Welcome to Blood City (1977)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply A Masterpiece

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Sometimes, I just sit and search through YouTube looking for a movie to watch while I work. Often, that search finds horrible films that I wouldn't be able to enjoy if I were truly paying attention to them. And sometimes, like with this movie, I end up taking a break from writing and find something I really enjoy.Directed by Peter Sasdy (The Lonely Lady, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Hands of the Ripper), this film was a UK/Canadian tax shelter affair. But don't hold that against it! Five strangers all wake up at the same time and have no memories of who they are, other than that they are all killers. They must travel to a Wild West town called Blood City.Once there, they will spend a year in servitude before they can become free. Then, they'll be able to own a business and work toward becoming immortal - free from constant worry of challenges to the death. They get there by winning twenty challenges. And there's only one law in Blood City - Frendlander, played by Jack Palance. It's no accident that the bad guy from Shane is playing this part. Palance might only be known to younger folks from his Oscar turn in City Slickers, but in the 1970's he was taking whatever parts he could get. And then he'd sink his teeth into them! He's fabulous in this movie!Keir Dullea (Black Christmas, 2001, The Haunting of Julia) stars as Lewis, who finds himself coming up against Frendlander over and over again. The real secret of the film? None of them are in this town at all - it's a virtual reality simulation to determine the best warriors in a future war. So basically, it's a combination of WestWorld and The Matrix.Samanta Eggar (The Brood) shows up as a scientist who falls in love with Lewis and inserts herself into the virtual reality experiment. Barry Morse is also in here, who you may remember as Lt. Philip Gerard from TV's The Fugitive. And Chris Wiggins is in this as well. He was Jack Marshak on Friday the 13th: The Series.If you're looking for this movie, you can find a horrible transfer of it on the Mill Creek Sci-Fi Invasion 50 Pack. That said, the set is pretty worthwhile, as you also get stuff like The Crater Lake Monster, Death Machines, Sergio Martino's Hands of Steel, Horror High, the Florinda Bolkan film Le Orme, The Raiders of Atlantis, R.O.T.O.R., Robo Vampire, one of the worst/best films ever Rocket Attack U.S.A. and more.This is totally of the doomed 1970's genre and the end - where Lewis chooses the fantasy of Blood City instead of the lies of modern life - still ring true today. I completely expected a ripoff of WestWorld and FutureWorld, yet was rewarded with something really good. It's slow moving, but if you understand that and can see a movie for what it could be versus what it is, I think you'll enjoy it.

This is a film you would have to watch to get a full grasp of just how odd it is. The plot summary is about a group of people that find themselves stranded on an island each with a card that says they've committed murder. None of them have a memory of murder, how they came to be on the island nor their own lives before. The town sheriff, Frendlander, comes along to bring those new arrivals to the island a place called Blood City - where it's kill or be killed. The citizens of Blood City make rank by killing within the law.Jack Palance is aces as usual. He plays Frendlander the "sheriff" and owner of Blood City - one tough cookie here that doesn't want trouble in his town, he just wants everyone to abide by the law.I really enjoyed this film and I hope that is "within the law" of this very odd but good movie for me to do so Mr. Frendlander.8/10

Jack Palance was the main reason to see this, and while he doesn't disappoint the film in general does. An interesting concept here, but not enough is done with it and the low budget really hinders it.Palance's performance is also the best thing about the film, he is so much fun while keeping his dignity intact, he resists the temptation also to overact like he sometimes did in similar roles. In fact, the acting is the component that comes off the least badly here, Keir Dullea is decent and Samantha Eggar while deserving more to do gives the film's second best performance, being quite thoughtful and with a good deal of authority. Roy Budd provides an appropriately eerie and thrilling music score without intruding too much. There are also some charmingly offbeat parts in the script.Welcome to Blood City however is badly let down by being so lifelessly directed by Peter Sasdy, who has shown before that he is a competent director, and the painfully obvious low budget, especially in the choppy editing, dizzying camera angles and dreadfully fuzzy picture quality. The settings are also pretty limited and never feel authentic. Apart from some offbeat moments, the script is completely devoid of tension, while the story is often very dull and the suspense is marred by the virtual reality concept being revealed far too early. There are some interesting ideas here, but nowhere near enough is done with them. The characters are very one-dimensional, and despite Dulleas' performance any empathy towards his character's plight was rarely on this viewer's mind.All in all, a very odd film that had potential but executes it pretty badly. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A film with aspirations higher than its abilities. The vaguely interesting central idea is played out in a muddled script, and the whole production looks schlocky and amateurish. Dullea is a bland hero, Palance his usual eccentric self, Eggar gives a good performance....but what are these actors doing in such a cut-rate film anyway??? By the way, the videocassette version is very poorly framed, and the Panavision cinematography suffers BADLY. (*1/2)