The Corpse Grinders

Yeah that's right, the name of the film I just watched is The Corpse Grinders, a 1971 "horror" directed by a Ted V. Mikels. With such a great title came high expectations, but I realised pretty quickly that the name was as good as it was ever gonna get. Not anywhere near as grisly as I expected, not the least bit scary and would in general have been a total waste of my time, had it not been reasonably goofy and even charming at times.

So, what's the deal? Well, ok. Previously harmless cats are going crazy all over town, biting and even killing their unsuspecting owners. At the same time, dodgy cat food brand Lotus are doing great business. Could there be a connection? Of course there is! Their special secret ingredient happens to be human flesh and this is what's giving the cats their bloodlust. But where does one go for this ingredient? Well, a good place to start would be the cemetary. Lucky for factory owners Landau and Maltby there's a crazy couple living just by the cemetary and they're more than happy to dig up corpses for a bit of cash. Doctor Howard Glass and nurse Angie notice their cat behaving aggressively and when more people are attacked they get suspicious and try to find out what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, Landau and Maltbyy stops using cemetary-fresh corpses for a while and starts killing homeless people instead, working up some good mileage on their factory grinder. It's a race against time, good vs evil. Will Howard and Angie discover the secret and get to Landau and Maltby before more people are killed. And who is that man in a moustache that keeps watching everything? He looks like an undercover cop and acts like an undercover cop. Could he perhaps be....an undercover cop?

There are so many flaws in this film, it would just be tedious going into too much detail. The plot is pretty bad, the script is terrible, as is the acting. It looks like a bad tv soap opera....and so on. But, you know...it kept me interested enough to want to see the end. There are some strange characters that keeps it watchable, but also more confusing since they don't really serve any purpose. There's a one-legged mute woman working in the factory, who for some reason is the only one Landau treats with any kind of respect. He's even quite nice to her. And for someone who is usually pretty quick to throw just about anyone into the grinder, that's pretty unusual. I'm not quite sure what the purpose of this is. To show he has a heart? A bit late for that. Then there's also the weird couple in the cemetary, Caleb and Cleo. Cleo has a doll that she treats like a real child, but we never really find out why.

Hmmm...I doubt I'll ever watch this again, but at the same time I don't regret having seen it. A pretty terrible little oddity of a film.

The trailer...



The Corpse Grinders on imdb