Raw Meat (1972)

Director: Gary Sherman

Starring: Donald Pleasence, David Ladd, Sharon Gurney

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Beneath Modern London Lives a Tribe of Once Humans. Neither Men Nor Women...They Are the Raw Meat Of The Human Race!

Plot: There's something pretty grisly going on under London in the Tube tunnels between Holborn and Russell Square. When a top civil servant becomes the latest to disappear down there Scotland Yard start to take the matter seriously. Helping them are a young couple who get nearer to the horrors underground than they would wish.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again? It's in the "give away" pile as I write this.

#4 of 31 Days of Horror 2010.
#89 on Drive-In Delirium Volume 2 (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)


I don't know what I expected from this more than what I got. There is only one reason to watch this and that's for an amazingly quirky performance by Pleasence. He's ball-busting insane as the lead inspector trying to figure everything out. The acting from everyone is good except for the American, Ladd. Ugh. The quirky main title theme was neat albeit repetitive and it appeared nowhere else in the film.

Hey, look! It's Clive Swift from one of my favorite Britcoms,
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES!

The underground "monster" wasn't really scary or even all that menacing. The world he lived in was cool and creepy but that's about it. There's a great 360 degree, long walk through his lair early on that's utterly top notch. Seriously, any scene with Pleasence is engaging and any with the monster is dull and lifeless. I expected more from a movie called RAW MEAT. Sigh.