Death Line

Obstructing The Doors 
Causes Delay And 
Can Be Dangerous

Death Line
aka Raw Meat
UK/USA 1972 
Directed by Gary Sherman 
Network Blu Ray Zone B
 
Death Line is a film I’ve been meaning to catch up to for years. It used to get shown a lot on TV when I was a kid in the 1970s and it was one of those films which got talked about in the playground the next day at school... although I was never allowed to stay up late and watch it back in those days. 

If you like looking at London locations from the 1970s then you’re in for a treat... the whole film takes place around the Russell Square, Holborn and Aldwych areas, primarily in Russell Square underground where the main protagonists, college couple Alex (David Ladd) and Pat (Sharon Gurney) stumble on a man who they think might be dying, on the stairs leading off the platform, after the last train has gone through. When they fetch a policeman, the man is gone but, because the man’s identity is known to be a big shot at Whitehall, the local police in the form of Inspector Calhoun (played by Donald Pleasence) and his assistant, Sergeant Rogers (played by Norman Rossington) investigate. The police get nowhere but, eventually, catch up to the college kids when Pat is kidnapped by... what lies beneath... and Alex goes down into the warren of old tube construction tunnels to look for her. 

What actually lies beneath is the last surviving descendant of a group of people abandoned and left unrescued when the tunnels for a station that was never completed, in the 1800s, collapsed. A lone surviving cannibal feeding off stray tube passengers, who gets along in grunts and gestures with his woman (who is short lived in the film and dies before the next in line can born, prompting him to capture another female to mate with). He also has the plague (as did all the descendants of the survivors trapped in the air pockets below) and looks as grotesque as his mutilated victims. Later, in scenes where he is terrorising Pat (in such a way that you also have to feel sorry for the savage too), he uses the only piece of language he has picked up over the years, repetitively, in the hopes he can be understood... “Miiind the doors!”.

And it’s actually a little gem of a horror film, it has to be said (although technically more of a thriller, I reckon). Although there are a couple of scenes of brutal violence (such as when a station cleaner gets his broom pushed through his torso) its the grim looking sets filled with half mutilated and disease ridden bodies, beautifully captured with slow moving camera (often lasting for many minutes), that are quite striking and seem as strong, probably stronger, than even the Italian zombie movies which were to come out half a decade later. Which is why, I’m sure, it was such a big hit with the kiddies in the school playground the next day, after it had various TV screenings. It’s actually quite hard stuff... in fact, the US version which screened for AIP under the title Raw Meat, had some of the gorier scenes trimmed before it got into their cinemas at the time. 

The acting is pretty great in this too. Donald Pleasence is like I’ve never seen him before and certainly demonstrates his range. Playing a very unsympathetic Inspector who is pretty nasty to everyone he comes in contact with but, not so much that he can’t take his long suffering sergeant to the local for a binge drinking session (a scene where both he and Rossington were ad libbing the whole lot, they really got drunk for the occasion). There’s also a cameo scene starring Christopher Lee as an MI5 man. He and Pleasence are never in the same shot until Lee sits down on a sofa, due to the contrast in heights between the shorter Pleasence and Lee’s much taller frame. 

All in all, Death Line is a pretty entertaining slice of UK terror (not sure how much input the US contingent had) and the, now sadly defunct, Network Blu Ray release also includes on its print, the original X Certification card from the time... which was nice to see again after so many decades. But, yeah, if you like interesting and somewhat slow burn thrillers then it’s worth your time if you can see it and can get an uncut UK version. I’m glad to have finally seen this thing after all these years.