Boring

Am I Missing Something?

A lot of fun.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The very definition of ultra cheap and incredibly bad. The one time mega-star Veronica Lake has the sorriest wrap-up to any cinematic career of any once great performer. Apparently filmed in someone's house decorated in awful late 60's fashion-orange carpeting, textured wallpaper etc. on a budget of apparently 1.98 this thing is beyond dreadful. To say Veronica is the best thing in the film isn't even damning her with faint praise considering this is full of some of the worst acting imaginable, honestly you could see better in a third grade school play. She really isn't even that good and the hard years and booze have left her a frowzy mess dressed in a very unbecoming sweater and slack suit. On top of the unrelenting cheapness and non existent direction is a repulsive story that is as unbelievable as it is tasteless. For Lake completest ONLY and even for them a very sad experience. She would be gone within three years of completing this horrid, worthless mess.

Flesh Feast (1970) BOMB (out of 4) Yes, sadly Veronica Lake's final film is as bad as you've heard. In the film a newspaper editor starts to do some investigating after his star reporter phones him up on a hot story only to soon after be murdered. The story then turns to Dr. Elaine Frederick (Lake), a mad scientist who is doing work on dead tissue for a secret experiment. FLESH FEAST is without question one of the worst horror films out there and the only question it really leaves the viewer with is if it's actually worse than director Brad F. Grinter's next movie BLOOD FREAK. No matter how you slice it this is a really bad movie that has very little going for it. I read a lot of posts with people asking why Lake would appear in something like this but the biggest question is why she'd put her own money up for a project like this. However, if you really think about it it's rather clear that her career wasn't going anywhere and I'm sure many told her that appearing in a film like this would get her name back out there and that the genre was easy to make money in. I'm really not sure where to start on the badness of this film but lets just say that there's really nothing good to mention. The performances are all extremely bad, although Lake doesn't come off as bad as she could have. Just check out the one lady who witnesses some "meat" in a basement around the forty-eight minute mark. The woman goes into a hysterical scream but before she runs out of the basement she turns to check out what made her scream again. The direction really can't be found but I'm going to guess that the main job was to bring it in on budget. The story itself is all over the place as it seems to jump around whenever it wants and without any explanation. The only half-way decent thing going on is the big twist in the final minutes, which has sadly been ruined by most reviews (even Leonard Maltin) that give it away. It's certainly campy to the extreme and it's a shame the rest of the movie wasn't as campy so that it would have been more entertaining. The 72-minutes really drag along and there's really nothing more that can be said.

***BIG SPOILERS!*** "Flesh Feast" of 1970 is a more than unworthy conclusion to the great Veronica Lake's career. This has the wide reputation of being an awful stinker, and rightly so, I must say. As a huge fan of low-budget Horror/Exploitation, especially from the 70s, I nonetheless chose to watch this, mainly due to the cool camp-looking picture on this site, but after watching it I had to recognize that the picture actually has nothing to do with the film. The picture here on this site is the cover of a DVD collection entitled 'Flesh Feast' containing four films, including Sergio Martino's "Mountain Of The Cannibal God" and Dal Tenney's "I Eat Your Skin". What the collection does not include, however, is this boring turkey. "Flesh Feast" is not only camp and ridiculous, but mostly quite tedious, which is even more pathetic regarding that the film is only 70 minutes long. Also, don't get fooled by the title, the film is not gory at all. Yet it is watchable, if only for its trashiness and, especially, the extremely stupid, but therefore somewhat entertaining ending. The film follows a ridiculous plot about Dr. Elaine Frederick (Veronica Lake), an ingenious female scientist who can somehow rebuild youth with the help of flesh-eating maggots (don't ask how). A bunch of criminals (or terrorists, or whatever), who are paid by a radical political group assign the doctor to restore the youth of a 'mysterious' commander. After an endless hour of nonsensical drivel, it turns out that the mysterious commander is actually Hitler himself. It was quite obvious before, but I still had to burst out laughing because the film's finale was so unbelievably silly and unintentionally hilarious... This is a film that is very inadequate as the last film of a great actress and former beauty queen like Veronika Lake. Except for lake, the performances are ridiculously bad, even for a zero-budget production like this. Bad performances, however, are something I can easily forgive in films like this one. What I can not forgive, though, is extreme boredom. The final five minutes make this watchable for hardcore fans of camp stuff, but I would still recommend to skip it.

Without a doubt one of the most attractive and seductive ladies of the silver screen was Veronica Lake. She had a distinctive look and a distinctive quality that few actresses were ever able to duplicate. With such landmark films as Sullivan's Travels, The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, and This Gun for Hire under her belt, Veronica was a a star of epic proportions, and then things fell apart. She made a string of poorly conceived and received films, spiraled into the dark world of alcoholism and faded into obscurity. She died in the early 70's at the age of 53 from hepatitis. The 4'11 blonde bombshell reduced to an obscure reminder of a faded glory. Before her unfortunately uneventful death, Veronica made one last film in 1970 called Flesh Feast. The premise for Flesh Feast is as follows: a female doctor once connected with the Third Reich has developed a way to make men look younger through a treatment of using maggots, that have fed on human flesh, applied to their face. Intrigue abounds as former Nazis(strangely most of them having fake Italian accents)congregate in this home where science is buzzing with new scientific progress. The doctor and her espionage friends are waiting for Mr. Big to come. Well, to tell you any more would ruin the inane ending. It certainly is a very poorly crafted story. The film is poorly made on so many levels. You know you are in trouble when the name of the actor with top billing AFTER Ms. Lake is named Phil Philbin. I laughed for minutes seeing just his name and knew where this film was going: no where. There is almost no blood in this film. There are no scary moments. There is no suspense. The film seems to be nothing more than a few guys getting together in Florida with a personal movie camera and shooting the film. Of course it is the presence of Veronica Lake that is being sold. She had not made a movie at this time in five years and only one in the last ten years. It seems that alcohol had become such a part of her life that she was once found as a barmaid in a hotel. Ms. Lake gives a stilted performance at best, but clearly has more talent than anyone involved in front or behind the camera. The director shows her in those old woman pant suits so fashionable then...and now...and never tries to copy the common sense of Ms. Lake's previous directors. When your leading lady is 4'11, you just don't shoot wide shots that make her look like an aged midget against the backdrop of everything and everyone. Veronica has put some weight on and her face is a bit pudgy, but you can tell it is her. She still has that sparkle in her eyes. Although the movie is God awful in almost every way, it certainly should be seen for its value as a cinematic oddity. It is one of the rare chances of seeing a star that burned out... to soon. Fortunately for me, I shall always remember Ms. Lake for her films with Alan Ladd. They were Veronica Lake at her best. But I will remember Flesh Feast as well. It is not good nor horrifying, but a sad reminder what happened to such a wonderful actress.