The Corpse Grinders (1971)

For once the trailer doesn't lie - there really wasn't anything like The Corpse Grinders.  Probably one of the best known titles cranked out by prolific exploitation director/producer Ted V Mikels (whose output also included such celebrated low budget classics as The Doll Squad and The Astro Zombies),  The Corpse Grinders revels in its poverty row production values and ludicrous plot, resulting in a truly bizarre horror-comedy.  The title pretty much sums up the plot: a failing cat food company can no longer afford to buy the meat for its products, so instead turns to grinding up corpses and canning them.  Inevitably, the cats fed on the stuff start attacking their owners, having acquired a taste for human flesh, so a local vet and his nurse investigate.

The film's cheapness is embodied in the corpse grinding machine itself, which appears simply to be a box with various bits attached to it - corpses go in one end and sausage meat comes out the other.  The film has fascinating credits: it was co-written by Arch Hall Sr, another notorious exploitation film maker, (whose son, Arch Hall Jr often starred in his creations) and actor Bryan Cranston's father, Joe Cranston.  The lead actor, Sean Kenney, is, of course, famous for having played the older, wheelchair bound, Captain Pike in the two part Star Trek episode 'The Menagerie'.   Originally released on a triple bill with The Undertaker and His Pals and The Embalmer, The Corpse Grinders unabashedly sets out to provide cheap thrills and a few laughs and generally succeeds in its ambitions.  Ted V Mikels continued knocking out this type of film (including two sequels to The Corpse Grinders) right up until his death, at the age of eighty seven, in 2016.  We should lament his passing - he was one of the last of a breed of low budget film makers who somehow managed to keep making wild and wonderful exploitation movies with next to no resources whatsoever.  Compared to most of today's joyless big budget studio product, tey are a breath of fresh air.