Legendary British horror film Death Line comes to limited edition Blu-ray totally uncut from Blue Underground
In the early 1970s, young Chicago-based commercial filmmaker Gary Sherman found himself in London working, living and loving (he was a single lad, after all) and inexplicably getting complete creative control over a fully-funded British horror film that he co-wrote and directed. That movie was 1972’s Death Line, one of the most remarkable, revolting and ultimately emotionally affecting genre movies not only of its decade, but of all time.
Inspired by the story of notorious cannibalistic Scottish highwayman Sawney Bean, the horrifying fate of The Donner Party and the creation of the London Underground, Death Line tells the bone-chilling tale of the sole surviving descendant of a cave-in during those long-ago early tunnel digs who, after being born and raised cannibalizing the dead, has emerged from under the subway tracks and is now dragging hapless British commuters into his moldering, blood and bone draped lair while frantically searching for a new mate to carry on his diseased lineage.
A clear precursor to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Pete Walker’s Frightmare, Death Line sports a solid and often darkly hilarious performance by the great Donald Pleasence as a Police Inspector trying to get to the bottom of the mystery and a cameo by Christopher Lee. But this is Sherman’s show and the untried director (who would later find fame with classics like Dead and Buried and Vice Squad and the troubled Poltergeist III) sculpts a nightmarish hidden world while giving us one of the greatest human monsters in screen history. “The Man” is a tortured, pathetic creature who is merely trying to survive the only way he knows how: by killing and eating other human beings. And because of his lifetime underground, the only words he can articulate are “Mind the doors”. And he says them often.
Released in America in a dreadfully cut form by AIP as Raw Meat, Death Line is coming to Blu-ray/DVD combo pack in all its totally uncut, gory glory from Blue Underground on June 27th,with a 2K scan HD transfer from the original, never before seen uncensored negative and loaded with tons of incredible extras including commentaries, new interviews and a collectible booklet. The release is a limited edition with only 3000 copies printed.
Have you seen Death Line? Will you picking up this essential release?