Movie Review: The Flesh and Blood Show

I decided to watch The Flesh and Blood Show on the basis of a trailer in the compilation 42nd Street Forever. The trailer has almost wall-to-wall nudity and hints of lesbianism and voyeurism. It also promises murder and horror. The actual movie is different, surprising, in a generally good way.

First, it certainly delivers on the flesh angle. The movie begins with two actresses asleep in bed together when someone comes to the door. The one who decides to get the door is, of course, the one not wearing a nightgown (Carol, aka "the wanton"), nor does she fell compelled to cover up to get the door. Nice. although not much in the face department, this actress has what I consider to be a great body. She has ample flesh, wonderfully distributed, so she had beautiful round buttocks, good-sized, dynamic breasts, and curves all around. She's nubile, too, still young enough that her skin is tight and smooth, as with most of the other actresses. It's a pleasure just to watch her walk and move. A great start to the movie, although our director (Pete Walker) doesn't film her to full advantage, giving full nudity fromt he rear, but from the front keeping the camera on the shoulders and above, making one wonder just why he didn't just have her cover up.

Anyway, the man at the door has been stabbed, and he staggers in, to the shrieking horror of Carol. But it turns out he's just acting. He's a damn good actor, too, to keep up the ruse despite Carol's nudity. He follows her around for a lot of the movie, but, to my mind, it's just the regret of a fool who didn't get an eyeful when he had the chance!

It turns out that all these actors and a few others are going to put on some weird hippie-ish freeform play at an abandoned theater at the end of a pier in a deserted British seaside resort. It's hard to tell what, exactly, the play is about, because the director's style seems pretty eclectic. It seems to involve dancing in caveman furs and go-go boots, then a scene with a satanic ritual. This may be a commentary on modernist theater, as the basic plot of the movie involves the death and disappearance of Shakespearean actors, whose work certainly seems more credible than that of the young and sex-crazed actors being murdered.

Overall, despite the poor opinion most people seem to have of this movie, I found it to be surprisingly good. The acting is fair, especially considering the genre, and the plot is actually pretty good. The mystery surrounding the identity of the killer is ok--they throw you a decent red herring for a while before it becomes obvious who the culprit must be. Even then the why is interesting. The use of Othello is very good. There's not much blood, no scenes of extended violence, but there is plenty of flesh, & it's mostly good looking, young and taut, a little surprising considering the date.

Sarah, who takes the place of the first actress casualty (who is believe to have just gone home) is pretty. She has really nice eyes and a winning smile, and, we later learn, really great tits. Smallish, but pert & perfectly shaped. her nipples are dark, small, pleasant. The actress who plays Desdemona in the flashback is a little older, and maybe the least attractive of the bunch, but her great, heaving bosoms made me wish I could watch the conclusion in its original 3-D.

Although I would not exactly call The Flesh and Blood Show a good movie, it is good for its genre, one of the few that's still interesting through its entire length, even when there aren't naked women on the screen.