Raw Meat
AKA Death Line
(1973) 87 Min.
Rated: R
Country: UK
Director: Gary Sherman
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Norman Rossington, David Ladd, Christopher Lee
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Someone or something is picking off people on the London Underground in Raw Meat.
Synopsis:
The film opens on a derby hat wearing man going down to the London Underground. He sees a girl there and tries to solicits her for sex, but she knees him in the groin and runs off with his money. But as he’s writhing in pain, something attacks him. (A Point-of-view monster)
A young couple discover the man on the stairs leading up from the tunnel. Alex Campbell (Ladd) and Patricia Wilson report the man on the stairs, but when a police officer goes down to check on the body, they find it’s gone.
The next day the incident is reported to Inspector Calhoun (Pleasence) who believes they should follow up on the case. He sends Detective Sergent Rogers (Rossington) to investigate further.
Rogers brings Alex back to the station and Calhoun interrogates him about the events, essentially grilling him on discrepancies between his version and the constable who assisted them. Eventually Calhoun lets him go and Rogers and Calhoun discuss the case. Mr. Manfred, the missing man, happens to be a top civil servant and so his disappearance can’t be ignored.
Calhoun talks to a historian of sorts who basically explains that in that area, in 1892, a tunnel caved in burying a few workers: 8 men, 4 women. The company doing the digging went bankrupt and couldn’t afford to dig them out. Some rumors said that there was a pocket of air there and that the buried workers probably turned cannibal to survive.
We are then shown a dark room full of rats, maggots and body parts. In the middle of it all is Mr. Manfred. He’s alone with the dead bodies. The camera also pans to two underground dwellers. A male and a female. The female is pregnant. The Man takes Mr. Manfred and slices his neck so that his blood drains and the Woman can drink from him.
Calhoun and Rogers decide to search Mr.Manfred’s empty home for clues. They find little other than a secret room with a video feed of the bedroom. Suddenly a MI5 agent called Stratton-Villiers (Lee) appears and advises them to leave. He instructs them that as far as they are concerned the missing person’s case is closed.
Meanwhile, back in the underground world, the cannibal man discovers that his wife is dead. He mourns her death by wandering around and crying loudly.
As he’s wandering he finds a group of underground working men and attacks them. Killing them.
Calhoun and Rogers investigate the victims of the fight. Deciding that the Man is very strong. Further investigation of the blood on the scene reveals the blood of another man (the cannibal) who has Megaloblastic anemia, vitamin deficiency and no platelets.
The couple, Alex and Patricia, wonder about what happened to the man and start to doubt that he ever had a heart attack. Alex wonders why there was no article about the man’s disappearance in the newspaper if he was so important. Patricia thinks it might’ve been suppressed by the government.
An investigator calls Calhoun at the office and informs him that he’s found Septicemic plague in the blood.
After a late night show, Alex and Patricia take the last train home. As they depart the train, Patricia has left her books on the train and Alex has to retrieve them, but the doors close before he can get off and he’s stuck on the train leaving Patricia behind. Just as the train leaves Patricia behind, she’s attacked by the cannibal man from behind.
Alex arrives at their apartment and finds that Patricia is not there. He goes to the police. A drunk Calhoun tells him to go home while he and Rogers investigate the matter. Alex, instead goes on his own investigation.
Meanwhile, Patricia is left in the Cannibal’s pantry of half-eaten corpses. She’s terrified and has to fend off rats. The Cannibal Man hears her screaming and runs in to kill the rats. Patricia hides under a table sobbing. He pulls her out and is about to slice her throat with a blade, but has second thoughts. He tries to kiss her but she resists and hits him.
Patricia is able to escape and runs away into the darkness. The Man runs after calling out “Mind the doors”.
Alex is wandering in the tunnels and finds a bowler hat with Manfred’s name on it.
The Man finally finds Patricia hiding in a corner of the tunnel and he tries to touch her, as she hits his hands away. Eventually he gets angry and forces her to the ground, sexually assaulting her. She hits his vulnerable head and he shrinks back for a moment. She hears Alex coming and screams for him. The Man jumps on Alex and they begin to fight.
Alex wins the fight, hitting the Man a few times on his now bleeding head. Patricia and Alex run away and finally are found by the police who in turn go to investigate the Man’s lair.
They find the Man lying down with the body of his dead wife and all their dead relatives surrounding them. He is dying from the blows to his head and has chosen to die with the rest of his people.
Review:
An interesting, albeit, hard to believe idea. The film has a few genuine creepy and ghoulish scenes for its age with a nice creepy location.
Most of the time Pleasence’s Calhoun is a distraction. He hams it up as the stubborn Inspector and it really detracts from the film.
Otherwise, the film is fairly well paced and the villain is sympathetic. This is unusual given that he’s a homicidal cannibal.
The rest of the film seems somewhat believable for life in London during the 70’s and that makes it even more creepy. What really lurks down in subway tunnels?
This is a fairly enjoyable film, yes it has aged a little, but overall it’s quite a nice thriller with a bit of gore.
More underground subway-related films: The Tunnel (2011), Creep (2004), The Midnight Meat Train (2008)