Death Line
(aka: Raw Meat)
PAL VHS
 (1972)
review by Red Velvet Kitchen

I don't know if you've ever rode the London Underground, but I did as a child many times. It's a strange place, halfway between modern civilisation with the congestion and bluster, and an almost prosaic mood that recalls the empty tunnels and isolated passageways of Ye olde London. A preoccupation of mine used to be pressing my face against the glass windows as we travelled, watching the flashing lights dazzle and every so often, passing a disused station, path that disappeared into the distance or decrepit alcove. These glimpses would really capture my imagination and toss it into the labyrinthine complex of abandoned tracks and rooms. What would this place look like? How vast and complicated is this clandestine network? Does anyone ever visit? Is anyone there now? This meeting of wandering imagination and far-flung but reasonable possibility is the starting point for the 1972 British horror film Death Line, and the basis for its solid gold premise. Here's the set-up: A series of strange disappearances along the London Underground have police baffled, until gradually (with help from a student couple, one English, one American) they discover a strange dying civilisation inhabiting the disused stretch, a centuries old dynasty of trapped ex-workers who have resorted to living feral and indulging in cannibalism. This concept is such a potent one because it manages to reside in that region of the brain when flights of fancy and urban legends collide with a creeping suspicion many may have had. Like say, the Invasion of Body Snatchers' idea of extra-terrestrials rife within our community (and spreading), Death Line taps into a fear pitched perfectly at our desire and palette for conspiracy and subversion. That all these strange happenings are set in the terminally unsettling corridors of The London Underground (a setting John Landis would also use memorably in An American Werewolf In London) makes the storyline that much more appealing. And I forgot to mention that Donald Pleasance is doing the investigating in a typically strong and charismatic role.

However, as I think the underwhelming likes of Bringing Out The Dead or Bonfire of the Vanities proves, gold on paper is not necessarily going to provide top-notch entertainment when it comes to actually watching the damn thing. So, does Death Line follow through on its solidly sinister foundations? Well, there are lots of 'yes's', but one overpowering 'no'. The atmosphere throughout is great as we alternate tellingly between the gaudy yet grimy presentation of London and the wasteland that lies below, the film is buoyed by two good performances (and a suitably enigmatic cameo from the granddaddy of all British horror, Christopher Lee), the script is sharp and witty, and there's even a startling level of style particularly when things get literally and metaphorically deeper and darker. Of particular note is a fantastic six or seven minute one-take tracking shot which introduces the dormant menace, the camera slowly scanning the graphic horror early on, before unveiling the grim lair and ultimately revealing these creatures as more pathetic than beastly. It's an audacious and brilliant cinematic coup, as the audience's perception is altered wildly without a single cut, turning the film on its head. The bad? All this quality goes nowhere, whilst a catalogue of interesting angles, ideas and subtexts catch the next train to a less deserving film. Everything is in place for either a serious and emphatic examination of the class divide and the many regrettable parts of 'buried' history via the metaphor-savvy horror genre (the film examines every possible meaning of the word 'underground'), or we could get a decent romp out of the whole endeavour. Sadly, we get neither, something proved without doubt by the utter redundancy of the droll conclusion which rather than end with tragedy, a haunting note or a shock, just well, stops in its tracks.

Another missed opportunity is that unrealised cinematic beast, the cannibal. Whilst these creatures are more your classic Fulci zombie and not the stuff of seventies Italian exploitation kings like Ruggero Deodato, they're certainly more provocative than Lucio's eye-bothering beasties. Cannibals are like the missing link between zombies and humans, except in the hands of a skilful and intelligent director they can be more disturbing and frightening than both. Cannibals are more human and responsive than zombies and more uncontrollably violent and unpredictable than humans, something no director has fully realised. Basically, in cinematic, entertainment and ideological terms they are a truly effective figure, one sadly ignored largely by the horror genre. That Death Line failed to develop and surpass the familiar ideas of pitiable villain and minor subtext is yet further evidence that this patchy film really is worth watching only for the atmosphere of gloom and the spark of Pleasance.