Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first 2010 A Movie A Day: Halloween edition!
I resurrect AMAD every October for 31 straight days of horror flicks I haven’t seen pulled either from my DVD shelf, DVR or Netflix Instant.
We’re kicking off the month of horror with an early ‘70s Donald Pleasence shocker called RAW MEAT (released in the UK as “Death Line”).
This is a good flick to start on. There are many reasons why this is an entertaining movie, but the MVP of the movie is, naturally, Donald Pleasence.
And that’s not just because Donald Pleasence is always awesome (he is). He’s really on fire in this movie, playing his Inspector Calhoun with an air of aloofness that was totally unexpected and stood out as a bright spot of energy in these traditionally stuffier movies.
Before I get in trouble with our British readers, I don’t mean to imply that all UK produced films are stuffy, but there is a focus on the more play-like drama in a lot of British films of this era. Not all of them, but enough to reasonably set my expectations by.
You know what would make a great double feature with this movie? An American Werewolf in London. For one, Pleasence’s character would feel totally at home in that universe and for two, the focus of the horror is in the London tube system. I swear to God some of the exact same locations used in AWIL are used here, some 12 years earlier.
RAW MEAT kicks off with an attack on a sleaze-ball dignitary in the tube system moments before two college kids get off the next train. They find the unconscious man in the stairwell and proceed to argue about what to do. The boyfriend (David Ladd, son of Alan, father of Jordan) thinks he’s a drunk and they should leave well enough alone, but the girl (the adorable Sharon Gurney) is more of a bleeding heart than her American BF, so she insists on getting a Bobby.
By the time they find one and get back down to the man the body has disappeared.
This man was one of many disappearances in the tubes, but he’s the first one of great societal import, so Pleasence is on the job investigating the case.
The monster of this story is a kind of Neanderthal man, a descendant from tunnel workers, male and female, who were trapped in a cave-in a couple generations back. Their employer apparently went bankrupt and didn’t have the funds to dig ‘em out, so they were left there to die. Resorting to cannibalism and incest they survived. At least a couple of them did.
And not only that, but after all these years the filthy children of the long dead original miners found a way out.
The make-up on the Neanderthal isn’t exactly top notch, so he’s not the creepiest villain to have in the movie, but the way they portray him is like that of a Universal Monster. He’s an animal doing what he does. He’s not evil, he’s not acting out of malice… in fact, in a similar situation we might do the same thing.
He has a pregnant Lady Neanderthal that is obviously sick and he’s trying to keep her fed… but all they know to eat are rats and people.
Also, being so close to the working lines he has picked up a single phrase of English that he uses later in the movie to try to communicate with the terrified, but still cute as a button Sharon Gurney. “Mind the doors. Mind the doors… mind the doors…”
So, because they treat “The Man” as a sympathetic monster they kind of save themselves from the unintentional cheese of the iffy make-up job.
Oh, did I mention Christopher Lee has a cameo? Oh, yeah. That, too.
Lee pops up as an MI5 agent as Pleasence is trying to uncover the mystery behind the disappearance of the well-to-do gentleman, who apparently was a very high-level man in the government and as such has some state secrets in his noggin, hence the presence of the top brass.
Lee’s there to put some pressure on Pleasence and threaten to overtake the investigation, but in all honesty that scene doesn’t add anything of real value to the plot… it’s just cool to see two Bond villains in the same scene trying to out awesome each other.
Gurney is very believable as the do-gooder young girl… David Ladd on the other hand… Well, he went on to produce THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW and I really dig that movie!
Some attention has to go to director Gary Sherman, who has a little visual spark with some interesting camera moves. There’s a great one-shot 360 around the lair of “The Man,” where we see horrors both fresh and rotting, for instance.
Sherman didn’t direct again until 1981’s DEAD & BURIED, which is also a quality movie. We’ll forget he turned in POLTERGEIST III… although, for as crappy as that movie gets there’s something about the mirror imagery and tone that gets under my skin.
So, the good of the movie: a badass central performance by Donald Pleasence, the sympathetic monster, Christopher Lee, the pixie/mod hybrid cuteness of Sharon Gurney, the sharp direction from Sherman, “Mind the doors” and the overall sense of foreboding. The not so good: David Ladd’s monotone delivery and the design and execution of the Neanderthal make-up.
Final thoughts: If nothing else worked in the movie I’d recommend it just for Donald Pleasence. He doesn’t play Dr. Loomis, he’s not a heavy, burdened figure here. His character is a smart-ass, but a likeable one. The writing and performance of this character was a delight to behold. Since the rest of the movie around him isn’t half bad those two combine to make a damn good, under-seen movie.
Currently in print on DVD: YES
On Netflix Instant: YES
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Saturday, October 2nd: GHOST STORY (1981)
Sunday, October 3rd: TWO ON A GUILLOTINE (1965)
Monday, October 4th: TENTACLES (1977)
Tuesday, October 5th: BAD RONALD (1974)
Wednesday, October 6th: THE ENTITY (1983)
Thursday, October 7th: DOCTOR X (1932)
Friday, October 8th: THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)
I’ll be back tomorrow for my thoughts on Ghost Story, starring Hollywood legends John Houseman, Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Melvin Douglas… oh, and young Alice Krige’s boobs! See ya’ then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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