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8
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7 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Troy
Howarth |
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Beneath
the streets of London, there lurks a diseased clan of inbred
cannibals... striking their victims in deserted underground
locations. They've managed to survive for years, but now the
police are alerted to the strange goings on and it's only a
matter of time before they are hunted down...
Gary Sherman's Raw
Meat (U.K. title: Death Line) is a remarkable
debut for any director, but the American auteur gives it extra
edge by making it unlike virtually any other British horror
film of the early 1970s. With its grim mixture of shocking gore,
flat-out comedy and heart-rending pathos it remains a singular
achievement. Sherman wisely uses British horror icons Christopher
Lee and Donald Pleasence, only to cast them as stuffy authority
figures in a more modern horror film than the kind with which
they were identified. Pleasence relishes a rare opportunity
to play a comedic role. His police inspector is all bluff and
bluster, bullying his subordinates and getting piss drunk at
a bar in one of the film's many seemingly pointless character
vignettes. Lee, seen in a brief cameo as an MI-5 operative who
chastises Pleasence, gets little to do except be smug — but
he has no difficulty in doing that, managing to wring some wry
humor out of his condescending dialogue. ("Why don't you
go back to planting pot on people?")
That Sherman, the first time out the gate,
is able to balance these different elements with so much grace
is a testimony to his unsung talents. Unlike the Hammer or Amicus
films of the period, Sherman doesn't shy away from the violence
and bloodshed — indeed, it remains, in parts, one of the more
nauseating horror pictures of the 1970s. If the film has a downfall
it's in its focus on a bland young couple played by pretty but
vacant Sharon Gurney and unlikable David Ladd. Their scenes
definitely drag in relation to the rest of the film, and one
can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when the film cuts back
to Pleasence or the pathetic cannibal (a remarkable piece of
mime from Hugh Armstrong). The film is hardly short on style,
either, with a 7-minute tracking shot through the underground
squalor standing out as a particularly ballsy piece of filmmaking.
The film also benefits from Alex Thompson's slick cinematography
and an excellent score by composers Jeremy Rose and Wil Mallone.
Though flawed, Raw Meat is a definite
cut above the standard English horror picture of the period
and should prove strong enough to appeal to more hardened gorehounds,
to whom the Hammer films mean nothing.
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| MGM's
release of Raw Meat is reason to
celebrate for horror fans. Compared to the recent Blue Underground
release of Sherman's even better Dead
& Buried (1980), the barebones disc may seem a bit of
a letdown, but remember: the film is what's most important, and
in that regard, MGM is to be commended. Heavily cut for US consumption,
the DVD presents Sherman's original European cut, with all the
gore (and that fabulous tracking shot) fully intact. The image
is presented in 16x9-enhanced 1.85:1, and this seems to be the
correct ratio — the compositions gain info on the sides compared
to cropped TV prints, and compositions look correct throughout.
The mono soundtrack is less impressive, likely to create a problem
for many Yank viewers due to the heavy English accents (even Pleasence
may be tough to make out for some, especially when he starts muttering).
Still, the score sounds pretty potent and there is no hiss or
background noise. Extras are limited to a trailer, also letterboxed
but in pretty rough shape. 2/13/04 |
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