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Spare Parts aka "Fleisch " (1979)

Dir: Rainer Erler

A young couple, Monika (Jutta Speidel) a German woman and Mike (Herbert Herrmann) her American musician Husband are on their honeymoon in New Mexico,
They decide to stay at a cheap, small town Motel (no expense spared on this trip of love!) with a seemingly friendly lady owner (Tedi Altice) who makes them at home.

Later that day an Ambulance drives up just outside the Motel, two men jump out and bundle the astonished Mike into the back and drive off with him!
Monika (who for some bizarre reason had started to run from the Ambulance before anything had happened, must be Female intuition) escapes by flagging down a truck driver named Bill (Wolf Roth), who she persuades into believing her wild story.

Soon Monika and Bill are caught up in a wider conspiracy and discover the horrifying truth of what is happening to the people who are kidnapped, after they have been delivered to the nearby 'Roswell' Air Force base hospital……..

The twee title song "How much is anyone worth", opens the film with a nice bit of irony given the subject matter, and it's a suitably off the wall start to a film with the unusual structure of being a German TV project, with German actors, shot in New Mexico!

There is some genuine suspense generated as the plot unfolds, the film develops some strong, likeable lead characters, especially Bill, and you do care what happens to them.
So far so good then as all that is a solid foundation to build a solid film on, and in the case of "Spare Parts" ("Fleisch") writer/director Rainer Erler does just that.
But solid is all the film really is sadly.

The more macabre possibilities of the basic idea are only lightly touched upon, the villains are too low key and the film sadly avoids all the fine chances to move into full blown 'Medical Horror' territory (something that the far more sinister "Coma", from 1978, utilised to great effect) and prefers to play out as a drama with a few thriller elements thrown in.
And even then the only real 'thriller action' is a brief shoot out and a badly speeded up car chase.

There is nothing really explicit here as you would expect from a film made for TV (though it's strong showing on that medium did lead to a small theatrical run in Europe) and all we have are a slightly bloody shotgun hit and some brief, but welcome, nudity from the pretty Jutta Speidel.

There are some pacing issues after Monika escapes until she persuades Bill to help her and the film does show it's TV roots during this period, but once they hatch their plan to find out what is going on and what has happened to Mike the movie starts to kick some life into it's intriguing subject matter, and also gives us an unlikely (but underused) band of heroes to help Bill and Monika out,

The outcome is sadly as low key as much of what has gone before though and everything is tied up rather too neatly.
So it's solid little film, with a strong base and likeable characters but is too often bland, slow and lacks any horrific punch despite the grizzly basic idea.

Average 70's TV fare, worth a watch if nothing else is on or you find an old VHS or the newer German DVD very cheap.