Jack Curtis, who directed this movie, was the voice of Pops Racer and Inspector Detector on the American localization of Mach GoGoGo, which we know as Speed Racer. He also wrote The Deadly Organ, which blows my mind, and did voiceovers for so many Japanese movies and shows. Sadly, he died at 44, as he had pneumonia and was allergic to penicillin. That’s 1970, I guess.

Using the name Carson Davidson, he directed, shot and did pretty much everything there was on this film, aided by a story by Arnold Drake, the creator of the Doom Patrol. How did they pay for it? Game show money. Drake also storyboarded the whole film, creating a comic book of sorts for Curtis to shoot from.

This film is also why Night of the Living Dead is public domain. No, really, go with me for a second. Its distributor, The Walter Reade Organization, was worried that the original title, Night of the Flesh Eaters, would be confused with this movie. When they changed the title, they didn’t properly copyright it.

Jan Letterman (Barbara Wilkin) is the personal assistant to wealthy actress Laura Winters (Rita Morley). Together, they are flying with pilot Grant Murdoch (Byron Sanders) to Massachusetts when their plane has to land after a storm. Ironically, a storm would destroy most of the original equipment needed for this film, doubling the budget.

There, they meet Professor Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck), a marine biologist and Nazi sympathizer — Kosleck left Germany during the war and hated the Third Reich; his roles playing them in so many movies was him getting revenge — who is experimenting with flesh eating kaiju that live on the island. There’s also a beatnik named Omar (Ray Tudor), who shows up for the kids.

Where this movie gets away from the pack of others is that beyond having a huge flesh eating monster that floats on the beach, it has way more gore than you’d expect. This is a movie unafraid to stab a character, shoot them in the face and then feed them to a monster. And if you hate beatniks, stay tuned. Omar throws his guts up from the inside out.

Yet this is more than just a silly black and white horror movie. All of the characters have motivations and are complicated, not just cardboard cutouts of the same heroes and villains you’ve seen in films like this.

That said, it did have a William Castle gimmick when it played theaters. Only blood can stop the flesh eaters and you were given instant blood capsules in case a flesh eater got loose from the screen and attacked you.

When this was re-released in 1968 as a double feature with Macumba Love, a new sequence of Nazis using the flesh eaters was added. It was added by M.A. Ripps, who also produced Common Law Wife and All the Young Wives.

I nearly forgot! Radley Metzger edited this movie!

You can watch this on Tubi.