Flesh Eater has become something of my go-to dumb horror movie to revisit over the Halloween season. It first entered into the lives of the British public back in 1993, when it was known as ‘Zombie Nosh’. Prior to that this was a film you’d occasionally see mentioned in American magazines like Fangoria and Gorezone, but appeared too gory and too obscure to warrant a UK release…that was until Vipco came along. By 1993 Vipco were pretty indiscriminate when it came to what they were putting out. At the same time people were learning the hard way that not every Vipco video release was going to be another Zombie Flesh Eaters, Shogun Assassin or The Deadly Spawn. Although the company had come back strongly in the early 1990s with titles like those, only a couple of years down the line they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with borderline unreleasable movies like Brain Fix and Flesh Eating Mothers, or bores like Death of a Nun and The House Where Death Lives. So, by this time Vipco releases were best approached with a degree of caution, and the company was beginning to acquire the nickname ‘Shitco’. I do remember that Zombie Nosh came out the same time as Vipco’s release of Night of the Bloody Apes. Both made it to the shelves of HMV the same week, and like a fool I picked Zombie Nosh over buying Night of the Bloody Apes instead. A costly decision since that Vipco release of Night of the Bloody Apes instantly became a collector’s item, due to the fact that it was accidentally released uncut and had to be withdrawn from sale. So sadly when I came back for it the next week, Vipco’s Night of the Bloody Apes VHS was gone from the shelves, never to be seen again. For further fear of kicking myself, I’m not even going to try and look up how much that Night of the Bloody Apes tape fetches these days, but I’m damn sure it’s more than their release of Zombie Nosh, destined to become the unwanted, unloved deadwood of the VHS era.
Only Vipco would have been interested in putting out a film like this in the early 1990s, and they’d certainly be the only company interested in releasing it as Zombie Nosh. A re-titling, apparently in keeping with Vipco boss Mike Lee’s puerile sense of humour. This being the man who insisted on the farting sound effects that accompany the ‘Muck Men’ in his 1986 production ‘Spookies’. By all accounts the tone can always be relied upon to be lowered when Mike Lee is around.
This is a film that floated around under a number of titles, it was initially known as Revenge of the Living Zombies, then Zombie Nosh, before finally settling on Flesh Eater (onscreen title Flesh Eater: Revenge of the Living Dead) which now tends to be regarded as the official title. Whatever you call it, this was the magnum opus of actor/director/producer/cameraman Bill Hinzman (1936-2012), whose 15 minutes of fame rested on his appearance as the graveyard ghoul in the opening of the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead. Hinzman was one of a group of people –including John Russo and Russell Streiner- who spent the rest of their careers attempting to monetize their connection to Night of the Living Dead. Their output inadvertently putting forward a strong case that George Romero was the real talent on that film.
Famously, no one involved in Night of the Living Dead ever made a great deal of money out of the film, due to it accidentally being released without a copyright notice, immediately placing it in the public domain. Meaning anyone can release the film, air it on television, make bad remakes of it, or colorize it with crayons. In the UK, I don’t think the public domain status of Night of the Living Dead really became well known till the DVD era. All the British video releases of NOTLD, the pre-cert one on Intervision, the colorized version that Palace put out in the 1980s, and the restored, b/w version that Tartan released in the 1990s, all had an air of above board legitimacy to them. Its only when DVD came along that its public domain status was exploited to the max, resulting in the situation we have today, where if all the UK DVD releases of Night of the Living Dead were lined up together they’d probably stretch from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Even now disgraced tabloids got in on the act, when the News of the World gave out their own DVD release of the film free with the paper. Britain’s nadir when it came to ripping off Night of the Living Dead though seems to be the made at a Butlin’s Holiday Camp, shot in 3-D remake of NOTLD starring Gemma Atkinson as Barbara. This has been sitting on the shelf since 2013, although if you’ve ever wanted to see ‘Buuuurrbuuura’ depicted with a strong Bury accent, a two minute trailer for ‘Night of the Living 3D Dead’ lies in wait for you on YouTube. I’m sure we can all agree that what was sorely lacking in the original Night of the Living Dead was a fetish for Gemma Atkinson’s feet and a stuffed 3D squirrel.
