THE FLESH EATERS
(1964; d. Jack Curtis, w. Arnold Drake)

For the very longing to return to unity
is itself the yearning of the divine w/i creation
to return to the divine.
Arthur Versluis

Prolog libidinous young couple sets undertone for drama (made by adult film regulars + [well] edited by porn auteur-to-be Radley Metzger); consumed by title "light" monsters (Brakhage-style emulsion-scratches: non-corporeal; psychic "energy") as by desire, skeleton of male still clutching girlfriend's bikini top washing ashore later clue to meaning of dream, issue distilled to symbols à la body reduced to frame (lost erotic unity film will seek to rectify).

Post-credits, charter pilot Grant Murdoch (beefy body providing "vehicle") flies has-been Laura Winters (drunken mind, demoted in disorienting dream world) + secretary Jan (long-suffering soul initiating journey + agent uniting body + mind) from Boston (continental-consciousness) to Rhode Island (offshore unconscious), psychic storm forcing them down (development - passage from one "state" to another - interrupted in order to address unresolved issue, resulting in change of course entirely [original destination Laura/unregenerate "mother's," not own]) on uncharted isle (unexplored psychic terrain, vignette of world in midst of unconsc ocean: interior theater in which to play out + resolve archetypal drama) inhabited by haywire marine biologist (psychoanalyst, studying sub-marine/consc "life") Peter Bartell (Martin Kosleck, doing a great Martin Kosleck), later disappearance of plane sleeper's body-abandonment while Laura drunk-unconsc, title bacterioids energic agents of separation, returning victims to non-corporeal Soul.

Bartell thwarted macho celibate (shut down by Laura while comparing brilliant self to hunk Grant) rising from ocean like emergent psychic material (flashback of Nazi experiments creating FEs furthest-back origin of dysfunction: misdirected oedipal will to power, dissolving naked female subjects elimination of erotic fem in self [only male skeleton washes up, prolog fem still "submerged"] + of similar relational softness for hard loner Grant): unable to achieve natural transcendence (sex), cultivates critters instead, their eventual fusion into One the "monstrosity" of solitary sex - what happens when mind left to own w/ no relation to reality.

Enormous solar generator on other side of island (hidden; repressed) inflated ego-source of Pete's imaginary pwr, (+) and (-) electrodes on opposite sides of beach separation of poles in megalo mind in which only One may hold; final uniting of similar (sexual) poles restoration of eros in world after interruption by Pete-scientist, mvmt from opening lovers adrift in ocean to Jan + Grant on dry land grounding of erotic ideal in real life.

Likable beatnik Omar (as in Khayyam; also alias Onan) similarly adrift - alone - on raft, turning self on w/ jive about "the Love" + "the Weapon" (one + same to him), wandering barefoot the Eternal Child; as 1st victim following Edenic prolog, childlike attachment to ideal (jive lyric poem to Divine divorced from earthly incarnations) which must go, as must cynical harridan Laura, he innocent whose discovery of evil eats him from inside out when Pete spikes cocktail w/ FEs.

Next seen crucified on raft, 2nd victim/sacrifice ferryman-body à la Grant (Omar Jan's soul-counterpart), Laura/mind last to go on descent into sleep-oblivion, taking monster w/ her by stabbing yonic nucleus (perverted, violent sex-substitute, as when jilted Pete stabs her, she + FEs both resurrecting [latter spirit w/i Self]); survival of only purified + united body + soul indicating major threat that of mind/scientist finally killed by own creation/projection. Giant mutation offed by hypoing blood into center, beast anti-heart à la quasi-computer generator (two cables + electrodes à la monster's 2 tentacles), reunion of young cpl on isolated isle (barren) new Eden (cf dir's later nudie We Are All Naked + scrw Drake's 1963 50k BC [Before Clothing]) free of insane God, waiting for supply boat period of paradisal rest before returning consciousness.

Like Five, budget-driven composition of characters against environment heightens elemental feel + elevates all to iconic status, constant wind restlessness of desire + human nature in arid (repressed [or thwarted]) psychic landscape, near-total lack of future for promising cast + crew leaving impression of characters/potential still out there, undiscovered + (possibly) disintegrating - or propagating all on own.