gruesome, if primitive, special effects, including some memorably bloody death scenes. One character is eaten from the inside out by the titular monsters, resulting in a gushing fountain of intestinal matter. The deep focus cinematography was the work of director Jack Curtis (working under a pseudonym, Carson Davidson), who shot most scene outdoors under the sun of Long Island. The film was scripted by comic book writer Arnold Drake (The Doom Patrol, Marvel's Captain Marvel, et al.). Drake storyboarded the film, so every shot has the careful, formalized composition of a well-drawn comic strip. One shot, for example is a shot in deep focus: the right profile of the hero dominates the left-side foreground of the frame; in a moment, two or three tiny figures at the far-removed shoreline move left to right, from behind the actor's head, and in focus. According to the film's writer and producer Arnold Drake, Terry Curtis, wife of director Jack Curtis won $72,000 on the television quiz show: "High Low". Part of the money was used finishing the production. While filming on location at Montauk, New York, a real hurricane destroyed the sets and equipment. Production was delayed for a year and the cost rose from $60,000 to $105,000. In 1967, George A. Romero began work on a horror film provisionally called Night of the Flesh Eaters; to avoid confusion with this film, the title was changed to Night of the Living Dead. The title was changed when its distributor, The Walter Reade Organization, expressed concern over confusion with The Flesh Eaters, released three years earlier. The film was copyrighted two years before its original release in 1964. Although Barbara Wilson had the prominent role of Ann, she said in an interview that she has no memory of this film. Release Theatrical release The Flesh Eaters was first released in Phoenix, Arizona on March 18, 1964. It later had a re-release in 1968 which removed a flashback sequence showing the original Nazi human experiments with "the flesh eaters". Home media The film was released on DVD by MPI Home Video on Oct 25, 2005. Reception Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film one and a half out of four stars calling the film, "occasionally tense, but gruesome and boring". Dennis Schwartz on his website Ozus' World Movie Reviews awarded the film a grade C−, calling it, "A lovable but bad mad scientist