Welcome to Blood City (1977)

Pretty Good

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

You know what this film reminded me of? The Cabin in the Woods. If you've seen that, you'll know what I mean when the film totally takes you out of the 'moment' and twists things up a bit.Keir Dullea wakes up somewhere with no memory except a card in his pocket that tells him how many people he's killed. Not that he reads it mind. His other buddies at the time do, but by the time the plot gets going most of them are dead.He finds himself in some sort of Cowboy world where life is cheap and terrible clothes are even cheaper, but who can he trust? Probably not Jack Palance. And is this world even trustworthy anyway? It's a very early take on Virtual Reality, this one. But then it's another film where you shouldn't really reveal much of the plot, because that's where the enjoyment lies. P'ting

A group of strangers wake up to find themselves in an unknown place with little recollection of how they got there and of their previous lives. They come across Sheriff Friedlander (Jack Palance), who takes them to a town called "Blood City". It's like they're back in the Wild West, but with a strange law system and social order involving a slave society and where murder is encouraged. But something is not quite right, as unknowingly for these people they are part of an experiment / reality game from outside forces who can manipulate the situations. Originality can only go so far, if your execution isn't up to par. That's the story for the Sci-fi outing "Welcome to Blood City". Its ambitious quality in its ideas shows, but it's poorly staged. Low budget eats away and so does its limitations. While the technical side won't set the world alight with Peter Sasdy's steadfast direction, but I can't just fault that as the material is somewhat hodgepodge too. What starts off is intriguing, only goes onto become inconsistent and muddled as the more we learn about the predicament the characters find themselves in, the less involving it gets. The problem here is that it gives away the reveal too early, and when we find out about the experiment it seems to be incoherent in its narrative developments. The question why, is asked a lot. Rules just seem to be thrown about, the reasoning is that's the way of life and motivations become hazy of what's really going on behind the scenes with a real lack of elaboration on the bigger picture that becomes silly. The writers probably became lost with all the possibilities being churned out.The complex concept behind the film does offer some sinister and nightmarish strokes, but it lacks the visual flair to complement it. Looking quite makeshift. Still it does have a brutal and ruthless edge to some scenes, but the excitement/suspense levels never rises, sometimes the pacing being bogged down and the climax finishes off on a anticlimactic and baffling note (if humorous with a final chase involving Palance doing his best woody the woodpecker impersonation). In the same way the flimsy ending does leave you dumbfounded. Keir Dullea is likable enough in the lead and Jack Palance is always a treat with that devilish smile. It's a cunning performance. The interplay between Palance and Dullea's characters is for most part amusing. Samantha Eggar gives a good turn playing two roles; one in the game and that of a scientist behind scenes who gets a little too involved in her programming work. So in the end it's disappointing in what it could have been, as there's an interesting, if strange set-up and the beginning builds that up, but alas it doesn't come together. Still there's something admirable about it.

The intriguing subject of virtual reality gets a rather unremarkable treatment in Peter Sasdy's sci-fi/western Welcome to Blood City, which sees a group of strangers unknowingly plugged into a computer simulation of a wild west town, the purpose being to identify natural fighters and leaders.Keir Dullea puts in fine performance as Lewis, a recent arrival who gradually works his way up the social ladder, and Jack Palance is solid as the town's sheriff, but the film suffers from lifeless direction and a badly structured plot, which misses an opportunity for a neat twist at the end by revealing it's virtual reality angle way too early.My copy was the dreadful pan and scan version, which didn't exactly help the viewing experience, but even cutting it some slack for this fact, Welcome to Blood City was decidedly mediocre. Westworld did the sci-fi/western thing so much better.

A muddled attempt at an interesting premise - people are trained to perfect killers in a Wild West environment - which plays its trump card too early by revealing that Keir Dullea & friends are in a VR situation at the start, when it would have been more of a surprise to reveal it nearer the end, and we could have done with more of an explanation as to WHY the scientists are doing what they're doing and why the people involved have been selected. That said, the film just about keeps the viewer interested throughout, with the best performances coming from Dullea & Palance. It's all very similar, by the way, to "The Prisoner" episode "Living in Harmony", which also had its hero thrown into a VR wild-west scenario.