Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

"The Flesh and Blood Show" is about a bunch of young actors all willing to take part in a stage theatre that's situated in a small ocean town, and soon as they arrive strange things start to happen and people start disappearing and surprise, surprise they are being watched by an unknown strange figure.To be honest when I came across this movie, I actually got it confused with "Blood and Black Lace" (which I still haven't seen), and being a keen fan of early slasher movies and especially British slasher movies, I was willing to give this one a go. To be honest I was kind of disappointed, for a start there is frankly not enough blood or horror or tension to fulfil any basic needs and there are too many false scares and could have done with a higher body count.But there are some good points to this movie, including the night-times attack on one of the women, was nicely done and quite nerve racking and the whodunit angle was nicely done along with the lengthy explanation at the end was a nice touch.All in all not a terrible entry but doesn't quite keep the viewer interested all the way through, but still better than half the crap that comes out these days.

A group of young thespians converge together to rehearse for a potential play only to discover that the one who gathered them has other plans. Soon members of the group are being attacked by a mysterious figure who seems to be familiar with the old, vacant Dome theater, abandoned for quite a long spell, located near a seashore.Plenty of nudity highlights this okay little thriller, which is relatively tame in regards to violence(..none of the attacks take place on screen)unlike what you might expect entering into it. For a large portion of the film features various couplings and lots of undressing.A major plot development(..concerning a former theatrical star whose family come up missing after he discovers his actress wife with her co-star in the throes of passion), answers the question as to why this group has been brought to the site, and this history is linked to the Dome theater itself. A particular event(..the discovery of the skeletal remains of two people also contributes to this) fuels everything taking place.I'm pretty sure slasher fans will be rather disappointed, although the giallo audience might like it. Walker's THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW is more concerned with story than violence, although the frequent nudity is perhaps a draw due to how lovely the actresses are in the buff. The script keenly observes the behaviors of thespians on stage and how they respond to each other.Sordid shenanigans by the characters actually lends itself to what motivates the killer. The carnality aspect which re-awakens bad memories of a certain occurrence which left an actor a devastated emotional wreck, unable to escape the past that haunts him. Slow-moving pace, but a great setting within a darkened theater which is a perfect place for a psycho to move about and hide in the shadows.

To me, Pete Walker is most famous for mature horror works such as House of Whipcord and House of Mortal Sin, but apparently he used to direct silly sex flicks and this was the film that was the stepping stone between those and the horror that he would go on to direct. The Flesh and Blood Show is a slasher at heart; but it deserves more respect than the average slasher flick because it came out before the big 'boom' in the eighties, and is therefore a precursor to the genre. As such, the film doesn't feature many of the over-used clichés of the genre - but I was disappointed as while Walker doesn't hold back with the nudity, he does with the blood - and that's not good in a film called 'The Flesh AND Blood Show'. Anyway, the plot focuses on a troupe of actors and a director that decide to go to an old abandoned theatre in a quiet town to rehearse their play and (hopefully) become big names on the London circuit. However, soon enough members of the troupe begin to vanish one by one, prompting an investigation into the theatre's unsavoury history.Aside from Walker regular Patrick Barr, this film featured two recognisable actors for me, one for his looks and the other for the sound of his voice! Robin Askwith I recognised immediately as the star of the superb Michael Gough trash flick 'Horror Hospital', while Ray Brooks' voice sounded familiar. It didn't take me long to figure out that he sounded like the 'Joe' from Eastenders, and after looking on here - it's the same guy! The female stars I didn't recognise, despite the fact that most of them had appeared in various Hammer films; but they do their job well - that job being providing eye candy! I'm guessing that Pete Walker hadn't met Sheila Keith when The Flesh and Blood Show was made. The old theatre provides a good location for the horror; its ominous rooms and corridors help Walker to create the much needed atmosphere. The film does have a lot of good points; but unfortunately for me it all comes down to the lack of blood, and the fact that it's not always interesting. The ending didn't inspire me much either, although it's not the worst I've seen from a slasher flick.

The plot is a familiar one. A bunch of people go to an abandoned building to stay there, and some of them start dying.Even taken more specifically, this is a group of young actors who go to an old theater, and are killed for reasons relating to the theater's past. The Clown at Midnight (1998) is similar.The movie has a lot of dialog, which isn't of much interest. People go off wandering, and sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't. They visit an older couple, and I didn't get a sense of where their house was in relation to the theater, which seemed to be on an island. Police actually are contacted fairly easily early on. The actors continue to stay at the theater far beyond what is sensible.There's a fair amount of female nudity, even some full frontal nudity. There is even some full frontal nudity from one of the men. Deaths are not depicted very graphically, to the extent they are barely on screen at all. The killer is a heavy breather, with a black mask and gloves.The music throughout reminded me of the incidental music from the original Scooby Doo series!There's a flashback scene which is rather surprising, that has a couple having sex in front of a young girl. The girl's scenes were quite obviously edited in (i.e. she wasn't in the room with the nude actors), but it was still a little shocking. That scene was a little better than the rest of the movie, although it started off with a staging of Othello, which was not too involving. There's another good scene in which some of the actors think one of them is shining a spotlight, but it then shines on the person they though was handling it, who was nude. Being a little thick, they don't immediately realize the spotlight must be handled by someone else, nor do they notice how the nude figure doesn't appear to have any life in it.At the end of the Monterey Home Video, there were trailers for The Slasher is the Sex Maniac, Night After Night After Night, and The Grim Reaper, all of which looked much better. Although I've seen a cut version of The Grim Reaper AKA Antropophagus (1980), and didn't think it was all that hot, but then the trailer for it was all of five seconds long or so. The other trailers were of ordinary length.