Sporting a title that sounds sort of like a porn film, and a cover that appears to be a blatant rip-off of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie box art, Conall Pendergast’s Flesh Freaks recently turned up here at Casa de Bracken. Since I am physically unable to resist anything that looks and sounds so ludicrous, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this puppy hightailed it right to the upstairs DVD player. So, how did it all turn out? Read on and see…

Barry (Ronny Varno) is some hotshot young archaeology student working at a dig in Belize. However, unlike most archaeological digs, which seem to be dull and incredibly boring affairs, Barry’s dig is livened up when some sort of crazy undead zombie starts killing everyone in sight. Barry is the only survivor, naturally.

He returns home to college, where he learns that the whole attack has been attributed to terrorists. Barry knows better, of course, but he’s not really feeling like talking about it—at least not until his uber annoying friend Stan (Etan Muskat) finally pulls the real story out of him. It wasn’t a band of marauding terrorists—it was the work of space aliens that look like the ones Khan popped into Chekhov’s ear in Star Trek 2 (rich Corinthian space millipedes?), only a lot bigger. Said aliens turn their victims into the ‘flesh freaks’ of the title.

As you can no doubt guess, one of these things has returned from the jungles with Barry, and now humanity’s fate hangs in the balance—unless a bored looking college coed named Jane (Eshe Mercer-James) can stop the invasion.

Perhaps the most fun part of Flesh Freaks is playing ‘spot the ripoff’—a game wherein you point out everything that the film you’re watching has stolen from other (often better) movies. Flesh Freaks is one of the greatest films ever for playing this game—it rips off at least a dozen other films before the credits finally roll. Everything from the aforementioned Wrath of Khan to The Hidden, to Invasion of the Body Snatchers to War of the Worlds is ‘borrowed’ for inclusion in Pendergast’s film. To his credit, though, it generally works. Flesh Freaks often plays like an ultra low-budget pastiche of some of sci-fi and horror’s greatest hits.

What doesn’t work are several key elements—including the pacing (which is dreadful in the second half), the script (which gives us a heroine who sort of just appears out of the background in the middle of the film), and the acting (Eshe Mercer-James doesn’t really pull off the whole zombie killer thing in a very believable fashion). All of these elements conspire to ruin what was at first a very promising low budget horror film.

So, in an attempt to save it, Pendergast piles on the gore—and it works, at least to a degree. The flesh freaks are all just guys running around in really cheesy looking latex masks, complete with giant eye sockets so that the heroes can shove crowbars and shoot nails into their ocular orifices with great ease (which is something that happens repeatedly in the climax). I haven’t seen this much brutal eye violence (or at least brutal eye socket violence) since Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti were popping out eyeballs in the 1980s. Machetes, nail guns, crowbars, and various sets of scissors are all utilized to dispatch the evil flesh freaks—with satisfying results.

Pendergast’s direction is something of a mixed bag. Flesh Freaks certainly has moments where it showcases the director’s burgeoning talent, but it counters each and every one of those with a series of amateurish mistakes that ultimately hurt the film. To be fair, this is an early effort on Pendergast’s part. As he learns more about editing his scenes, showing only what’s absolutely vital (and not padding his running time in the process), and trimming the proverbial fat, he’s only going to get better. His writing, for the most part, is already fairly impressive.

Sub Rosa, in their continuing mission to bring us ultra low budget films of dubious quality (for every Phobias, there’s a The House That Screamed it seems) has released Flesh Freaks on DVD. The presentation is decent, although there were a few instances where I had major artifacting in the picture. I’m not sure if this is a problem with my copy, or something from the production process. I also noticed more than a few audio dropouts in spots, nothing during dialogue, but a few of the screams, and the film’s odd score (which is at least somewhat reminiscent of Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

As usual, the disc is chock full of extras—including a commentary track, trailers, two short films, and more. Fans of micro-budgeted guerilla filmmaking will no doubt find all of these bonuses worthy of perusal.

I wasn’t really sure how to rate Flesh Freaks after seeing it. On the one hand, I think the first half is quite good in spots. The second half, however, loses a lot of steam and drags on for what seems to be an eternity. The film never breaks new ground in terms of genre—it’s content to borrow from other, better, films—but that’s at least part of its charm. Pendergast may not have hit a homerun with this at bat, but he’s certainly shown that he could be a filmmaker to keep your eye on.

Overall, I’d give Flesh Freaks a rental recommendation. Watch it with a group of friends who can appreciate cheesy low-budget horror.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups