The concept of this British 1970s horror movie, Death Line (1972) sounds better, more horrifying, than its execution, and is less lurid than some of its posters make it look like (particularly the ones under the alternative title Raw Meat). Set in the London underground rail system, the opening follows a posh English gentleman doing the rounds at naughty book stores and clubs, ending up on a platform alone after the last train has left. Later, a couple find his body crumpled on the steps – when they report it to the station constable, the body has gone. Why are people disappearing at this particular platform? Could it have to do with the hidden enclave of underground dwelling cannibals, the result of miners trapped in a collapsed station a century ago, who have survived on stray passengers as their food supply from generation to generation? On the case is the great Donald Pleasence as a working class copper who is always shouting about for a cup of tea, the actor clearly having a ball. The movie contorts itself to have the opening couple (David Ladd and Sharon Gurney) connected to the story all the way through. While Christopher Lee’s name is large on the posters (to the point where you think is he playing the bearded cannibal), he basically has a one scene cameo as an MI5 agent curtailing police investigation into a missing member of the cabinet (apparently his request to work in a scene opposite Pleasence). There is an effectively creeping eight minute tracking shot of the cannibal lair, the sound of dripping water adding to the grotesque sights of the brown, cavernous setting (maybe the strongest sequence in the film). Yet the main cannibal (played by Hugh Armstrong) looks like Mick Fleetwood playing Fagin from Oliver Twist, and isn’t quite the threat he appears on screen as. Though to be fair, the cannibal is portrayed a bit like Frankenstein’s Monster – born into a life of poverty, caring for a dying pregnant and killing for food, elements of the film’s clear points about the British class system. A curious urban horror film that has its moments. Directed by Gary Sherman (Dead and Buried, Poltergeist III).
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