Death line

Out 27 august / CERT 18 / 87 mins

From the producer of Police Academy comes the ultimate in nightmare tube journeys: cannibals. And you thought no air con was bad enough. Often cited by John Landis as an inspiration for his desolated London underground sequence in An American Werewolf In London, 1972’s Death Line is a highly underappreciated gem that was all too often tucked away in late night tv schedules during the 1980s. Donald Pleasence seems to be having an absolute bloody ball as the deviously strange Inspector Calhoun, Christopher Lee pops up for a two-minute scene/joust with Pleasence that lives long in the memory, and Hugh Armstrong says so much without words (or at least only three) as the terrifying “Man” that stalks zone one for human snacks. One can only speculate over what would have happened if that part had gone, as planned, to Marlon Brando. Imagine what he could have done with the three little words the Man bellows: ‘mind the doors!’