Under its trashy-looking surface, Death Line holds some unexpected treasure for those who pay attention.You’d expect a wide spectrum of opinions from its viewers. Especially from those lucky enough to catch it without cuts for time or violence.
For me, and for a lot more people, one theme couldn’t be missed. While we are living our quiet, ordinary, uneventful lives, a hidden sub-society is living out a miserable existence just out of reach. People neglected, then soon forgotten. But able to reach out and grab one of us at certain isolated, unexpected moments.
Anyone who heard about them, saying, Don’t look at us, we declared bankruptcy—these creatures are no longer our responsibility. Don’t tell us we needed to do anything more for a bunch of cannibal-monsters living underground. Except maybe request the police to round them up or shoot them dead.
Sorry, but we filled out all the legal documents required. If you have to, we can even show you—they’re all on file.
About eighty years before, (so the story goes) people started work on some new subway lines in London. But a roof collapsed and the people in charge decided to scrap the whole construction..
But no one took responsibility for the subway workers left underground. They were simply left to die. Some rumors that their food was soon gone but they might have enough water to survive a short while…maybe not so short. At least that was possible.
Death Line paints a vivid picture of that nightmare. Decades later several generations of people had survived. Did they survive on meat from people they slaughtered in the subway near their hiding places…or were they forced to eat each other? And what was life like for the people they grabbed, as they waited to die?
Another, more subtle theme in Death Line—a class system, with the monster-survivors at the lowest step on the ladder.
Watch the law enforcement people investigating disappearances in the subway system. Calhoun, the chief inspector (Donald Pleasence, great as always). Then Detective Rogers, who is expected to follow Calhoun’s every command and to tolerate his frequent sarcasm. One step below Rogers, a desk officer who reports to him.
Near the top, above Calhoun, is an M.1.5 officer investigating the disappearances. When he runs into the M.1.5 officer, Calhoun bluffs, tells him, this is my jurisdiction, I have every right to be here.
Maybe for murders of greengrocers and other nonentities, the M.1.5 man tells him. But the missing person is a fellow M.1.5. You’re way out of your depth. “Bye bye.” Calhoun knows it’s time to stop bluffing.
At the bottom of the totem pole, the cannibals. Starting out with a long painful scene of the wretched place where they live. A constant, intruding sound of water dripping. Grating inside your head as the camera moves too slowly through rooms…endless agony. Hold on, I don’t need to see all this, you think. Let’s go back to the other people, the other locations.
Instead, you are trapped, as the camera moves through the ruins where people live and die, virtually alone. Recently killed, side by side with corpses dead much longer, their eyes empty sockets. Propped up against walls or piled on top of wooden bunks. Along with the freshly-killed, maybe even a few not yet dead.
Then another severest, the most unexpected shock—a deep empathy for the surviving creatures. In the sixty-odd years since Death Line’s release we have sat through an endless parade of zombie movies, endless sub-humans shot, beheaded, maybe ground up into bloody mush. Here, you see creatures from a different subculture. They will kill when they have to, but mostly they want to be left alone in peace.,
But all their attempts at reaching out fall on deaf ears. They have only learned one phrase of English, “Mind the doors,” (spoken by subway conductors just before the train doors shut
For me, and for a lot more people, one theme couldn’t be missed. While we are living our quiet, ordinary, uneventful lives, a hidden sub-society is living out a miserable existence just out of reach. People neglected, then soon forgotten. But able to reach out and grab one of us at certain isolated, unexpected moments.
Anyone who heard about them, saying, Don’t look at us, we declared bankruptcy—they’re no longer our responsibility. Don’t tell us we needed to do anything more for a bunch of
cannibal-monsters living underground. Except maybe request the police to round them up or shoot them dead.
Sorry, but we filled out all the legal documents required. If you have to, we can even show you—they’re all on file.
About eighty years before, (so the story goes) people started work on some new subway lines in London. But a roof collapsed and the people in charge decided to scrap the whole thing.
But no one took responsibility for the subway workers left underground. They were simply left to die. Some rumors that their food was soon gone but they might have enough water to survive a short while…maybe not so short. At least that was possible.
Death Line paints a vivid picture of that nightmare. Decades later several generations of people had survived. Did they survive on meat from people they slaughtered in the subway near their hiding places…or were they forced to eat each other? And what was life like for the people they grabbed, as they waited to die?
Another, more subtle theme in Death Line—a class system, with the monster-survivors at the lowest step on the ladder.
Watch the law enforcement people investigating disappearances in the subway system. Calhoun, the chief inspector (Donald Pleasence, great as always). Then Detective Rogers, who is expected to follow Calhoun’s every command and to tolerate his frequent sarcasm. One step below Rogers, a desk officer who reports to him.
Near the top, above Calhoun, is an M.1.5 officer investigating the disappearances. When he runs into the M.1.5 officer, Calhoun bluffs, tells him, this is my jurisdiction, I have every right to be here.
Maybe for murders of greengrocers and other nonentities, the M.1.5 man tells him. But the missing person is a fellow M.1.5. You’re way out of your depth. “Bye bye.” Calhoun knows it’s time to stop bluffing.
At the bottom of the totem pole, the cannibals. Starting out with a long painful scene of the wretched place where they live. A constant, intruding sound of water dripping. Grating inside your head as the camera moves too slowly through rooms…endless agony. Hold on, I don’t need to see all this, you think. Let’s go back to the other people, the other locations.
Instead, you are trapped, as the camera moves through the ruins where people live and die, virtually alone. Recently killed, side by side with corpses dead much longer, their eyes empty sockets. Propped up against walls or piled on top of wooden bunks. Along with the freshly-killed, maybe even a few not yet dead.
Then another severest, the most unexpected shock—a deep empathy for the surviving creatures. In the sixty-odd years since Death Line’s release we have sat through an endless parade of zombie movies, endless sub-humans shot, beheaded, maybe ground up into bloody mush. Here, you see creatures from a different subculture. They will kill when they have to, but mostly they want to be left alone in peace.,
But all their attempts at reaching out fall on deaf ears. They have only learned one phrase of English, “Mind the doors,” (spoken by subway conductors just before the train doors shut ).
Even the monster in Bride of Frankenstein finds a friend in the blind hermit and learns to speak. In Death Line, every meeting between the cannibals and the ordinary people (us) is doomed to violence. This is one reason Death Line packs such a sting, even after order is restored and the situation is returned to normal.
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