(Review originally written at 12 October 2007)
Especially considering its potential, this could had been a way better movie. It showed a promising concept, with cannibals in the London underground and featured Donald Pleasence in the lead role. How could you go wrong with this?
Problem is that the story doesn't move along quick enough and the events in the movie all feel rather stretched out. Some sequences and dialog are go on for far too long. But even with those extended overlong sequences the movie is still only 87 minutes short. I think this says something about the original script that just doesn't seem to offer enough. Jokes get used multiple times and some dialog seem to repeat itself, over and over again. This also really takes away the pace out of the movie at times. It tries to bend its slowness in to their own advantage, by making it part of the horror/mystery build-up of the movie but it's even too slow for that. The movie simply misses the mark with that.
Nothing wrong with the atmosphere though. It has a typical '70's (fairly cheap looking) British movie making like style all over it. The cinematography of the movie was also really good. It featured some great and 'experimental' different sort of compositions and was dark in a good- and right required way.
It's not the sort of horror movie with lots of scary moments but fans will be able to appreciate the uncomfortable dark atmosphere of the movie. Also on top of that, the movie features some pretty gory moments.
Donald Pleasence of course was a great leading man for this movie. He always seemed to add a certain amount of humor into his roles, without ever loosing character credibility, with this movie also as an example of that. Also Christopher Lee makes a great enjoyable small cameo appearance. Too bad that the movie also decided to throw in some other less interesting characters, also played by some definite less capable actors.
Not the best example of British horror from the '70's but the genre fans will probably still be able to enjoy it.
5/10
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