The Corpse Grinders: Ted V. Mikels

After watching nothing but serious art films for several days, Ted V. Mikels' The Corpse Grinders was exactly what I needed. It's a no-budget gore-fest the likes of which Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez wish that they could emulate. It's a film that follows two corrupt businessmen who grind up stolen corpses and turn it into cat food. For whatever reason (the explanation given by the movie is so laughable that it can't be taken seriously) whenever cats eat the corpse-food, it turns them into homicidal monsters which kill their owners. There's an old joke among bad movie aficionados wherein we claim that most terrible movies could be passed off as foreign art-house films if you dub them in a different language and add subtitles. The world of film criticism is so absurd and pretentious that many of us wouldn't be surprised if some writer for the Village Voice claimed that Manos: The Hands of Fate was an un-ironic low-budget masterpiece. And yet, I think that I can sympathize to some extent with the very critics that I've come to laugh at. The Corpse Grinders is by all accounts a terrible movie. But there is just something about it which makes me feel fascinated about it. If I may...ahem...*puts on film critic goggles*...Mikels creates a bleak world full of the grotesque wherein a corpse-cat food business doesn't only seem probable, but inevitable. Not a single character looks like a normal human being. Even the stock characters of the gallant nurse and doctor who save the day seem like wax figures come to life. The terrible state of the film stock somehow creates an bizarre atmosphere that makes the audience feel like they are looking at footage of another world, or perhaps even another dimension. It is disturbing, unnerving, and downright uncanny in its depiction of a world absent of morals and daylight. *takes off film critic goggles* Everything that I just said is complete and total bullshit. The Corpse Grinders isn't a work of art. It's a cheap piece of exploitative splatter garbage. And yet...I love it. I guess there's an oblivious film critic in all of us.

6/10