Leofwine_draca Like Joan Crawford and TROG, FLESH FEAST was the swansong for former Hollywood starlet Veronica Lake, here aged beyond recognition and reduced to playing a mad scientist role in the tale of an anti-ageing treatment - administered via maggots, no less - which is hijacked by a group of Neo Nazis. The twist, of course, is that the film's reveal involves the body of Adolf Hitler, brought back to unceremonious life for the big twist climax. Unfortunately, this film is so cheaply made that the only reaction the viewer has to it is to laugh at it. It's inept throughout, badly scripted and acted, with the effects limited to cruddy make-up and rice standing in from the maggots. Even bad movie lovers will be hard-pressed to enjoy this one.

adriangr I bought this for a few dollars in a second-hand store as I had long been curious about Flesh Feast as it is Veronica Lake's last ever movie. That's really the only thing it has going for it. Flesh Feast is an utterly forgettable, amateurish waste of time.Lake stars as a "doctor" in some kind or nursing home/retreat who does secret experiments using maggots to restore youth. She is called upon by a foreign military group to treat their leader and this eventually leads to the "shock ending".The film doesn't make a lot of sense. All the acting is poor, and Veronica Lake is no exception, although as all the dialogue is dubbed, it's hard to tell how good she may have been if the sound had been recorded live. If Veronica Lake was a beauty in her Hollywood heyday, she certainly isn't here. She first appears in a black suit and hat which do hint at a glimmer of sophistication, but this is soon discarded and she spends rest of the movie wearing either a white lab coat or what appears to be a hideously frumpy blue bowling shirt. The movie saves the most unflattering view of it's star for the ending, when Lake is seen in close up, laughing, which unfortunately showcases her mouthful of brown rotten teeth. Inbetween gawking at Lake, most of the film is very boring. For bad movie fans though, there is one spectacularly hilarious scene when a young woman enters the forbidden laboratory and comes across a dissected corpse. It's hilarious because the body parts are hanging from the ceiling in clear view of the woman the entire time, but the actress feigns ignorance of the horrible sight until she has walked all the way across the room, past the legs, arms and head dangling inches from her nose (in bright harsh lighting no less), until she is finally cued to turn around, "spot" them, and then burst into the hammiest screams of horror you have ever seen. Much hilarity, and almost worth buying for that scene alone.But when I say "almost" worth buying, I really mean that. The current DVD release by Telefilms International/Beverly Wiltshire Filmworks is atrocious. It's a DVD recording of a video tape, and not a very good one at that. The source video itself is fullscreen, blurry and comes complete with dropouts, wobble and flickers, all lovingly preserved in the digital medium. Worse still, the print that the video was made from is crackly and full of scratches, missing frames and blotches on the print. But as there appears to be no official release available, I presume this is currently the only way to see the masterpiece that is "Flesh Feast". For the very curious only, and while this is the only print available, I advise paying no more than five dollars for a copy. If a new print of "Flesh Feast" is ever found and remastered, it might make it onto a Classic Bad Movie DVD list... but not in this state.

Witchfinder General 666 ***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.

BaronBl00d 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.