 Raw Meat (1973) Raw Meat had me at hello. As soon as I heard the degenerate Moog-bass stripper music that accompanied the DVD menu screen, I knew this wouldn't be your typical inbred-cannibals-luring-unsuspecting-people-into-their-underground-lair movie. It opens with a British aristocrat leaving a number of seedy strip clubs and porn shops, then making his way to the Tube station, where he propositions a woman for sex, only to be kicked in the balls and relieved of the hookermoney he was proffering. But his evening out hasn't hit rock bottom, as he is subsequently attacked by a monstrous, plague-infested denizen of the underground. The man's body is found by two students, a brash American and his sensitive Londoner girlfriend, who alert the nearest constable. When they all return to the scene, the body is gone. Where can it be? The last train has already gone! The police, led by Donald Pleasence, are skeptical of the kids' story, and have little luck figuring out what happened. They do discover, though, that the tube station in question is very near the site of a 19th-century tunnel collapse which left a bunch of workers trapped, and subsequently abandoned by their bankrupt company. What the police don't realize is that these workers survived and lived in this hellish tunnelworld ever since! By eating each other, of course. But now the tunnelfolk are down to their last survivor, who is forced out into the Tube station to find, yes … raw meat! It's a funny little film, not all that scary, nor particularly chilling, but more of a gothic black comedy. The cannibal is portrayed, a la Frankenstein's monster, as a misunderstood and sensitive creature who only happens to need human meat for survival. The cops are hilarious, especially Pleasence as the smart-ass chief inspector, who always has choice words for his suspects, interviewees, and fellow inspectors. Christopher Lee turns up for a totally unnecessary but splendid cameo that is far more Peter Sellers than Saruman the White. Undoubtedly his participation was sought simply for additional marquee value, and the director doesn't seem to want to pretend otherwise. It's kind of slow moving, and in spots unintelligibly British. But it's never boring, and the humor is delightfully curious (the climactic showdown with the cannibal man is accompanied by music that sounds straight out of Tom & Jerry). Though I was more in the mood for a bloodthirsty zombie flick, Raw Meat turned out to be of approximately equal value, though in a totally different way. A small gem, especially if you like your comedy mixed with people eating rat heads.
Review by La Fée |