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MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! THE CORPSE GRINDERS (1971), DIRECTED BY T. V. MIKELS!

Not having had my fill of crank out cinematic cheapness lately, THE CORPSE GRINDERS (an ancient X-mas gift from Brad Kohler, the Judith Crist of BLOG TO COMM) sure comes in handy. A legendary film in its own right (if I can believe the press agents), THE CORPSE GRINDERS has just about everything there is to like that I enjoy in movies from by-the-lines teleprompter acting, realistic on-the-spot locales that look like the shopping plaza just down the street, and best of all FUN, FAKE GRISTLE!!! I can't imagine a good zilch-budged moom pitcher existing without that, and thankfully director Ted Mikels put plenty of that in this film that I believe says a whole load more about what '71 meant to you than BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN ever will!

A great no-name cast stars (and I mean star in the classic Kuchar Brothers sense!) in this tale about a coupla flybynighters who operate a cat food company manned by a skinny alkie and one-legged deaf mute woman with LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE hair that uses human corpses for the main ingredient in their canned kitty gourmet meals! Yep, these two shysters got this crazy gravedigger and his doll-carrying hag wife to rustle the deceased up, then they put 'em on a conveyor belt which chops and purees 'em into moosh which all comes out looking like potty meat product. Then it's sold as a high-priced fancy-feast cat food and that's not all...since the kitties have now developed a taste for human flesh they're attacking their masters and tearin' 'em to shreds!

Like I said, the acting is fantasticly low-keyed and thus a whole lot more realistic than the Meryl Streep emote that we've been inundated with for centuries. At times you might think you're watching an old SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit (Sean Kenney, who plays the male lead, does resemble the young Dan Ackroyd) or better yet those early-seventies educational children's programs that PBS used to run during the school hours for classroom usage sporting titles like INSIDE OUT, RIPPLES and of course the ever-popular KNOWING ABOUT GROWING. But that's the charm of this flick, which captures the mind-numbed capacities of seventies gulcher better than anything that ever did come outta Sopor Nation with its somnambulistic nature (and nurture). The bad guys, especially the one who looks ethnic, are pretty nasty themselves even if the older of the two looks like he just escaped from an episode of IRONSIDE. As for the smaller roles like the aforementioned bulemic drunk and legless mute not forgetting some old hippie who finds his lady pal mauled by her precious feline, I kinda assume from the high quality of their performances that these geezers were just picked off the street and asked to act in a movie! Well, it worked for Dwain Esper!

A really fun frolicking film that I know you better enjoy or (like Madonna and Frida Kahlo) you just can't be my friend, THE CORPSE GRINDERS is an entertaining film for the whole family to enjoy. Don't let that "R" rating (or the fact that this was banned in Norway!) scare you off...there's nothing offensive or grossout about this flick that would warrant such a rating and personally, I wonder how it ended up with a "R" since I for all practical purposes would have given it a "G". It's that family friendly and you don't have to worry about such things as Junior seeing a pair of bare "you-know-whats" and any "down there" hair and the "violence" for wont of a better term is all in good fun. I'll bet the same jamokes who rated this one are the same kinda people who would subject their daughters to such "coming of age" drivel like "Why Does My Peep Smell The Way It Does?" or some other sexual propaganda. Hey, if I were you I'd force my kids, at gunpoint even, to watch this movie! It may be the only way we can SAVE the up 'n coming generation, y'know?