The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)

Director Pete Walker, a sort of horror auteur insofar as he owned the production company, began as a director of nudies and rougies. Although later renowned for the blood rather than the flesh, The Flesh and Blood Show is one of his earlier horror films and as such shows off the flesh much more than the blood.

That might be something to complain about were the sex not so integral to the horror and plot. Much like Bava's Bay of Blood, The Flesh and Blood Show is a prototype bodycount slasher; also like Bava's Bay of Blood, it is superior to most of its followers. Where all slashers have an occult link between the sex and the violence, The Flesh and Blood Show provides a very clear, causal link between sex and violence that I shouldn't reveal.

Also like a slasher, The Flesh and Blood Show is peopled primarily by attractive youths plopped together in a camp-like situation. In this case, they are theater students improvising a show, and they are camping out in the old, abandoned theater as they reason it will be easier on their budgets.

However, it would be a mistake to assume they're all oversexed, stupid teens. In fact, they're not teens and there's considerable variety in their attitudes towards sex. Mike, the leader of the group, is only interested in getting work done. A handsome Australian--handsome enough that he's probably never gone a week without a 'piece of tail' since he was 15--quickly shacks up with an aggressively horny blond. A sexually frustrated prankster broods over their relationship and generally raises suspicions. And an experienced lesbian takes advantage of a more innocent young lady.

Were this a traditional slasher there would be only two characters here really deserving of the knife. In this film, the killer makes the assumption we might make coming into a slasher: these are young people camping in a theater; so they're probably all sexually loose hippies. Thus the bodycount mounts while police are led on wild goose chases, leaving the actors vulnerable.

The film is generous enough to delve into the killer's psychology and show us that the motive is indeed sexual prudery of sorts--combined, perhaps, with sexual perversion. This generosity involves, of all things, a sudden performance of Othello at the climax of the film.

It's all handled with enough ambiguity and cleverness to keep one thinking some after viewing, maybe even enough to get a rewatch. It's also exploitative enough to keep sleaze-hounds entertained, with some nice tits on display. On a technical level, the film is professionally manned behind camera, and the actors are above average, especially for this sort of film. And British cinema fans will want to keep an eye out for Robin Askwith in a pre-Confessions and pre-Queen Kong role.