Last night’s viewing
Death Line (1972) (German Blu-ray)
A film that I’d always been aware of for many years, but never managed to see. I meant to pick up the Blu-ray from Network but never got around to it and then of course Network went bust and the Blu-ray started fetching silly money on eBay.
So I was really pleased last week while browsing on Amazon’s German site to spot a German Blu-ray, so I nabbed it on the spot. It arrived yesterday, so I waited until it got nice and dark last night, just to get into the mood and we sat down to watch it.
I’ll cut to the chase – if any of the fans of this film would like to grab the Blu-ray at a bargain price, it’s for sale, because this is a film I will most definitely NEVER watch again.
This was yet another tedious and uninspired low budget British horror entry, of which there were legion in the early 1970s. A premise ripe with potential that was torpedoed by an utterly woeful screenplay, a gossamer thin plot, inept direction, gore substituting for terror and the seemingly obligatory casting of a pair of young, trendy Swinging London types that couldn’t act their way out of the proverbial paper bag and for some mysterious reason beloved by the “cult movie” brigade.
In fact one reason why I hadn’t been in a rush to watch it was that very “cult” status it enjoys, as I’ve seen some right dross over the years that came with the tag “cult classic” attached to it. Unfortunately ‘Death Line’ was no exception. Indeed it was easily one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, not just horror, but in any genre.
I can only presume that the reputation this film has is based on the fact that in 1972 nothing so graphic as the charnel house hideout of the cannibals had ever been been seen on the screen, particularly in a British film of the era. Even by today’s standards it is truly stomach churning and disgustingly realistic, which presumably was enough to earn it its “cult” status back in the 1970s.
Unfortunately that’s pretty much all the film has to offer in the way of horror – seemingly endless lingering shots of rotting corpses and decaying body parts and a grossly putrefying, pus-dripping bogeyman. Alas there is absolutely zilch in the way of fright or even anything approaching a hint of suspense and indeed nothing very much of interest happens at all during the course of the film, as it limps from dull scene to even duller scene, to what is not so much a climax as a huge anti-climax.
None of this is helped by the director’s almost fetishistic obsession with long, protracted and often totally pointless panning and tracking shots along darkened tunnels, several of which had me thinking “Oh yes, what’s going to happen here?” only for sweet FA to be revealed and I do mean absolutely nothing.
Pointless scenes unfold with no relevance whatsoever to the plot or in service of character, such as a woefully inept and baffling attempt at lame comedy in a pub scene half way through the film, that like the director’s beloved tracking shots, long outstays its welcome.
Then there is a scene where Sir Christopher of Lee suddenly appears for about three minutes as some ministry type who warns Donald Pleasance’s police inspector to drop his investigation of one of the victims. “Aha! At last, the plot thickens!”, I thought, only to find that this potentially interesting plot development is completely forgotten and not followed up on in any way.
Sir Christopher disappears never to be seen again, Donald Pleasance continues his investigation with no repercussions and we find nothing else of interest whatsoever about the victim in question. It would appear that the scene exists for no other reason than to put the words “...and Christopher Lee” on the film poster.
In fact a little digging revealed that Lee was apparently dying to work with Donald Pleasance and offered to do a walk on for a fraction of his usual fee, so he was allocated three minutes of screen time and a few lines of dialogue with no relevance whatsoever to the plot and off he went.
Donald Pleasance’s performance as a typically workshy, loud mouthed, belligerent ‘70s era London copper is the only thing worth watching in this film, a character who seems more concerned with getting regular cups of tea than he is in investigating the disappearances in the film. Perhaps he’d read the script and decided he didn’t give a toss.
And there’s the rub – there is quite simply no one or nothing to give a toss about in the film. The obligatory pair of empty headed juvenile leads have such woefully undefined and underwritten characters, that we care not one jot what happens to them. This is further compounded by the fact that the actors concerned are simply woeful, with the male half of the duo, one David Ladd particularly awful and seemingly only there because his dad produced the film.
I presume that the occasional whirring sound that I heard when he was on screen was his grandfather, Alan Ladd, spinning in his grave.
The end result is that one has zero emotional investment or interest in these characters and thus tosses are most definitely not given. Indeed when the female of the pair finally gets nabbed by the scabby man, my only thought was “Thank ****, this means it must be near the end!”
I’ve read comments from people that have described this film as “terrifying” and “a classic”. This is about as terrifying as that episode of Rainbow where Bungle slipped on a banana peel and I’m presuming that anyone that considers this a “classic” has never seen one of these moving picture thingies before (or since). And it wasn’t just me; the friend I was watching it with kept swearing a lot and asking how much of it was left to go. I have a LOT of making up to do with him.
Like I said – nice Blu-ray, played only once, bargain price! 
