Tunnel of living corpses
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Tunnel of living corpses |
| Original title | Death Line |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gary Sherman |
| script | Ceri Jones |
| production | Paul Maslansky |
| music |
Wil Malone , Jeremy Rose |
| camera | Alex Thomson |
| cut | Geoffrey Foot |
| occupation | |
| |
Death Line (British title: Death Line , American release title: Raw Meat ) is a British horror film from director Gary Sherman from 1972, based on a written by him story that materially from Alexander "Sawney" Bean was inspired , the legendary head of a cannibalistic family in 15th century Scotland . Ceri Jones wrote the screenplay for the film .
action
At the end of the 19th century, eight male and four female workers from small, ailing construction companies, which were building an underground station under the British Museum under difficult conditions , were buried and abandoned for financial reasons. However, unnoticed by the public, a small group survived the subterranean collapse in saving side tunnels and subsequently lived cannibalistically. Since that year, 1892, the cannibals have repeatedly fallen victim to people who secure the survival of those buried or their descendants for generations in disused tunnels.
In the present, only two descendants manage to survive: a neglected, plague-infested man and his pregnant, disfigured wife, for whom he carefully procures "food". Despite his relatively good care, the nameless man dies in the further course of the action, his beloved companion. He remains lonely.
The British student Patricia and her American partner Alex find an unconscious elderly man on the platform stairs of their usual London Underground terminus at night , whom they identify from their wallet as James Manfred, OBE . When they return to the almost deserted scene with an alerted police officer, the man Alex thinks is a drinker has disappeared without a trace. The man's body was kidnapped unnoticed.
The disappearance of Manfred, a high-ranking government official who often wandered around the wicked entertainment district of Soho , arouses the interest of Inspector Calhoun. The narrow-minded investigator is initially puzzled, but soon investigates a whole series of strange missing persons reports, all of whom were last seen alive at London's Russell Square underground station . However, Calhoun's research into the life of the prominent civil servant brings him into conflict with the British domestic intelligence service MI5 , which tries to obstruct and even replace him, in the person of agent Stratton-Villiers, in order to cover up a piquant state affair. Manfred's trail, however, is nowhere.
Meanwhile, the grieving and lonely cannibal, who cannot articulate himself properly and can only utter a half-intelligible sentence, kills three men. He is able to kidnap one of his killed victims. In addition to fingerprints, he also leaves traces of blood on the scene . A medical examination of the blood produces something sensational. In the blood , a physician next absolute vitamin deficiency discovered a megaloblastic anemia which him to the conclusion of a total anemia caused. In addition, the stranger he is looking for suffers from a watery bubonic plague, which, according to the doctor responsible, can only be transmitted by rats in the sewer system . The small-minded Calhoun was only able to interpret this discovery when he obtained Patricia's blood-smeared handbag, which had previously been kidnapped at the Holborn underground station at night . Your kidnapper is also the anemic murderer who has snatched a new partner into the dark realm out of loneliness. Independently of Alex, the policeman and an armed retinue set off for the underworld.
Meanwhile, Alex rescues his girlfriend Patricia from the clutches of the cannibal who previously tried to rape her. Both manage to escape when they run into the arms of the police detachment. In the stinking tunnels, the stunned police officers discover not only all sorts of skeletons but also the body of the missing James Manfred and an emaciated man, whom they ignore. It is decided to first recover the body of Manfred, leave the underground vault and leave the cannibal only lightly guarded. At the end of the film you can hear the cannibals shouting his only, almost incomprehensible sentence: "Watch out for the doors!"
Awards
- Saturn Award
- 1975: Nomination in the category of best horror film
Reviews
"An absurd, completely illogical horror film with disgusting details, which even the bizarre humor that accompanies the police measures does not make it more bearable."
“A depressing film that turns a very interesting idea [...] into a disgusting, horror mishmash of corpses gnawing flocks of rats, a drooling lunatic and slime literally dripping from the walls everywhere, without explaining in the slightest why those trapped inside themselves stay underground at all. "
Web links
- Death Line in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Tunnel of the living corpses in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tunnel of the Living Corpses. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ cf. Ronald M. Hahn and Volker Jansen: Lexicon of the horror film. Bastei-Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1989, ISBN 3-404-13175-4 , (page 442).