THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW (1972)
Article 4322 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-30-2013
Directed by Pete Walker
Featuring Ray Brooks, Jenny Hanley, Luan Peters
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Homicidal maniac on the loose

A troupe of actors are called together to put together an improvisational show at an old rarely-used theater on a pier. Then someone begins knocking off the actors one by one…

Before I started this series, I’d never even heard of Pete Walker. My first encounter with him was with the movie FRIGHTMARE, a movie so savagely horrific that I mentally marked him as a director to reckon with. This movie marks my fourth encounter with him, and I’m beginning to think that FRIGHTMARE was the exception rather than the rule. The title may be the best thing about it, as it seems to promise sex and mayhem in equal doses; as it is, there’s a lot more flesh than blood here, and more of people standing around talking than either one of them. The movie suffers from a bevy of uninteresting characters, a general lack of suspense, and a sense of obviousness; you’ll probably be connecting the dots a lot earlier than the movie does if you haven’t already been lulled into a state of apathy. This is the most disappointing movie of Walker’s that I’ve seen, but then again, it’s also the earliest one of his that I’ve seen; perhaps he needed to hone his craft a bit.