O Metrô da Morte

The premise for this film is brilliant. The underground setting is brilliantly used, with striking photography and visual story-telling. The film's last line is something like, "Did they really live like this?", seeing the squalor of the underground lair. Sequences are fantastically gruesome, in documentary style. Not only is the film well shot, it has some points to make about oppression. See this film if you get the chance, it deserves a much higher IMDb rating.

A cannibal (Hugh Armstrong) is roaming the London subway system in 1973. Police inspector Donald Pleasence (having a LOT of fun with his role) wants to catch him--a young Britsh couple (Sharon Gunrey, David Ladd) try to help until she gets kidnapped by the cannibal...

Very low budget, rarely shown horror film. The low budget hurts, but the script is good, the idea original and there are some truly creepy scenes (such as the looooonngg tracking shot from the cannibals' lair). The movie is also quite gruesome at times--there's very little violence, but there are long shots of decaying or half-eaten bodies (and body parts). Look for the sequence where a supposedly dead body can be seen blinking his eyes quite a bit! Also there's a very disturbing near rape scene.

The most amazing thing about the film is that the cannibal comes across as a sympathetic character! He only kills for survival--not for evil purposes.

As for the acting--Pleasance is just great here--he attacks the role full force and is having a grand old time doing it--he really brings the film to life. Gurney is very good as the English girl but Ladd is truly horrible as her boyfriend. And those 70s hair and clothes! Armstrong is (as I said) very sympathetic and also vicious as the cannibal. Also Christopher Lee has an amusing short sequence in this.

So, it's gruesome but worth catching, but it's shown very rarely on cable so good luck!

There's something pretty grisly going on under London in the Tube tunnels between Holborn and Russell Square.

When a top civil servant becomes the latest to disappear down there Scotland Yard start to take the matter seriously.

Helping them are a young couple who get nearer to the horrors underground than they would wish.

Very 70s, but not all that great. The problem is this is sort of a quasimodo frankenstein-ish movie and it takes itself seriously, but it's just not all that compelling.

Lots of long segments with the "monster" (for lack of a better term) wallowing in the dark wet space of the London tubes. But it wears thin when nothing happened for so long.

DEATH LINE

(USA: Raw Meat)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Mono

Trapped by falling masonry during construction of the London Underground, a group of Victorian workers survive in the bowels of the earth for more than a century, breeding amongst themselves and cannibalizing the dead. A hundred years after their ordeal began, the last remaining descendant (Hugh Armstrong) finds his way back to the surface and begins to abduct people from station platforms in a desperate bid for food and companionship...

With its unique premise and uncompromising attention to grisly detail, Gary Sherman's directorial feature debut has gained something of a cult reputation over the years, and not without good reason. Dominated by Donald Pleasence's central performance as a cynical copper who treats everyone - innocent and guilty alike - with equal contempt, the film strikes a precarious balance between eccentricity and horror, reaching its emotional highpoint during scenes depicting Armstrong's ghoulish underground 'home', strewn with rotting corpses. Art direction (by Denis Gordon-Orr) and cinematography (by veteran Alex Thomson) are uniformly excellent, generating a vivid illusion of ancient decay, and the production benefits from atmospheric location work in abandoned train stations dating back to the Victorian era.

Juvenile leads David Ladd and Sharon Gurney are a dreary pair, and they're completely overshadowed by Pleasence's crowd-pleasing theatrics, but the film survives by virtue of its distinctive plot line and extraordinary setting, and there's at least ONE good scare that will lift viewers right out of their seats! Casual observers may find the opening scenes a little heavy-going, but Ceri Jones' admirable screenplay describes a fascinating narrative arc, and horror fans will be gripped throughout. Christopher Lee exchanges fruity insults with Pleasence during a brief cameo appearance, shot in a couple of hours and intended solely for marquee value.