Iselin-Tenney Productions
William Joyce, Heather Hewitt, Beey Hyatt Linton, Dan Stapleton, Walter Coy, Robert Stanton
Tom Harris (William Joyce) is a famous writer. But he’s gotten sidetracked chasing pretty girls and is rather behind on his next book. His publisher shows up and offers him the best of both worlds, a trip to the tropical Voodoo Island to study the natives there. An awful typhoon sunk the poor ships of the men of the island while they were out fishing, so the island is filled with 5 women to every man!. But there is a scientist living on the island studying the snake venom which may cure the worlds diseases. But in truth, he’s turning the natives into flesh eating zombies and bulding a zombie army. What a place for an idea for a new story.
This is a black and white very low budget horror film from 1964 originally titled “Zombies” but about 6 years later bought up for re-release as a double feature with “I Drink Your Blood” so it was retitled “I Eat Your Skin” so that the title would fit in with the 2nd feature. However no one really eats any skin here, and the makeup is awful as is the transformation from man to monster!
This is typical 60’s horror film schlock. It’s not as bad as many of the genre, but it’s not that great either. The acting is fairly bad, and the score doesn’t fit very well, but this is a 1960’s drive-in movie feature, and if you’re fan of those kinds of bad B Movies, I have seen many, many worse than this one. Every now and then I have to throw something extremely unusual in my queue to break the boredom, and this was a fabulous change of pace. This was also picked up by Elvira for her “Elvira’s Movie Macabre” series so occasionally you may find this in the 99 cent bin at the local dollar store or drug store. It’s a very good example of the kinds of movies we used to watch on Saturday Night’s Chiller Theater, or at the double feature at the drive-in and it hold up pretty well as an example of the genre. This is not Hollywood of the 21st Century. But again, if you’re interested, this is an excellent example of this type of film, far better than most of the monster films. I enjoyed it.
Note: Classic scene to watch for near the end. The guys swim out to a small boat which is mysteriously out in the lake. There is a guard with a huge rifle. They pull the guy in the water, grab his rifle and hit him with it repeatedly, then toss the rifle away in the lake. Then they climb in the boat, and the guy grabs a flare gun. Dialog: “What are you going to do with a flare gun?” “I don’t know but it’s better than nothing.” Dude, you just tossed a rifle into the lake, moron!
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
Movie Review - I Eat Your Skin (1964) {PG} aka Zombies,