Welcome to Blood City

The intriguing subject of virtual reality gets a rather unremarkable treatment in Peter Sasdy's sci-fi/western Welcome to Blood City, which sees a group of strangers unknowingly plugged into a computer simulation of a wild west town, the purpose being to identify natural fighters and leaders.

Keir Dullea puts in fine performance as Lewis, a recent arrival who gradually works his way up the social ladder, and Jack Palance is solid as the town's sheriff, but the film suffers from lifeless direction and a badly structured plot, which misses an opportunity for a neat twist at the end by revealing it's virtual reality angle way too early.

My copy was the dreadful pan and scan version, which didn't exactly help the viewing experience, but even cutting it some slack for this fact, Welcome to Blood City was decidedly mediocre. Westworld did the sci-fi/western thing so much better.

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

I'm sure WELCOME TO BLOOD CITY sounded like a great idea on paper. It's part western, part science fiction, and the filmmakers managed to snag Jack Palance and Keir Dullea for the main roles. A meager budget may have been the reasons for the cheap sets and costuming, but it was poor writing that resulted in such a dull waste of time. It's unclear where and when this movie is set because it jumps right into the action, but I got the impression that it opens in Japan where our "hero" Lewis (Dullea) is taken by police. Things around him seem chaotic but it's never made clear why because once Lewis is taken we immediately cut to him awakening in the desert surrounded by a group of confused strangers. All of them are in blue jumpsuits, none of them have any memory of who they are (outside of their names), and they've each got a card in their breast pocket identifying them as killers. Understandably, they're all shaken and confused. Everyone except for Lewis, who treats these bizarre circumstances as a joke. He's completely unfazed by his mysterious arrival in the desert and takes every opportunity to crack wise, even when angry hillbillies have a shotgun in his face. When one of the new arrivals tries to intervene in the rape of Martine (Hollis McLaren, the only woman in the new arrivals) by one of the hillbillies, he's shot down in cold blood and Lewis, again, has to crack jokes.

That's our hero, everyone. Thoroughly unlikeable from the moment we meet him. The group is soon approached by Frendlander (Palance), who leads them into Blood City and explains the rules. New arrivals are slaves; they will be chosen by a member of the community and put in a year of service before being given the opportunity to join the town as a regular civilian. New arrivals that refuse to acquiesce are fair game to be murdered. There is a contingent of people in Blood City who wear black outfits with red crosses affixed to their chests. These people are straight killers who have risen above the regular folk through murder. The more people you kill, the higher your rank and the more power you hold over the town. Frendlander is the current record- holder with over 20 kills and he's basically the town's overseer. Honestly, the whole thing is sort of a confusing mess and I'm not entirely sure how the society in this town operates. How do civilians become black-suited killers? By killing them? There are still rules and laws to follow in Blood City but killing is all right in certain circumstances? I'm not 100% on the details. Regardless, Blood City isn't real. We discover early on that it's a computer simulation and everyone in town is wired in. It's some sort of government program designed to weed out the weak and pinpoint the most adept killers to be used in the real world as government assassins. I guess?

The project is overseen by two scientists, the only important one being Katherine (Samantha Eggar). Katherine is immediately keen on Lewis and wants to ensure he makes it through the program. She becomes straight-up infatuated with him, going so far as to insert herself into the simulation to assist him and…eventually…sleep with him. So, obviously this is the most unregulated government program ever. While she obsesses over Lewis, Lewis is obsessing over Martine. Martine being a pretty young woman, the entire town has its eyes on her. Everyone wants to claim Martine as their slave for obvious raping purposes. There is a surprising amount of rape and rape intention in this film, and it's all targeted at poor Martine. The risk of rampant rape is so bad that Frendlander decides to lock her away for her own safety until a citizen can claim her. Eventually, Frendlander decides he wants Martine all for himself and all the promise of a cool sci-fi/western is flushed away as it becomes a dull 90-minute "save the girl" tale. And it's very, very dull. It feels like nothing happens for long stretches of this movie. The beginning and ending are pretty interesting but everything else is a snooze. Combine the motionless plot with a bunch of characters you most certainly won't care about and WELCOME TO BLOOD CITY is an avoidable mess. I love a good slice of Z-grade cinema cheese but this movie makes every effort to keep it from becoming too much fun.

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.

Jack Palance was the main reason to see this, and while he doesn't disappoint the film in general does. An interesting concept here, but not enough is done with it and the low budget really hinders it.

Palance's performance is also the best thing about the film, he is so much fun while keeping his dignity intact, he resists the temptation also to overact like he sometimes did in similar roles. In fact, the acting is the component that comes off the least badly here, Keir Dullea is decent and Samantha Eggar while deserving more to do gives the film's second best performance, being quite thoughtful and with a good deal of authority. Roy Budd provides an appropriately eerie and thrilling music score without intruding too much. There are also some charmingly offbeat parts in the script.

Welcome to Blood City however is badly let down by being so lifelessly directed by Peter Sasdy, who has shown before that he is a competent director, and the painfully obvious low budget, especially in the choppy editing, dizzying camera angles and dreadfully fuzzy picture quality. The settings are also pretty limited and never feel authentic. Apart from some offbeat moments, the script is completely devoid of tension, while the story is often very dull and the suspense is marred by the virtual reality concept being revealed far too early. There are some interesting ideas here, but nowhere near enough is done with them. The characters are very one-dimensional, and despite Dulleas' performance any empathy towards his character's plight was rarely on this viewer's mind.

All in all, a very odd film that had potential but executes it pretty badly. 4/10 Bethany Cox