I Eat Your Skin (1964) Review

I EAT YOUR SKIN (1964)

I Eat Your Skin was originally named Voodoo Blood Bath,
but the name was changed so it could be released as a double
feature with the grindhouse movie I Drink Your Blood. The
movie has nothing to do with cannibalism. Here's the trailer.
Notice how there are no scenes shown from I Eat Your Skin.

Director: Del Tenney

Writer(s): Del Tenney

Producer(s): Del Tenney, Jesse Hartman, and Dan Stapleton

Editor(s): Larry Keating

Music: Lon E. Norman

Starring: William Joyce, Heather Hewitt, Betty Hyatt Linton, Dan Stapleton, Walter Coy, and Robert Stanton

Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes

Rating: Not Rated (Comprable to PG)

Genre: Horror

Release Date: October 29, 1971 (made in 1964)

Intro: Well it turns out this movie is a bit of a misnomer (which I explain with the caption on the poster) because well, there's absolutely no cannibalism in the entire movie. When I decided to watch it, I really didn't care. I was at a used CD and DVD store the afternoon before and I came across a DVD with a double feature of this little masterpiece and a Bela Lugosi movie called Scared to Death. It was $3 and I really couldn't resist, and thus this movie became that evening's entertainment. I Eat Your Skin was terrible in pretty much every way possible, yet its badness provided enough entertainment to make itself worth the $3 I spent on it (and I haven't even seen Scared to Death yet!).

Plot: A playboy/author named Tom Harris (Joyce) is out of ideas for his novels, so his boss, Duncan Fairchild (Stapleton) sends him on a vacation to this island where voodoo is being practiced so he can get ideas. Harris, his boss, and his boss's wife Coral (Linton) all fly a private plane to the island and make it there just before it runs out of fuel. The group soon meets up with Dr. Biladeau (Stanton) and Charles Bentley (Coy) who are doing cancer research on the island. Harris soon meets the obvious love interest in Dr. Biladeau's daughter (Hewitt). Meanwhile, natives are also doing their voodoo sacrifice thing and the group is soon attacked by horrifying(-ly bad) zombies that are supposedly created by injecting the dead with snake venom. As his love, and everyone else, falls into danger, Harris must try and save everyone from the natives and their zombies as he tries to uncover a connection.

Things people may find “objectionable”: The movie can get sexist and a little racist at times, but put in the context of the early 1960s, when the movie was made, it can be seen that these were the common views of the time, even if they are objectionable nowadays. The only really gruesome moment is when a zombie hacks off someone's head with a machete. There is absolutely no blood and the scene is done so poorly it becomes laughable, so it really isn't that bad.

Ratings:

     -Directing/Cinematography: 2/10. This movie really was the full vision of its director Del Tenney, who also co-wrote and co-produced it. Sadly, this full vision is stupid and the directing is not very good.

     -Acting: 1/10. Terrible acting. The best actors in this movie are mediocre at acting at very best. The worst performance by far (maybe in the history of mankind) is Betty Hyatt Linton as Coral Fairchild. She plays a spoiled, egotistical wife of the businessman Tom works for. Every time she opened her mouth, I wanted to go Van Gogh on myself and cut off my ears to stop the pain. I was cheering for her character to die the whole movie because I would cringe at every line she said. It's no wonder why her acting career never took off. Also, one of the main villains has a curious resemblance to Al Capone. Observe:

 Al Capone, as played by Robert De Niro in The
Untouchables. 

            A main bad guy in I Eat Your Skin.              

     -Writing: 1.5/10.

          -Story: 2/10. Stupid story with some gaping plot holes.

          -Script: 1/10. Crap. Complete and utter crap. The lines are almost all stupid. The worst lines are the ones they wrote for some of the characters to speak in spanish. They are extremely stupid and simple lines like, "No puedo hacer más!" That is about the most complex line in spanish you will get. It was so bad that I, with my three years of high school spanish, was able to point out mistakes in the spanish. 

     -Special Effects: 1/10. The movie is 48 years old, I get that and the fact that special effects back then were nowhere near as good as they are today. Having said that, the special effects are bad, even for the mid-1960s. The zombies look like they are made by simply putting a papier maché mask on the actors, and the explosions and other effects are laughably awful.

     -Music/Score: 2/10. Incredibly cheesy music throughout.

     -Power/Emotion: 2/10. I really didn't care at all about any of the characters. In fact, I was rooting for all the bad actors and actresses to die throughout just so I didn't have to endure any more of their acting.

     -Adrenaline: 2/10. Not really exciting at all. They try to make it exciting, but they fail pretty badly.

     -Stupidity: 9/10. Stupid is the movie's middle name. I think the producers picked up on that when the movie was first made, since they refused to release it for 7 years until someone needed a filler movie for a double feature. This magnificent shot contributes to the movie's overall stupidity:

Just in case you're confused, the box the zombie is holding is EXPLOSIVE.

     -Humor: Intentional: n/a, Unintentional: 5/10. The movie is not intended to be that funny. However, it ends up being funny just because of how bad the acting and the special effects are.

     -Final Score: I Eat Your Skin was truly awful in pretty much every way imaginable. Its badness both ruins and saves the movie at the same time. While its badness makes the movie bad, the badness is funny enough that it makes the movie watchable and worth my precious $3.