Gosh. I...….just don't really know what to say about this one. Back in September, I managed to stop by the Vinegar Syndrome table at the Monster Mania convention in Maryland. Sporting one hell of a catalogue, their selection reads like a listing of forbidden fruits and obscure, buried treasures. They cover a mixture of every genre you can think of, including horror, blaxploitation, women-in-prison flicks, old school erotica, and just plain weird cinematic exploits. Based on the plot alone, I felt as though 1971's The Corpse Grinders was calling my name. Cowritten by one of the men who penned classic schlockfest Eegah and directed by Ted Mikels, whose works of the past have influenced people ranging from Quentin Tarantino (citing The Doll Squad as an influence on Kill Bill) to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew (Girl in Gold Boots was featured in the tenth season), the synopsis is unlike anything I've seen so far during this marathon. Two men who work for a once-successful cat food company find that they are running low on the necessary ingredients that will keep them in business. Rather than continue to pay for their expensive meats, they strike up a deal with folks at a local graveyard: take the dead bodies, buy them for fifty cents a pound, and grind them down to make the product. Unfortunately, there's a rather nasty side effect: every feline friend that eats their canned goods develops an insatiable taste for human blood.
Running for approximately seventy-three minutes, The Corpse Grinders is one of the shortest pictures that I've watched for this year's Unseen Terror, yet it's undoubtedly the most bizarre (so far). What we have on our hands is your classic, glorified Drive-In or 'B' movie, complete with awkward acting, a hokey premise, moments that are meant to shock but bring about laughter, and a look that doesn't exactly scream "now in theaters everywhere." The performances are very all over the map, with protagonists Sean Kenney (Star Trek) and Monika Kelly giving it their none. The segments involving all the poor saps being attacked by their pets consists of them struggling as a cat just kind of grips their neck like a koala bear, while loud, stock cat sound effects play. It's all so gloriously stupid, but simultaneously amusing to no end. Sadly, there are quite a few lulls in the movie here and there, but the hilarious dialogue (particularly from the cemetery caretaker and his cantankerous wife) and occasional cat mauling prevent it from being boring.
If you're still reading this review after I ran down the plot of The Corpse Grinders, then there is a strong possibility that I don't know what else I can say to sell you on it. It's yet another "grab a beer and relax with your friends" type of motion picture that seemed to come out in droves around this time period, and if you're looking for something to add to any upcoming weekend-long marathon, then open up some canned cat food and let this smelly monstrosity into your life. For such a low budget flick, the Blu-Ray from Vinegar Syndrome is handled rather delicately, yet packed with some very solid extras. The 2K transfer looks surprisingly good, though there is a warning from Vinegar Syndrome after you hit "play" that mentions that they did the best job possible considering that there was some previously lost negatives of the film, so some parts appear more polished than others. There's an excellent commentary track provided by fellow filmmaker Elijah Drenner, whose documentary American Grindhouse has been on my radar for a while, but has yet to make its way into my home. Additionally, there's also a very fun interview from 2007 with the late Ted Mikels, who despite having such an incredibly strange body of work, comes across as a very warm, enthusiastic fellow who just adores the world of movies. He also has one wicked mustache, which was somehow the least surprising aspect of this release. You can snag the disc from most websites for about the same amount of money that I paid for it, and it's available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
Also, not that I'm speaking from experience, but I'm fairly certain that if you're going to dispose of a body by shoving them into a meat grinder, you should remove their clothing first. Just saying.
Tomorrow, I need something a bit more "sane" to bring me back to earth. Maybe Poland can provide me with some exquisite material?
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