Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Suman Roberson
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
ma-cortes
Raw Meat also titled Subhumans is a classic horror movie about terrible happenings occur at London underground. As a top civil servant disappears in the Tube tunnels , then Scotland Yard goes into action . As Police Inspector Donald Pleasence and his helper investigate the bizarre deeds. A young couple, witnesses of the weird events , David Ladd and Sharon Gudney, give some clues about the twisted case. But other murders and kidnapping take place and things go wrong.This yarn is one of the highest earning horror movies of the seventies .Original terror movie, nowsadays considered to be a cult movie . There is primitive gore , suspense , thrills , chills and creepy scenes.The subhumans appearances are the highest points of the movie , the ghastly characters deliver the goods full of screams , shocks and tension. Interpretations are pretty well , particularly by Donald Pleasence as a sarcastically cynical Inspector, he is supported by a botcher sub-inspector and righ-hand well played Norman Rossington. Along with David Ladd, Alan Ladd's son who as a little boy performed some films with his daddy. David Ladd has made a decent career as a film producer. And , of course, a brief intervention by the great Christopher Lee in a suspect role as a meddlesome MI5 agent .The movie has an acceptable production design plenty of decrepit lairs, dark tunnels , eerie skeletons and excellent make-up with crusted , bruised faces . Adequate and evocative cinematograpjy filled with shades and lights by Alex Thomson. Thrilling and terrifyng musical score by Malone and Jeremy Rose.The motion picture was well directed by Gary Sherman and it was reedited for American audiencies and released under the title Raw Meat. Gary Sherman is an expert on action genre as he proved in Wanted : dead or alive with Rutger Hauer , Vice Squad with Wing Hauser and being specialist on Terror films as Death Line , Poltergeist III , and "Dead and buried" that is deemed to be his best one . Rating 6.5/10 . Good ,acceptable and decent terror movie
wes-connors
American economics student David Ladd (as Alex Campbell) and his totally shagged girlfriend Sharon Gurney (as Patricia Wilson) find an unconscious body in a London underground station. When they return with an officer, the body has mysteriously disappeared. The couple don't know how to leave unwell enough alone and become more involved as police inspector Donald Pleasence (as Calhoun) and sergeant Norman Rossington (as Rogers) uncover a horrific plot… Re-titled "Raw Meat" for American consumption, "Death Line" director Gary Sherman gets off to a good feature film start, with a lot of gore and a some jumpy scenes. Horror legend Christopher Lee appears briefly.****** Death Line (1972) Gary Sherman ~ Donald Pleasence, Norman Rossington, David Ladd, Sharon Gurney
Paul Andrews
Death Line is set in London & starts as British minster & OBE no less James Manfred (James Cossins) finds himself on the platform for Russell Square Underground train station where he is attacked, the last train from the station drops off American students Alex Campbell (David Ladd) & Patricia Wilson (Sharon Gurney) who find Manfred laying down on the floor. Patricia wants to help Manfred but her boyfriend Alex is reluctant, eventually they agree to leave him & seek help but upon their return with the police Manfred has gone. Inspector Calhoun (Donald Pleasence) is interested in the case because of who Manfred was & starts an investigation & discovers that other's have also mysteriously disappeared at the station, unknown to Calhoun an inbred cannibalistic man lives in the Underground tunnels of an uncompleted station & likes to take unsuspecting train passengers & kill them...More widely known as Raw Meat in the US this British production was directed by Gary Sherman & produced by Paul Maslansky who went on to produced the Police Academy series of films & subsequent television show & gets points for being the first horror film to use the dark, grime filled tunnels of the London Underground as it's main setting the likes of Creep (2004) would go on replicate. Death Line has it's fair share of positives & negatives, it's a nice claustrophobic story & has a great moody atmosphere but the story is rather fragmented with little connecting narrative & it's just too slow. Things are introduced but then go nowhere, the importance of Manfred & MI6 sniffing around is completely abandoned, the point raised about the inbred killer having a disease is mentioned a couple of times but again nothing becomes of it & the police investigation seems rather half hearted (two people are brutally murdered & they don't even close the station?). However the more defined than usual character's help carry it, the working class Inspector Calhoun played by Pleasence in particular is great to watch & listen to as he makes constant sarcastic remarks while a great intelligence & cool personality occasionally comes through. The script tries to give inbred killer a sympathetic side & tries to make us feel sorry for what he is rather than make us despise him for what he does to survive. The one main killer is the slow pace, at almost an hour & a half long virtually nothing happens, there's lots of talking & while I appreciate a good build-up as anyone else there's not much tension or suspense & it feels very laboured. Death Line certainly has it's moments, there's a few nicely humorous moments, there are some surprisingly gory moments & it tells a story competently enough but you have to sit through a lot of forgettable padding to get to the good stuff. Despite all the reviews & the US title Raw meat suggesting that the inbred killer is a cannibal he is never shown eating any human flesh, maybe the implication is that he is a cannibal but it's never shown on screen that he is. Good overall but not great.Death Line manages to really the early 70's London feel, the dirty Underground tunnels with the dripping water a constant motif are used to very good effect. Well made with one particularly impressive panning shot of the killers hideout that starts on a Rat nibbling a severed arm & continues as the camera pans round to reveal dead mutilated bodies & the killer for the first time. It's a very slow moving & long shot that set the tone & layout of the setting very nicely. There's some good gore here too, a man gets a shovel in his head, someone in impaled on a broom handle, various dead & decaying bodies are seen, there's a slit throat & a Rat's head is bitten off.Filmed in London in the UK apparently the Underground station Aldwych was used to double up for Russell Square. The acting is pretty good, this is easily one of Donald Pleasence's best roles & he gives his character a lot of life in what could have been a very one dimensional & routine part. Christopher Lee makes a small cameo appearance in one scene.Death Line, or Raw Meat, is a good early 70's British horror set on the grimy London Underground that is maybe a little slow, it has some good moments including some good gore & a great tracking shot but there's a lot of padding to sit through to get to them.
Del Normanton
'Death Line' is about a group of people who had been making the 'old' tunnels and had become trapped and just left there to die. But they didn't die, they bred! And managed to survive up to the current day by entering the Underground tunnels and grabbing the occasional 'last train' passenger from the platform! Saw this in an old cinema in Victoria, London.There was this old guy (one of the last survivors of this 'lost' troupe) stumbling along dark 'tube' (underground) tunnels to get to the station for his next meal - a lone passenger from the platform, who he would take back to his lair and where his ugly bride was about to give birth to the next generation. He would hang her up on a meat hook (until supper, presumably). But he kept repeating something that he had obviously had heard many times before - I thought was mumbling 'Diana Dors! Diana Dors!. The girl I was with in the cinema thought he was saying 'I'm all yours! I'm all yours!' But what he was ACTUALLY saying was 'Mind the doors!' Great idea. They should re-make it. Great film (for the 70s)...Shame Diana Dors wasn't in it...
