The Flesh and Blood Show (1974)

A group of young thespians converge together to rehearse for a potential play only to discover that the one who gathered them has other plans. Soon members of the group are being attacked by a mysterious figure who seems to be familiar with the old, vacant Dome theater, abandoned for quite a long spell, located near a seashore.Plenty of nudity highlights this okay little thriller, which is relatively tame in regards to violence(..none of the attacks take place on screen)unlike what you might expect entering into it. For a large portion of the film features various couplings and lots of undressing.A major plot development(..concerning a former theatrical star whose family come up missing after he discovers his actress wife with her co-star in the throes of passion), answers the question as to why this group has been brought to the site, and this history is linked to the Dome theater itself. A particular event(..the discovery of the skeletal remains of two people also contributes to this) fuels everything taking place.I'm pretty sure slasher fans will be rather disappointed, although the giallo audience might like it. Walker's THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW is more concerned with story than violence, although the frequent nudity is perhaps a draw due to how lovely the actresses are in the buff. The script keenly observes the behaviors of thespians on stage and how they respond to each other.Sordid shenanigans by the characters actually lends itself to what motivates the killer. The carnality aspect which re-awakens bad memories of a certain occurrence which left an actor a devastated emotional wreck, unable to escape the past that haunts him. Slow-moving pace, but a great setting within a darkened theater which is a perfect place for a psycho to move about and hide in the shadows.

I must say, I enjoyed this film. I have a soft spot for Gothic horror films from Britian, the legendary giallos and American drive-in flicks, so this appealed to me. However, the title would have you believe this to be in the vein of Re-Animator or Tower of Evil, but it really isn't. There are a handful of murders but all take place off screen. That appeals to me - since I'm not much of a gorehound, but with a title like this, you'd expect to see some blood and on screen murders.The plot centers on a group of struggling actors getting lured to an abandoned theater to rehearse for a play. Ray Brooks plays the director and gets something he didn't bargain for when he finds one of his actress' heads placed on a ledge. John, the practical joker of the film, thinks Brooks is pulling a fast one, but the police are called out. While Brooks went off to fetch the fuzz, the killer disposes of the actress' corpse and replaces it with a mannequin. The cops are less than amused and label the actors as troublemakers. Later, Luan Peters is attacked but Ray Brooks opts not to inform the police right-away since he knows they won't believe him. So he looks into the deviant undertakings on his own, with the help of actress Jenny Hanley. They realize that their abandoned theater may not be as abandoned as they were led to believe.STORY: $$$ (I'm a sucker for the isolation theme in horror films - put a group of people in an isolated setting and I'm sold. Theatre folk might like this, but then again, it has a sort of anti-theater theme going for it. The screenplay is written well but the characters aren't fleshed out (at least regarding their backgrounds) to the degree I'd like. At the beginning, Luan Peters and Judy Matheson are in bed together at Luan's residence, but when they venture off to the theater, Luan shacks up with Australian stud Tony. Judy wasn't too concerned, so I guess they really didn't have a lesbian relationship).VIOLENCE: $$ (There is some violence, but there isn't any gore, so don't let the title mislead you. Granted, an actress gets decapitated, but it is off screen. Luan Peters is attacked at night and this scene is graphically done, but it wasn't a murder, so there isn't any fake blood tossed around).ACTING: $$$ (David Howey, who played the joker John, seems to do the best job here but he gets ample support from Ray Brooks as the director, Luan Peters as the sexpot and Jenny Hanley as the theater natural. The old fellow who plays Major Bell was very good as was Candace Glendenning in her cameo. Robin Askwith fans need not apply - he is the most underdeveloped actor in the group).NUDITY: $$$$$ (You won't be letdown here. Luan Peters seems to relish the moments she is topless on screen, which is quite often at the beginning. Jane Cardew and her man are fully nude back stage while Judy Matheson gets undressed and Major Bell ogles Candace Glendenning while she changes. Needless to say, the Flesh from the title was there but the blood was wanting).

To me, Pete Walker is most famous for mature horror works such as House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin, but apparently he used to direct silly sex flicks and this was the film that was the stepping stone between those and the horror that he would go on to direct. The Flesh and Blood Show is a slasher at heart; but it deserves more respect than the average slasher flick because it came out before the big 'boom' in the eighties, and is therefore a precursor to the genre. As such, the film doesn't feature many of the over-used clichés of the genre - but I was disappointed as while Walker doesn't hold back with the nudity, he does with the blood - and that's not good in a film called 'The Flesh AND Blood Show'. Anyway, the plot focuses on a troupe of actors and a director that decide to go to an old abandoned theatre in a quiet town to rehearse their play and (hopefully) become big names on the London circuit. However, soon enough members of the troupe begin to vanish one by one, prompting an investigation into the theatre's unsavoury history.Aside from Walker regular Patrick Barr, this film featured two recognisable actors for me, one for his looks and the other for the sound of his voice! Robin Askwith I recognised immediately as the star of the superb Michael Gough trash flick 'Horror Hospital', while Ray Brooks' voice sounded familiar. It didn't take me long to figure out that he sounded like the 'Joe' from Eastenders, and after looking on here - it's the same guy! The female stars I didn't recognise, despite the fact that most of them had appeared in various Hammer films; but they do their job well - that job being providing eye candy! I'm guessing that Pete Walker hadn't met Sheila Keith when The Flesh and Blood Show was made. The old theatre provides a good location for the horror; its ominous rooms and corridors help Walker to create the much needed atmosphere. The film does have a lot of good points; but unfortunately for me it all comes down to the lack of blood, and the fact that it's not always interesting. The ending didn't inspire me much either, although it's not the worst I've seen from a slasher flick.

A group of actors and a director are gathered together by a mysterious producer to rehearse a play in a creepy abandoned theater at the end of a pier off the English coast. In "Ten Little Indians" fashion they begin to disappear one by one. This sounds like a typical slasher movie, but in fact it preceded the slasher craze by many years. It was one of those movies like "Schoolgirl Killer", "Fright", and "Bay of Blood" that contained many of the elements of the slasher films and may have even influenced some of them a little, but was made well before "Black Christmas", "Halloween",and "Friday the 13th" initiated the deluge of slasher flicks.This movie avoids many of what would later become tedious clichés of the slasher films. There's no heavy-breathing POV camera shots. The characters are stupid, but they are not so stupid that they don't notice their friends disappearing. The killer's motivation is actually somewhat believable and doesn't seem like something the filmmakers just pulled out of their collective keisters to justify the carnage. Actually, there isn't much carnage either. Most of the murders actually occur off-screen (blasphemy, I know). But what the movie lacks in blood, it makes up for in T and A. This movie marked a transition in British director Peter Walker's career from softcore sexploitation fare like "School for Sex" and "Four Dimensions of Greta" to his more mature and superior 70's horror films like "Frightmare" and "House of the Whipcord". Not surprisingly, Walker offers a hot shower of generous female nudity to prepare viewers for the sudden cold shower of the terror scenes.In the hilarious opening scene, for instance, an incredibly voluptuous actress is awakened by a knock on her door at three in the morning, so she gets out of her female "roommate's" bed and answers the door completely naked. I'd recommend this movie to anyone, but people who like Pete Walker, and slasher movies that are actually well-crafted and scary will especially enjoy this one.