SHARON GURNEY IN GARY SHERMAN'S CULT SLASHER 'DEATH LINE'

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE Year: 1972 Rating: **

There's a point in future DEAD & BURIED, VICE SQUAD and POLTERGEIST III director Gary Sherman's 1972 proto-slasher DEATH LINE where blunt detectives Donald Pleasence and Norman Rossington are discussing the hippie couple they're separately questioning: and only David Ladd (playboy son of iconic Alan Ladd) is shown...

Merely part of the problem in what's an otherwise groundbreaking horror involving a cannibal, before even TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, taking place in a dark and spooky-looking location, including an extremely long maneuvering crane shot of the lead killer in his underground fortress...

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Grotesquely existing beneath a tube station, which is potentially eerie and claustrophobic (as later proved in John Landis's AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON)... but hardly anything happens topside beyond the couple having witnessed a dying man on the staircase... who suddenly vanishes...

So what gorgeous British scream queen Sharon Gurney saw with dull American boyfriend Ladd is what the entire police investigation is based on... or rather, who it's based on... a semi-important London official that Pleasence posthumously treats as if he's Henry the 8th...

Sharon Gurney and Hugh Armstrong in DEATH LINE

A shame that such a terrific character-actor has so little to do, even when sharing a rather unnecessary sequence with fellow legend Christopher Lee... these lawmen a pe-curser to THE SWEENEY, without any tension or suspense...

That should have existed once our first-and-final-girl Sharon Gurney winds up in the clutches of possibly the worst antagonist ever created: a Rasputin-like homeless psychopath laboriously screaming or frantically slobbering over either dead underground bodies or that gorgeous ingenue... deserving a much more terrorizing third-act, and a much better horror film experience overall. 

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney and David Ladd in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney and David Ladd in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE aka RAW MEAT

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE aka RAW MEAT

Sharon Gurney and Hugh Armstrong in DEATH LINE

Sharon Gurney in DEATH LINE aka RAW MEAT

Sharon Gurney and David Ladd in DEATH LINE aka RAW MEAT

Donald Pleasence in DEATH LINE

Christopher Lee in DEATH LINE

Christopher Lee in DEATH LINE