Certain films seem to exist solely for the fodder of the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” crew, and an awful lot of those are ‘70s horror films. “Flesh Feast” is one of those sad little movies the MST3K crew probably considered putting on their show, but decided it was too painful for even them to show.
Although it clocks in at just 70 minutes, “Flesh Feast” is the incredibly dull story of female mad scientist and her Nazi war criminal boyfriend. In the basement of her boarding house for young girls, she conducts experiments involving human flesh and a new breed of carnivorous maggots. The underground revolutionaries that she is working for believe the doctor is working on some sort of fountain of youth, but her real plan is to take revenge on a still-living Hitler!
It takes a special kind of movie to cram this convoluted of a plot into such a short time and still produce such a boring film. There are multiple subplots that go nowhere or are forgotten outright halfway through the film, and there are countless scenes of people fooling around with science equipment, walking across rooms, or simply sitting in chairs. All these scenes serve no other purpose than to extend the running time.
These dialogue-free filler scenes are sadly the most tolerable of the movie. As Dr. Frederick, Veronica Lake delivers the best performance of the film, but that’s not saying much. The fact that the once-respected star of “Sullivan’s Travels” never worked again after this film speaks volumes. The same can’t be said for the director, Brad “Just point the camera in the general direction of the action” Grinter, but his career lasted only a few years longer. Also the co-writer, Brad Grinter is the one truly responsible for this sad waste of film. With its ridiculous plot, terrible dialogue and complete lack of directorial style, “Flesh Feast” is one of those cinematic atrocities that makes they could pummel those responsible to get their 70 minutes back. The MST3K crew were wise to avoid this one, as would be everyone else.
