This movie has one of those classic titles that were the bread and butter of the Halcyon days of drive-in movies. How can you not go see a movie called I Eat Your Skin? Well, I certainly can't go without seeing a movie called I Eat Your Skin, especially if it comes to me courtesy of Del "Monster of Party Beach" Tenney. Tenney's movie was originally called Voodoo Bloodbath, but when the movie got picked up to fill a double bill with I Drink Your Blood, the movie where a kid feeds a bunch of hippies some meat from rabid animals, causing them to turn into foaming-at-the-mouth cannibals, Tenney's tropical island zombie adventure became I Eat Your Skin, even though no skin is actually eaten.

The movie is about a writer, his wife, and some assorted others who head out to the menacingly named Voodoo Island, where they run into a mad doctor who has been transforming the locals into bug-eyed, oatmeal-faced zombies under the auspices of trying to cure some disease. Many scenes of white people staring into the jungle while ominous voodoo drums play ensue, until zombie hell breaks out in the final minutes (an assault on the science lab which is vaguely reminiscent of the final assault in Lucio Fulci's Zombie, only much less intense and interesting).

I Eat Your Skin is most often described as being boring, even though it's a short film. And while it's no thrill-ride, I found that I quite liked the movie, certainly more than I'd been lead to expect I would. It's well-acted even if the characters are broad, and there is a lot of energy even if very little is happening. Plus, it has a swinging score. The zombie make-up is pretty bad, but there has certainly been worse, and this is another film cut from the pre-Romero "zombies are enslaved locals" cloth pioneered by White Zombie. It's certainly no White Zombie in terms of quality or inventiveness, but even without being a classic, I Eat Your Skin entertained me.

Labels: Set: Chilling Classics