WELCOME TO BLOOD CITY

   Film (1977). An EMI/Len Herberman Production. Dir Peter Sasdy, starring Jack Palance, Keir Dullea, Samantha Eggar, Barry Morse. Screenplay Stephen Schneck, Michael Winder. 96 mins. Colour.

   This UK/Canadian coproduction is one of the earlier movies to take VIRTUAL REALITY as its theme (but see also WELT AM DRAHT [1973]). A group of amnesiacs find themselves in a savage township of the Old West, where social advancement is by murder. They do not realize that they are inhabiting a computer-generated reality,one of whose supervisors, a woman (Eggar), develops an emotional fixation on a new conscript (Dullea), and interferes illegitimately with the "game". This game is designed to find people with high survival quotients,who will then, in the real world, lead guerrilla units in an unspecified ongoing war. Flat direction and poor performances fail to make anything much of the intriguing premise, though the end is touching.

   PN