Rodent Films [1979] 61′
country: United States
director: NATHAN SCHIFF
cast: JOHN SMIHULA, FRED BORGES,
cast: FRED DABBY, JODY KADISH

WEASELS RIP MY FLESH is probably the worst film ever made and a movie only in the sense that the images it is comprised of were photographed in such a way as to impart motion. In all the land of zero-budget 8mm features, this is the GIGLI to THE DEAD NEXT DOOR‘s BEN-HUR. Yes, my friends and humble readers, WEASELS RIP MY FLESH is truly that bad.

“This is judgment day for those of you unlucky enough to have been born this day,” clumsily espouses the opening narration (that line’s sentiments are sure to be echoed by the majority of audiences) in a bit of useless filler that has us viewing a travelogue-esque shot of a forest as cannily recorded dialogue drones on in a manner that would have made Criswell turn over in his grave – a minute and fifty two seconds later the events of the film proper begins.

Without warning or justification an unidentified killer, his hands covered in shaving cream, takes a knife to the throat of an unsuspecting youth, spilling Tabasco sauce-colored blood all over the victim’s perfectly clean shirt. Outside it gets dark and, somewhere else, a lake bubbles ominously. WEASELS RIP MY FLESH, suddenly announces the opening credits – here achieved by blacking out portions of a television screen and allowing the credits to bleed through the static. A table lamp, shining like a beacon in the black of space, signals that we – vicariously through a balsa wood model – have landed on the planet Venus. The rocket uses its high tech hair-clip grappling arm to secure a sample of green mucous from the planet’s surface before blasting off (again, with the aid of a table lamp – its cord clearly visible) for Earth once more.

Then, disaster! The rocket spirals out of control and lands in a lake, or ocean, or some other unidentified body of water. Two kids kicking a soccer ball about a marsh discover the ship’s scattered contents and promptly check them out – after one of them is bitten on the leg by what we are led to assume is a weasel, the children plot to dump the toxic green goop down into its home. Bad move, I suppose, as the goop turns the lovable sock puppet into a grotesque potato sac looking thing that wastes no time in rising up from beneath the earth and devouring our two miscreants. The giganti-weasel flees the scene, running across the highway and being struck by a car in the process and leaving one of its arms behind. The man who hit the creature, unidentified by the film, takes the arm home to his makeshift kitchen laboratory, where the arm comes back to life and somehow manages to kill both the man and one of his good friends.

A full twenty seven minutes into the picture, the plot actually begins to take form. Inspector Cameron, after shaving, heads off with his buddy, Detective Anderson, to investigate the recent odd happenings around town (giant weasels, people mutilations and the like). At the scene of a number of murders they meet up with the disturbed Dr. Sendam – forebodingly donning a blue wind breaker – who promptly takes them prisoner and traps them in his underground laboratory. There he shows them his amazing discovery – a giant . . . hamster? The three men drink and discuss toxic chemicals and monsters and stuff, with the doctor eventually knocking the other two out with spiked drinks and, by injecting tainted weasel blood into his veins, turns Detective Anderson into some kind of monster weasel man.

Inspector Cameron, tied up at some point during the events above, escapes and sets fire to Dr. Sendam’s lab full of baby weasel monsters (each under its own protective metal hub like deadly mutated hotel room service). The doctor, none too happy with the way things are going, takes to smacking the detective in the face with a rake before the latter gets wise and shoots him (oddly, not fatally) in the middle of the back. Afterwards he is attacked, but not killed, by giant weasel-detective Anderson – Sendam stabs the beast in the face and sends him running. But there’s still the giganti-weasel to contend with – it smashes out of its protective glass display case and devours one of the good doctor’s arms while Inspector Cameron escapes top-side.

Outside, Cameron is attacked by the giganti-weasel, which is promptly killed by weasel-detective Anderson, who, weirdly, bursts into flames just moments after dispensing with the giganti-weasel. Still not dead, Dr. Sendam romps through the woods, gets into a pathetic gun fight with Inspector Cameron, and somehow wanders into the ocean, where a stuffed shark eats his other arm and, presumably, kills him. Cameron, having been shot in the leg, wanders off into the distance as sappy music plays – THE END.

And that, my friends, is the entirety of WEASELS RIP MY FLESH – six or so minutes of actual plot drawn out to a boring and tedious sixty one. There’s nothing worth analyzing throughout the duration of the affair – from the brutally amateur effects setups to the asinine blocking and near non-existent editing. The story, not making itself known until a full half hour into the feature, is little more than unrelated snippets derived from other, more successful efforts (this is the one time where ‘more successful’ can be used to describe the likes of HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and BEGINNING OF THE END). Adding insult to injury is the film’s score, which sounds to have been ripped from tapes of some of Schiff’s favorite films – I counted NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE, KRONOS, THE GREEN SLIME, as well as the aforementioned HORROR OF PARTY BEACH as sources.

Possibly the worst thing about Schiff’s film is the fact that it leaves one with nothing to discuss, as literally nothing worth mentioning happens during the entirety of its running time. I’ve fallen asleep no fewer than three times while trying to watch it – the first time no more than twelve minutes in. Given the sorts of things I not only review, but enjoy (NIGHTMARE CITY anyone?), that I could barely muster the energy to shuffle through this overly long celluloid turd once in a series of four viewings should be a clear indication of the level of quality on display.

And that’s it, I think. Image Entertainment saw fit, for whatever ungodly reason, to give this (and several of Schiff’s other “films”) an official release – a waste of encoding time and manpower to say the very least. I won’t be watching this one again and my best advice is to simply avoid it, in spite of its attractive Zappa-inspired title. You have been warned.

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