Horror 2025 Countdown: I Eat Your Skin (1971)

I Eat Your Skin (1971), dir. Del Tenney, Del Tenney Productions

Funny how things work out. I Eat Your Skin was actually made in 1964 but no distributor would touch it. Director Jerry Gross, having just finished I Drink Your Blood, needed a second film for a proposed double feature and thus one name change (it used to be called Zombie) later the most infamous double bill was born.

Tom Harris (William Joyce) is a writer by trade, gigolo by habit. He's putting the moves on a bevy of beauties by his hotel pool when his agent Duncan Fairchild (Dan Stapelton) rushes over. The distraction is a welcome one, as one of the lady's husbands seems intent on causing Harris some harm. 

The reason for Fairchild's rushing is laid out. Last night he was playing cards with some bored Euro trash noble who just inherited an island, which the locals call 'Voodoo Island'. 

Fairchild rattles off why he and Harris are going there.

1) Fairchild's wife Coral (Betty Hyatt Linton) is eccentric and the remote spot might put her in a more amorous mood

2) the setting would be perfect for a Tom Harris novel 

3) There's a reclusive scientist living somewhere on the island, trying to develop a cancer cure from the island's many different species of venomous snakes and voodoo potions

4) Thanks to a recent hurricane, the vast majority of the island's fishing boats are gone, thus the island will be overflowing with bereaved widows who could use some comforting-Harris style 

Things go poorly. The island is far further than previous thought, thus their plane is practically on fumes when they approach it. Harris manages to bring the plane to a landing (although their pilot isn't incapacitated in anyway) on the beach. Harris offers to search for help as the rest stay on the beach.

Deep in the jungle, Harris spots a familiar sight-a nude woman (Heather Hewitt). There's also a zombie with a machete. During the fight/flight, Harris runs into a local fisherman. The man info dumps about the zombies and a local voodoo cult that plans to sacrifice someone before the aforementioned zombie takes his head off. 

Enter Charles Bentley (Walter McCoy), a sort of overseer of the place. He and his armed men escort Harris and co back their compound where they met that reclusive doctor, Dr. Billedeaux (Robert Stanton). That unclad lass that Harris rescued earlier? His daughter, Jeanine. 

They are all concerned about the voodoo practices on the island, but it seems the danger might be closer than anyone thinks...

Hard to believe this sat on the shelf while Horror of Party Beach (same crew) got picked up. The zombies are a ramshackle bunch, but the voodoo scenes are better than we've seen. They at least shot it in Spanish with actual words that make sense strung together. All told it could have been worse but Lord it could have been better.