What with everyone and their barber dragging the name of Night of the Living Dead through the mud, why shouldn’t the people who were actually involved in NOTLD also get in on the act. Flesh Eater then was Bill Hinzman’s attempt to make money off that film, having been cruelly deprived of actual royalties. Flesh Eater is basically a bad 1980s cover version of NOTLD, (sort of) performed by the original artist, but with all of the intelligent lyrics jettisoned in favour of gore and female nudity. Flesh Eater grew out of a Pittsburgh Sci-Fi convention where Hinzman began to get recognized, alerting him to the fact that he and his NOTLD character had an audience. Despite Hinzman’s plan to bring back his NOTLD character being met with a letter of attorney from George Romero, Hinzman pressed ahead with his attempt to turn his NOTLD graveyard ghoul into a horror icon in the era of Freddy and Jason. Flesh Eater is pretty blatant when it comes to Hinzman reviving his NOTLD character, same clothes, same make-up, with only a few alterations presumably to appease George Romero’s lawyer. Hinzman’s zombie is now super-strong, with the ability to throw men half his age around rooms. Hinzman’s zombie hoards are also prone to making ‘arrrrr’ and ‘ayyyyyeee’ noises, making them sound more like pirates than the living dead. Hinzman’s zombies always seem to be on the verge of saying ‘pieces of eight on a dead man’s chest’. Although NOTLD co-writer John Russo wasn’t involved with this film (in fact Hinzman’s intension to make the film was also meant with a letter of attorney from Russo) Flesh Eater subscribes to a back-story that Russo is forever trying to push in his own NOTLD related ventures. That of NOTLD’s zombie outbreak being the result of a Satanic cult whose black magic is responsible for bring the dead back to life. A path that puts these efforts at odds with Romero’s post NOTLD films which increasingly point to medical or scientific explanations. Not for a moment do you believe that devil worship or the supernatural play any part in the world of Dawn…Day…Land…Diary or Survival of the Dead.
Favouring the Russo, rather than Romero, take on the NOTLD mythology, Flesh Eater finds Hinzman’s zombie being accidentally released from his coffin by a farmer. Quite how he came to be in a pad-locked coffin after the events of NOTLD, is left to the imagination, cryptic references to events that happened many years ago at a farmhouse seem to be as legally close this film can get to proclaiming itself a NOTLD sequel. Natch, since this is the 1980s, a bunch of teenagers, all of whom look like they’re in their 30s, are on hand to party, be massacred and brought back as zombies. After all what self respecting teenager doesn’t want to drink cold beer and make out in the chilly, autumnal looking Pennsylvanian wilderness. Whatever else can be said about Flesh Eater, there isn’t a great deal of filler here. It is a film that knows exactly what the VHS era audience wanted, namely zombies milling around and gory deaths, neither of which you’re ever far from in Flesh Eater. Before long, Hinzman has torn out the throat of the farmer, impaled another character on a pitchfork, and pulled out the heart of a female victim. Having had their numbers decimated, what remains of the group of teenagers holds up in an old farmhouse for a Night of the Living Dead re-run, yes….they do that boarding up of the windows bit, yes….there is a cowardly Harry Cooper type among the group. Whereas it took the entire movie for the zombies to storm the farmhouse in Night of the Living Dead, Flesh Eater takes all of about ten minutes to work its way through that plot.
Imagine a version of Night of the Living Dead that made the most blandish, forgettable characters from that movie the main protagonists. That’s what Flesh Eater does, the only two characters who go the distance here being Bob and Sally, the film’s equivalent of NOTLD lovebirds Tom and Judy. Bob, played by John Mowad -or as I like to call him ‘Sylvester McCartney’- might be one of the more memorable actors in Flesh Eater. Not on account of his acting (which is as underwhelming as everyone else’s) but due to his remarkable resemblance to both Sylvester Stallone and Paul McCartney. Celebrity lookalikes might be ten a penny, but Mowad must be fairly unique for resembling two famous people, especially as the two parties in question don’t really resemble each other. By rights someone should have taken Mowad to one side, pointed out his resemblance to these famous people, and he could have made his fortune that way, rather than making $25 a day appearing in horror films. Clearly this wasn’t the case though as Mowad returned several years later in Santa Claws (1996) another film “from the makers of Night of the Living Dead whose names weren’t George Romero”.
The rest of Flesh Eater consists of Sylvester McCartney and his girl running around trying to alert others, only to be given the brush off, at which point the zombies show up, make pirate noises and eat everybody. It’s rare for a scene in this film to end without a blood splattered payoff. The fact that Flesh Eater takes place on Halloween allows the zombies to move around with immunity, being easily mistaken for Halloween revellers, while simultaneously resulting in Macca’s attempts to raise the alarm being dismissed as a Halloween prank. Going to their deaths as a result are a succession of farmers, cops and an entire family with Hinzman indiscriminately murdering the mother, the daughter (played by Hinzman’s own daughter Heidi) and a fresh out of the shower babysitter. Director Bill Hinzman is especially fond of casting actor Bill Hinzman in scenes opposite nubile young actresses, one of the perks of being a filmmaking multi-tasker, I guess.
Considering that it is set on Halloween, some of the outfits characters adopt in this film are pretty darn puzzling. As a kid did you ever feel like celebrating Halloween by dressing up as an angel –surely a street cred killer on Halloween- or as a homeless old vagrant? These though are the costume choices made by the kids of the ill-fated family in Flesh Eater. The boy who dresses up as a homeless man (referred to in the end credits as ‘The Little Hobo’) sports a fake beard that makes it look like he is actually going for the Chuck Norris look, but not even being a kid and looking like Chuck Norris can spare you from a violent death in the merciless world of Flesh Eater.
