Flesh Eater is a low budget zombie movie from 1988. I bought this DVD last year at Weekend of Hell. I actually heard about this movie a long time ago but I was never really interested in it. The main reason being that it is a zombie movie with Bill Hinzman directing and acting in it. Hinzman is mostly known for playing the zombie in the famous graveyard scene in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. It’s not that I have anything against the guy. But this movie always seemed like a cheap cash in on Romero’s success. Still I was always a bit curious. So when I saw this DVD at Weekend of Hell I decided to buy it and give it a go.
Honestly there isn’t much of a story in this film. But I’ll do my best to explain. A group of teenagers go on a hayride on Halloween. They decide to stay in the woods over night to party and drink. The local farmer who drove the tractor finds a large tree stump which, for some reason, he needs to pull out with his tractor. Underneath the tree trunk he finds a stone which seems to be some kind of a seal. He opens the seal and there is a coffin underneath it. Inside the coffin is of course a corpse. But the corpse isn’t as dead as it seems to be and actually kills the farmer. This zombie is played by Bill Hinzman, and is basically the same character he plays as in Night of the Living Dead. Now this zombie goes for the teens killing of most of them, and they also turn into zombies. Now the zombies go for the nearby town and raise some hell.
So like I said the film hasn’t got much of a story. Most new characters that are introduced during the plot are being killed off within the next 10 minutes or so. So much for character development, haha. But this is a movie that you shouldn’t take to seriously. It’s very low budget and the acting is just plain awful, and sometimes funny where it’s not supposed to. But still I like this movie quite a lot. The main reason being the gore. The movie is just an all out gore fest, not an Olaf Ittenbach gore fest, but still a lot of gore. The movie isn’t slow at all and thus has a nice pace because people are getting killed constantly. Most of the kills are pretty explicit. Seems like all budget went to the blood and gore effects. And I have to say they did a great job on these effects. They are all very well done and they got real creative with the kills. Also I have to mention the music. The soundtrack doesn’t have much variety, but the music is really great and does add something to the cheesy 80’s feel of this film.
This DVD is released by Shriek Show. The film looks pretty good, and is not a straight up VHS conversion. The sound is actually kind of weird. But that has to do that sound of the film itself that already sounded weird, and I think Shriek Show did the best they could with this. All of the sound and voices seemed to be dubbed. And sometimes this sounds kind of annoying. I watched the trailer and the sound in there was even worse. The DVD also features a 35 documentary called “Back Into The Woods”. It shows how some of the effects where done and cast members talking about making this movie. Also Bill Hinzman tells about his character and how it is basically a rip-off of his character in Night of the Living Dead. The DVD also has the entire soundtrack with a photo gallery. And it has a pizza commercial inspired by Night of the Living Dead with Hinzman reprising his famous role.
After seeing this movie I did change my mind. I enjoyed quite a lot. But it still feels a bit like a cheap knock off of Romero’s zombie films. But honestly this movie is still better than the crap Romero made with his second “…of the dead” trilogy. I would recommend this DVD, I think it’s great that a movie like this still gets some nice extras on it. Most releases of these kind of movies are pretty cheap and you’re lucky if you even get a trailer as an extra. So if you like low budget horror/zombie movies from the 80’s you should definitely give this a try.
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ROBERT LEE (Tuesday, 12 July 2016 06:43)
First of all, it has been decades since I was into watching horror genre, especially zombies. I just had to read your post when I saw the title. The title itself is ... let's say kinda enticing. Of course being a B-movie, anyone watching shouldn't expect much, right? It's fascinating to think too, that producing cheap movies can actually make people rich. Imagine, low budget, and after all these years, any DVD sold adds to the income of the movie rights owners?
Tariq (Sunday, 11 September 2016 20:45)
Very well