If you can’t afford a story, you can always borrow some cleavage.
Some people work to the tune of checklists: as each task of a project is completed, a big ol’ checkmark is applied to the list, and when all the boxes are checked, hey, you’re done.
So let’s make a checklist!
Bad title? Check.
Bad audio? Tinny. Check.
Toothmarks on the scenery? Check.
Exploitation? Check.
Bad effects? They’re doing that out-of-focus thing. Check!
Bad plot? Wandering from point to point, yep. Oh, and plot holes. Check check check!
Dubious dialog? Check and a half.
Bizarre death scenes? MEEEEE-OW!
And such is the reality of The Corpse Grinders (1972). Yep, they’re putting corpses through a meat grinder. Nothing interesting in that title. OK, maybe why – it’s because a cat food company is about to go under, and, in search of cheaper raw materials, the pair running the joint have resorted to using a new raw material.
Speaking of pairs, the characters do tend to come in pairs. Let’s meet a few.
There’s the grave-robbers, a husband and wife team. He’s big and blustery, she clings to a doll, even while helping carry the corpses. He wants what’s coming to him, I’m not sure what she’s doing in this relationship. I’m not even sure what she was saying. Helluva accent.
There’s the business owners. They’ve already offed their primary investor – and made him part of their product line, so to speak. The younger, dominant one has to keep the older one in check, as he’s a little interested in the help but nervous as a Yorkie.
Oh, the help? One’s a little slow, the other’s a deaf mute on crutches. They’re intriguing but ultimately only one ends up as product.
All the victims have a cat. MEEOW. Nibbling at the victims’ carotids, mostly.
Then there’s the pair of geese. Food for the grave-robbers? Security geese? (There really is such a thing as a security-llama.) Their role is obscure, perhaps they’re just local color.
And the heroes? This pair is a Doctor and Nurse team who like to smooch. Their cat makes a quick cameo, mainly to sink claws into his chest. They think nothing of it until a corpse is brought in, all messed up in the chest and throat. Reports of other attacks start popping up. And what brand of cat food do they use?
There are a couple of guys who are not in a pair, a hit-man who is helping the cat food company transition to a new mix of products, and a mystery fellow who seems to be taking a lot of notes while people walk by him.
The plot holes? Maybe it was the result of the TV cutting process, but at one point the husband grave-robber is garroted by the hit-man, yet five minutes later he’s being shot. Sadly, the security geese seemed confused and uncertain of the action to take after the wife grave robber went galloping by, hotly pursued by, well, that would be giving away the plot.
And then the dialogue, oh my. It ranged from dully predictable to laughable. Maybe the latter was on purpose. For example, the Doctor calls the Food Adulteration Agency for information on some cat food they submitted for analysis, and the answer? “Nothing adulterous here.” And then when the Doctor and Nurse encounter the deaf-mute and try to speak to her, she taps her ear, and the Doctor says “Oh, she’s a mute, she can’t understand a thing we say.”
Well.
Eventually, Nurse ends up on the conveyor belt leading to the grinding machinery, half-naked, and is heroically rescued by the guy with the notebook (ol’ Doc is nursing his wounds). There, wrecked the ending for you.
Sadly, there are not enough laughs to justify watching this clunker.