Some questionable Halloween costumes also dog a second batch of obnoxious teenagers that the film wheels out towards the end. They too eschew horror themed costumes in favour of dressing up as soldiers, karate teachers or in togas (a la Animal House). While the girls come in hula skirts or in a sexy cheerleader get-up (natch’ Hinzman gives himself a scene with that girl, natch’ she’s topless at the time). In typical Flesh Eater anti-logic the only character who bothered to wear a horror themed outfit, the drunk guy dressed as Dracula, is the only character we never see in a zombified state. Flesh Eater’s one stab at originality is to have a character die whilst wearing a chicken outfit, dooming ‘Big Chicken’ to walk the earth as a zombie in a chicken costume. A zombie movie first, fer’sure.
True to NOTLD’s indie roots, Flesh Eater is a piece of blue collar, regional filmmaking through and through. So expect unknown actors, shared surnames amongst cast and crew (indicating family favours have been called in), rural Pennsylvania locations and no Hollywood airs and graces here. Bleached denim, baseball hats and lumberjack shirts are the predominate wardrobe here. While 1980s Hollywood was busy whoring soft drink brands in their movies, local brew ‘Iron City Beer’ is the subject of product placement here. Tagged onto recent DVD releases of Flesh Eater is ‘Flesh Eater: Back into the Woods’ a half-hour making of documentary that is pure comedy gold. Much in the way that the ‘Blood, Boobs and Beast’ documentary about Don Dohler, rehabilitated Dohler’s films in the eyes of many, similar stories about the pratfalls of low-budget filmmaking here help humanize the Flesh Eater crew, make you realize the odds they were up against and bring a whole new dimension to Flesh Eater. If the film is a first time watch for you, I’d highly recommend checking out the making of documentary beforehand, being privy to all the backstage drama and craziness adds allot to viewing the film itself. Supervisory producer/actor Andy Sands and Make-up artist Gerry Gergely are especially rich sources of unenviable yet wild and hilarious stories about the film. Between them they have enough anecdotes to suggest its making could have formed the basis for a zany 1980s comedy with Hinzman as its disaster prone hero ‘Ernest Makes a Zombie Movie’ if you will. The trials and tribulations that befell the crew included a dancer, hired to do nude scenes, who had to be recast after she showed up on set with a black eye. The assistant make-up artist, a wannabe rock star, also made his presence felt on the film by crashing his father’s truck into Gergely’s car on the first day of shooting “after that he damn nearly decapitated me with a band saw blade which he broke…and smashed my thumb the second day of shooting with a hammer while I was holding a nail” remembers Gergely.
All the comedy highlights of the documentary belong to Hinzman though, whether it’s accidentally chewing down on a pig’s heart under the false impression it was a prop heart (“what are you trying to do poison me? This isn’t gelatin, this is a real heart”). Hinzman’s cost cutting decision to make his own blanks for the production, also resulted in him being shot in the foot while directing a scene. Puns about Hinzman biting off more than he could chew and shooting himself in the foot by making Flesh Eater….just seem too easy to make. Hinzman himself emerges as a very likeable, down to earth, family man with only the slightest hint of bitterness that Romero’s success wasn’t extended to other NOTLD alumni “you can hit a lucky streak, like George Romero did, and get a reputation, but most of us just keep struggling along and taking out the garbage like everybody else does”. The making of documentary does give you a greater admiration, if not of Hinzman’s talent, than his ‘have a go’ attitude. Even if the film was a cynical NOTLD cash-grab, the pig’s heart and foot shooting incidents convince you that the man paid his dues along the way.
I suppose you could consider Flesh Eater the American equivalent of Italy’s Burial Ground/ Zombi 3/ Nights of Terror (it can certainly go head to head with that film in terms of aka titles). Its ultra gory, occasionally perverted, has no intelligence behind it whatsoever and frequently threatens to OD on unintentional hilarity. In other words it was the perfect fodder for gore obsessed teenagers with low-attention spans and easy access to VCRs. So of course I loved this film back in the early 1990s, and although it is slightly more embarrassing to admit it today the fact that I’m writing about it must mean I’m still a sucker for Flesh Eater’s idiot-dunce charms. Its Halloween setting makes it the perfect party movie for the time of year when society gives you carte blanche to drink, dress up in silly outfits and gorge on dumb horror movies. What better time then, to watch a dumb horror movie in which characters themselves drink too much and end up stumbling around whilst wearing silly outfits, Flesh Eater is Halloween in a nutshell. So this Halloween, raise a glass to the legacy of Bill Hinzman, the man who gave us the iconic graveyard zombie in Night of the Living Dead, then years later returned to give us a zombie dressed in a chicken costume.
