Welcome to Blood City

The untouchable Jack Palance leads a pack of virtual reality cowboys in this shameless high-concept ripoff of Yul Brynner's WESTWORLD. Several amnesiacs awaken in a dusty old west town, where they are immediately forced into slavery. Their only hope of social advancement is to murder other denizens of Blood City, gaining all-important street cred and working their way up to a face-off with the schizophrenic sheriff, valiantly played to the straight-faced hilt by Palance. The prematurely revealed would-be `twist' is that all the amnesiacs are actually in suspended animation, merely passing a computerized aptitude test in the technologically manufactured west, uh.world. And if you've rented BLOOD CITY in search of blood, there's not a drop to be seen. This constantly deflating film co-stars sci-fi veterans Keir (2001) Dullea and Barry (SPACE:1999) Morse, and was also released as WELCOME TO BLOOD CITY.

You know what this film reminded me of? The Cabin in the Woods. If you've seen that, you'll know what I mean when the film totally takes you out of the 'moment' and twists things up a bit.

Keir Dullea wakes up somewhere with no memory except a card in his pocket that tells him how many people he's killed. Not that he reads it mind. His other buddies at the time do, but by the time the plot gets going most of them are dead.

He finds himself in some sort of Cowboy world where life is cheap and terrible clothes are even cheaper, but who can he trust? Probably not Jack Palance. And is this world even trustworthy anyway? It's a very early take on Virtual Reality, this one. But then it's another film where you shouldn't really reveal much of the plot, because that's where the enjoyment lies. P'ting

A film with aspirations higher than its abilities. The vaguely interesting central idea is played out in a muddled script, and the whole production looks schlocky and amateurish. Dullea is a bland hero, Palance his usual eccentric self, Eggar gives a good performance....but what are these actors doing in such a cut-rate film anyway??? By the way, the videocassette version is very poorly framed, and the Panavision cinematography suffers BADLY. (*1/2)

Some folks say that's there the best movie from director Peter Sasby, who worked for Hammer films in the seventies. This is an ambitious feature, no doubt, and Sasby shows here another face of his career. Many folks too could compare this with WESTWORLD, and I understand why, because myself thought about the Michael Crichton's film where Yul Brynner had more or less the Jack Palance's place; however both plots are quite different, just the overall atmosphere, scheme and settings are rather close. Good cast too. The problem is that I saw the film in an awful pan f...scan frame instead its genuine original LBX. That upsets me very much.

Michael (Keir Dullea) wakes up in an unknown landscape with four strangers. After a short introduction, they begin walking, only to be attacked by brigands leading to tragedy and death.

Enter the mysterious man in black, Sheriff Friendlander (Jack Palance), who leads the survivors to a small "western" town populated by "cowboy"-types. Michael and company soon learn that their situation is dire and that something beyond their comprehension is behind it all.

WELCOME TO BLOOD CITY is a sci-fi-thriller that's sort of like a cross between WESTWORLD and a bizarre TWILIGHT ZONE or OUTER LIMITS episode. Palance and Dullea are great in their roles, as is Samantha Eggar as a technician...