Rating: | Unrated |
| Running time: | 87 min. |
| Country: | USA |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | Unknown |
| Gross: | Unknown |
| Navigation | |
| Previous: | — |
| Next: | — |
The Flesh Eaters is an American horror film directed by Jack Curtis. It was written by Arnold Drake and produced by Curtis, Drake and Curtis' wife Terry Van Tell. It was released theatrically in the United States on March 18th, 1964. The film is notable for being one of the earliest examples of explicit gore used in a horror film and featured copious amounts of blood as well as imagery of distintigrating flesh. The premise of the film involved a group of three central characters whose seaplane lands on an unidentified island somewhere off the coast of New England. There they meet Professor Peter Bartell, a German marine biologist who has been secretly using stolen Nazi research to create a species of mutated, flesh-eating spores. As the characters attempt to survive being on the island, the mad scientist cultivates his deadly spores until they grow to monstrous size.
Cast[]
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Martin Kosleck | Professor Peter Bartell |
| Byron Sanders | Grant Murdoch |
| Barbara Wilkin | Jan Letterman |
| Rita Morley | Laura Winters |
| Ray Tudor | Omar |
| Christopher Drake | Matt |
| Darby Nelson | Jim |
| Barbara Wilson | Ann |
| Ira Lewis | Freddy Miller |
| Rita Floyd | Radio operator |
| Warren Houston | Cab driver |
| Jack Curtis | Radio DJ |
| Arnold Drake | Pete's beat singer |
Notes & Trivia[]
- The tagline to this film is "Behind this Membrane... You Will Be Driven To a Point... Midway Between Life and Death!"
- The Flesh Eaters was released to DVD by Dark Sky Films on October 25th, 2005. A special Deluxe Edition version was also released.
- The Flesh Eaters is not to be confused with the 1988 horror film FleshEater directed by Bill Hinzman.
- Production on The Flesh Eaters began as early as 1961. The project was copyrighted in 1962 and released theatrically in 1964.
- In 1967, when director George A. Romero decided to venture into the realm of horror cinema, he began putting together an independent film called Night of the Flesh Eaters. Distributor Walter Reade disliked the title, citing that it was too similar to The Flesh Eaters and forced him to change it. Romero's movie eventually became known as Night of the Living Dead.
- According to a story relayed by Arnold Drake, Terry Curtis won $72,000 on the television quiz show "High Low." Jack Curtis used a portion of her winnings to help fund production costs for The Flesh Eaters. As such, Terry was credited in the film as a producer. [1]
- Actor Warren Houston also starred in the 1961 film Dark Odyssey, which was written and co-directed by Radley Metzger.
External Links[]
- The Flesh Eaters at AMG
- The Flesh Eaters at IMDB
- The Flesh Eaters at Wikipedia
- The Flesh Eaters at Stomp Tokyo
- The Flesh Eaters at Horrormovies.org