The Flesh and Blood Show

"The Flesh and Blood Show" is about a bunch of young actors all willing to take part in a stage theatre that's situated in a small ocean town, and soon as they arrive strange things start to happen and people start disappearing and surprise, surprise they are being watched by an unknown strange figure.

To be honest when I came across this movie, I actually got it confused with "Blood and Black Lace" (which I still haven't seen), and being a keen fan of early slasher movies and especially British slasher movies, I was willing to give this one a go. To be honest I was kind of disappointed, for a start there is frankly not enough blood or horror or tension to fulfil any basic needs and there are too many false scares and could have done with a higher body count.

But there are some good points to this movie, including the night-times attack on one of the women, was nicely done and quite nerve racking and the whodunit angle was nicely done along with the lengthy explanation at the end was a nice touch.

All in all not a terrible entry but doesn't quite keep the viewer interested all the way through, but still better than half the crap that comes out these days.

Performers auditioning for a British "Grand Guignol" show are murdered in mysterious ways in this deranged horror directed by Pete Walker("Frightmare","Schizo","House of Whipcord").The film is pretty creepy and offers a nice amount of sleaze.There are decapitations,drownings,psychotic elderly tramps,naked women and some gruesome killings.The cinematography is pretty gloomy and the location sets are suitably eerie.A must-see if you're a fan of British horror!

My Ratings: Story 1.25 : Direction 0.75 : Pace 1.25 : Acting 1.25 : Entertaining 1.25 Total 5.75 out of 10.00.

Boobs. That's what this film has. To be truthful, there are nearly more boobs than actors or actresses. And not one of those scenes needs to be in the movie and is the reason I've marked the direction down accordingly.

The story isn't too new either. I admit I like the idea and concept behind the bad guy... or gal's motives, which I can't go into fully - spoilers, and all that. A Hodge-Podge of actors and actresses are hired to put on a London stage show. They are to report to the director, Mike, at a disused seaside theatre for rehearsals. However, once there, things take a step into the strange as the cast disappears, one-by-one. Mike even calls in the coppers when he believes he's found one of the missing actresses. They lay her body out on the guillotine prop... sans head. However, when the cops turn up, the body has gone poof! and the wooden mannequin has returned.

The writer Alfred Shaughnessy, gives the audience an entertaining and tension-filled hour and a half, with abundant twists and clues to pique the interest of the audience... of yes, and boobs.

Speaking of which, the director, Pete Walker, directs the story relatively well. I particularly liked the way he handled the cramped and confined spaces of the pier's theatre. You almost feel as though the walls are closing in. The way he also conducts the "Near Kill" sequence is outstanding. The way he stays in close and tight to the intended prey as the hunter, the strange hobo'esq character, slides closer on the bench, constantly coughing and wheezing builds the tension. Add to this, the cut-aways to the inside of the theatre and the casts realisation that something bad is happening outside and their swift reaction, which is too slow, build extra tension. This sequence is structured well and plays with the tempo perfectly, pulling the audience into the story.

The cast isn't too bad in their roles, though a lot is little more than stage dressing and butcher fodder. Robin Askwith, for example, is pretty much in "Adventures of..." mode. Cocky and self-assured, but seldom used. This movie is predominantly driven by Ray Brooks as Mike, Jenny Hanley as Julia, and Patrick Barr as Major Bell.

Don't get me wrong, everybody does a grand job in their roles. They just needed to and used more fully. It's like they focus on one character, then they get bumped off and it's onto the next. I never fully felt as though they were a unit. Working together to stay alive.

This is an enjoyable romp of a slasher flick; before they became known as such. And for those reasons, it's worth a watch. I have a feeling I may take a second and third look at this title before I pass on. So, if you enjoy your Chillers and Slashers, with a hint of the supernatural (and there is a hint in there - so I deem this a horror film too) then I recommend you watch this slice of celluloid history.

Swim on over to my Absolute Horror and Killer Thriller Chillers and The Game Is Afoot lists to see where I rated this English gem.

Take Care and Stay Well.

The plot is a familiar one. A bunch of people go to an abandoned building to stay there, and some of them start dying.

Even taken more specifically, this is a group of young actors who go to an old theater, and are killed for reasons relating to the theater's past. The Clown at Midnight (1998) is similar.

The movie has a lot of dialog, which isn't of much interest. People go off wandering, and sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't. They visit an older couple, and I didn't get a sense of where their house was in relation to the theater, which seemed to be on an island. Police actually are contacted fairly easily early on. The actors continue to stay at the theater far beyond what is sensible.

There's a fair amount of female nudity, even some full frontal nudity. There is even some full frontal nudity from one of the men. Deaths are not depicted very graphically, to the extent they are barely on screen at all. The killer is a heavy breather, with a black mask and gloves.

The music throughout reminded me of the incidental music from the original Scooby Doo series!

There's a flashback scene which is rather surprising, that has a couple having sex in front of a young girl. The girl's scenes were quite obviously edited in (i.e. she wasn't in the room with the nude actors), but it was still a little shocking. That scene was a little better than the rest of the movie, although it started off with a staging of Othello, which was not too involving. There's another good scene in which some of the actors think one of them is shining a spotlight, but it then shines on the person they though was handling it, who was nude. Being a little thick, they don't immediately realize the spotlight must be handled by someone else, nor do they notice how the nude figure doesn't appear to have any life in it.

At the end of the Monterey Home Video, there were trailers for The Slasher is the Sex Maniac, Night After Night After Night, and The Grim Reaper, all of which looked much better. Although I've seen a cut version of The Grim Reaper AKA Antropophagus (1980), and didn't think it was all that hot, but then the trailer for it was all of five seconds long or so. The other trailers were of ordinary length.

To me, Pete Walker is most famous for mature horror works such as House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin, but apparently he used to direct silly sex flicks and this was the film that was the stepping stone between those and the horror that he would go on to direct. The Flesh and Blood Show is a slasher at heart; but it deserves more respect than the average slasher flick because it came out before the big 'boom' in the eighties, and is therefore a precursor to the genre. As such, the film doesn't feature many of the over-used clichés of the genre - but I was disappointed as while Walker doesn't hold back with the nudity, he does with the blood - and that's not good in a film called 'The Flesh AND Blood Show'. Anyway, the plot focuses on a troupe of actors and a director that decide to go to an old abandoned theatre in a quiet town to rehearse their play and (hopefully) become big names on the London circuit. However, soon enough members of the troupe begin to vanish one by one, prompting an investigation into the theatre's unsavoury history.

Aside from Walker regular Patrick Barr, this film featured two recognisable actors for me, one for his looks and the other for the sound of his voice! Robin Askwith I recognised immediately as the star of the superb Michael Gough trash flick 'Horror Hospital', while Ray Brooks' voice sounded familiar. It didn't take me long to figure out that he sounded like the 'Joe' from Eastenders, and after looking on here - it's the same guy! The female stars I didn't recognise, despite the fact that most of them had appeared in various Hammer films; but they do their job well - that job being providing eye candy! I'm guessing that Pete Walker hadn't met Sheila Keith when The Flesh and Blood Show was made. The old theatre provides a good location for the horror; its ominous rooms and corridors help Walker to create the much needed atmosphere. The film does have a lot of good points; but unfortunately for me it all comes down to the lack of blood, and the fact that it's not always interesting. The ending didn't inspire me much either, although it's not the worst I've seen from a slasher flick.