Reviewed By-Sean Patrick Dolan
Director: Ted V. Mikels
Cast: Sean Kenney, Monika Kelly, Sanford Mitchell, J. Byron Foster, Warren
Ball, Ann Noble
During a "hostile takeover" of the Lotus Cat Food Company, the new
owners, Landau (Sanford Mitchell) and Maltby (J. Byron Foster), discover a new
ingredient that turns out to be "a delicacy for felines"- this secret
ingredient is the corpse of Mr. Babcock, the former owner. However, in a
stagnant economy "raw materials" are often hard to come by, so Lotus
turns to Caleb (Warren Ball), an uncouth, slovenly man who lives near a cemetery
to provide them with corpses fresh out of the grave. Even this
proofs to be less than "cost effective", so Landau begins to resort to
murder to provide fresh meat- starting with his own employees, who include a
retarded man and a crippled deaf mute (both chosen because they could not
possibly divulge the company's secret to the authorities) and then progressing
to the town's vagrant wino population. After the first employee, Willie,
goes through the grinder, Landau sums up Lotus' new corporate philosophy-
"Looks like we won't be needing Caleb anymore. The world is full of
ingredients!"
Unfortunately, the cats who eat the Lotus brand food suffer a side effect- they
become violent man-eaters and attack their owners. Like their cousins, the
tigers in the wilderness, once these felines get a taste of human flesh they
develop an irresistible craving for it. This soon attracts the
attention of Dr. Howard Glass (Sean Kenney) and his nurse Angie (Monika Kelly)
after the doctor performs an autopsy on one of the victims. Soon after,
the couple's cat attacks Dr. Glass and the two make the connection to Lotus Cat
Food. They contact the "Food Adulteration Agency", but the man
in charge doesn't take their allegations very seriously. Tests which the
agency performs come back clean- there is nothing "adulterous or
harmful" found in the samples of Lotus Cat Food that they analyzed.
Still, Angie has a feeling that something sinister IS going on, and she insists
on investigating the company herself, even after Dr. Glass is convinced that
they were wrong about the whole thing. She inevitably falls into the
clutches of Landau and Maltby, and may likely become cat food herself if her
lover Dr. Glass cannot save her in time. . . .
THE CORPSE GRINDERS is an ultra low-grade B-Movie that was obviously produced on
less than a shoestring budget, and consequently production values are very poor-
and the acting is not that much better. Some of the extras in this film
are truly impressive though, if only in that they look like they were taken
directly off the street or possibly from a line in a charity soup kitchen.
Standouts are Caleb's wife Cleo (Ann Noble)- who carries around a baby doll,
sings to it, seats at the dinner table, and attempts to feed it as
if it were actually a real human child- and a Willie Nelson/Charles Manson
hybrid whose wife is killed by her tomcat, Jack. There is very little onscreen
gore and, in fact, the murders all take place off camera. Even scenes of
bodies going through the huge electric grinder are very tame (although I of
course recognize that this was due to massive budget constraints). Most
annoying are "quick-cut" scenes of the grinder which are interspersed
with other scenes in which the psychopath Landau is threatening a potential
victim- this is hardly what film buffs would call a "montage" effect.
Several throwaway scenes are also added to increase the T&A quotient (most
notably one featuring an ill-fated secretary of the Lotus Cat Food Company) but
they are, disappointingly, of the tame "bra and panties" variety.
Like most B-Movies, THE CORPSE GRINDERS relies much more on comedy than thrills
and chills to get by, and there are some attempts in this film which are indeed
humorous. A standout is the partners Landau and Maltby's nocturnal
haggling with Caleb over the "poundage" of his product: "This one
weighs about 170 pounds," says Caleb. "I don't know, a lot of
that looks like bloat to me," counters Maltby. In another scene,
Glass and Angie, after being caught breaking into the Lotus plant, make a lame
excuse about wanting to purchase a case of cat food for a long vacation in which
they are taking along their kitty- Landau actually buys the story. But
other attempts at black humor fall flat, most notably the "morticians'
jokes" in the funeral parlor in a scene from around the halfway mark of the
film. This is a simple film with a very simple plot, which means that
numerous unnecessary scenes were added to flesh it out to its running time of
a mere 72 minutes. Despite the short runtime, it is still boring in parts
and almost totally devoid of action. It also lacks any fully defined
characters- just the amateur sleuth team of Dr. Glass and Nurse Angie and
the psychotically evil duo of Landau and Maltby. B-Movie fans would do
much better to check out Ted V. Mikel's hilarious, smart, and sexy film ASTRO-ZOMBIES
(1969), a slapdash mix of sci-fi, sixties camp, and Cold War-era cloak and
dagger spy intrigue. Apparently this film, THE CORPSE GRINDERS has spawned
a recent remake/sequel, CORPSE GRINDERS II (2000), which I understand replicated
much of the original plot but also threw rival cat and dog aliens into the mix.
The aforementioned ASTRO-ZOMBIES has also recently been remade as MARK OF THE
ASTRO-ZOMBIES (2002). I haven't seen either of these two remakes yet, but
I would love to hear any comments from those of you who have- you can post them
under the "Ted V. Mikels" subject in the Sideshow forum of Cinema
Nocturna's message board.
