“Death Line” (released in America under the more lurid title of “Raw Meat”) is an under-appreciated horror gem that deserves to be much better known today than it is. Released at a time when Hammer was seeking to modernise its way out of the Gothic ghetto in which it found itself and when the Amicus portmanteau picture was fast becoming the face of British horror, “Death Line’s” queasy, gory, exploitative approach didn’t quite gel with the horror conventions of the time, but in its realistic approach to violence and gore and particularly in its sub-textual commentary on the class system it was perfectly in tune with the times; times typified by the post hippie comedown and the disintegration of the British system into a morass of strikes, three-day-weeks, power switch offs and a visceral distrust of Government. The film opens with James Manfred, OBE (James Cossins), a prominent member of the establishment, visiting a red light area and subsequently being attacked in Russell Square tube station as he makes his way home. He’s found unconscious by a young couple, American Alex (David Ladd) and his girlfriend Patricia (Sharon Gurney), who report the matter to the police. When they return to the scene, however, the body has disappeared. Inspector Calhoun (Donald Pleasence) on whose “manor” the disappearance has happened inherits the case and he, along with his sergeant (Norman Rossington) set out to get to the bottom of the crime. Through his investigation he becomes aware of other incidents and disappearances in the tube stations around Russell Square. As the investigation rolls forward it is revealed that a tunnel expansion project in the 1800s had to be abandoned after a disastrous cave-in that left scores of male and female workers trapped under ground. We learn that they survived in the dark, dank, rat-infested tunnels through the cannibalisation of the dead and that they have kept reproducing. The disappearances are the work of the ‘The Man’, (Hugh Armstrong) the last surviving descendant of the piteous group, who has just seen his pregnant female companion die.

This is the first feature from Chicago born, ex-commercials director Gary Sherman and he imbues his film with a dark, gritty reality. Conceived by Sherman during a late night tube journey, his film is full of dread and underpinned by a range of startling images. These include a bravura unbroken tracking shot where the camera crawls excruciatingly slowly through the underground tunnels against a brilliant piece of sound design featuring dripping water and the moaning wail of an unseen creature before arriving at the pathetic form of ‘The Man’, the last of the underground dwellers in all his Neanderthal, wart-covered, maggot-ridden glory. Sherman’s approach is stark and he doesn’t shrink away from depicting an underground world of feasting rats and putrescent corpses hanging from walls. His American eye is also highly critical of the politics of the British class system – so we’re presented with Victorian workers abandoned as it would be too costly for the capitalists and the “captains of industry” to assist their rescue, resulting in those on the lowest on the rungs having to literally prey on each in order to survive. These class issues are played out in the guise of Inspector Calhoun and MI5 agent Stratton-Villiers (Christopher Lee in a two minute cameo). The authoritarian Stratton-Villiers mocks Calhoun’s working class background and leaves Calhoun in no doubt as to who is in control: “Mind you don’t become a missing person yourself,” he admonishes. Interestingly, Calhoun, although contemptuous of Stratton-Villiers, fully accepts the superiority of the MI5 man and his own lower placing within the social order. Pleasance’s performance is excellent – weird, eccentric and full of strange ticks and unpleasant mannerisms, including an all-consuming passion for tea (perhaps a sly comment by Sherman on the British passion for the beverage?) Lee’s two minute turn is there simply to underwrite the class dichotomies and, no doubt, to add a bit of marquee value. It is Hugh Armstrong as ‘The Man’, however, who delivers the most compelling performance both horrifically menacing and utterly tragic. The scene where his female partner dies and he tenderly strokes and moves her is strangely heart-breaking and touching as is his repeated, pathetic mewling of the words “mind the doors… mind the doors…” – presumably words he’s heard and assimilated from the world above.

“Death Line” is an excellent, compelling, thought-provoking horror movie and one of the most important British films of the early ‘70s. It is gory, unflinching, political and in some ways could almost be viewed as an art-house film. It captures something of a society intent on “eating itself” and is a chilling, grisly classic, made all the more horrific by its subtext on the class system and it critique of pre-punk Britain. ( )