The Creeping Flesh
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Movie Reviews of The Creeping Flesh
Movie Review: Creepy Flesh
Summary: 4 Stars
Emmanuel Hildern, played by Peter Cushing, returns from New Guinea with a large prehistoric skeleton. While cleaning one of the fingers of the skeleton with water, the finger starts to grow flesh. Hildern starts to reflect on the origin of "evil" and creates a serum that he believes will be an antidote for evil. He injects his daughter with the serum, because he believes she may be insane, since her mother was. The serum does not work and causes his daughter to go insane. James Hildern, played by Christopher Lee, is Emmanuel brother and after finding out about the skeleton and steals it. The skeleton is exposed to the rain and the "Creeping Flesh" comes to life.Movie Review: A Truly Superior Offering From The 70's
Summary: 4 Stars
One of the better 70's UK horror movies that is well worth adding to your classic collection although the story is pure dribble, it's the whole feel of the film that gives it a boost above the norm, making this well worth watching. After all, any film with a flesh restoring creature can't be all bad.Movie Review: One of Britain's Most Offbeat Horror Films
Summary: 3 Stars
Freddie Francis' "The Creeping Flesh" is one of the oddest, most eccentric British horror films of the 1970s. I can't claim that it's one of Francis' best directed films, but it has a sincerity often lacking in horror films of the period, and it also has an excellent performance by Peter Cushing. It's definitely worth a look, and worth adding to your collection if you're a diehard fan of the great, underrated Peter Cushing.
Cushing portrays a Victorian-era gentleman paleontologist. In other words, he uses his family's own money to support his various world explorations and site digs. He's something of a dabbler, and the film quickly establishes that he's regarded by most as an eccentric lightweight and not a true scientist. As the film opens, Cushing's enthusiasm over his latest finding - an enormous humanoid skeleton - is quickly tempered by blunt reminders of his family's finances via his spinster daughter (who still lives with him), and his psychiatrist half-brother (ably played by Christopher Lee). Cushing's understanding of evolution is quite different from Charles Darwin's, and he comes to believe that the giant-sized fossil in his laboratory is actually the skeleton of an ancient evil.
"The Creeping Flesh" combines several different genre elements. The story is probably inspired by the real-life Cardiff Giant hoax in the US, or the Piltdown Man hoax in Britain, but Francis and the screenwriters take it far beyond that. At times, it's a tragedy of Victorian sexual repression when we learn some of Cushing's backstory and witness his daughter's actions when she is infected by serum extracted from the fossil. At other times, there are Lovecraftian references. At yet others, we have a good-old-fashioned tale of inmate abuse at Christopher Lee's asylum. There's even a little bit of typical creature-feature shenanigans towards the end. Thankfully, there's no tasteless gore or tedious tongue-in-cheek comedy.
The DVD transfer looks and sounds excellent, especially compared to the VHS version. There are minimal extras (mainly consisting of trailers for other films, subtitles, and a Japanese language track of all things). As I alluded to earlier, "The Creeping Flesh" also has a lot of negatives that keep me from rating it higher. The plot elements are as clumsily stitched together as the Frankenstein Monster, and despite Francis' brilliance as a director he can't overcome many of the period anachronisms inherent in the film. Hairstyles and topical references are often woefully inappropriate for a film supposedly taking place in the 1890s, for example. Furthermore, it's painfully obvious that no one even pretended to consult with a scientist regarding the accuracies of the script - the more you know about human biology, the more ridiculous the laboratory scenes are. Even Cushing's excellent delivery can't help distract me from such gaffes as the claim that Neanderthals had smaller cranial capacities than modern man (they actually had larger capacities, particularly relating to visual acuity).
If you already love Cushing or Francis, you'll want this one. Christopher Lee fans who'd like to see what the youthful Lee was like when he wasn't playing Dracula will also want to take a peek. Although the movie is flawed, it definitely has its charms if you're in the right frame of mind.
Movie Review: EVIL AWAKENS 3000 YEARS TOO SOON
Summary: 3 Stars
If evil is indeed a disease, as many have at least metaphorically postulated, then can it be cured? And if so, at what cost? That's the premise of this minor but interesting horror film starring genre stalwarts Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Cushing plays a good-hearted but rather misguided scientist who discovers a bizarre skeleton in New Guinea and brings it back to his laboratory for further research. There he discovers the secret of evil incarnate--wickedness is a sickness, and therefore cureable. But his unscrupulous and envious half-brother, played by the always domineering Lee, hatches devious plans from the dubious asylum he commands like a castle, while Cushing's beloved but repressed daughter struggles with inner demons of her own. Tension mounts inevitably and one crisis spirals into the next, leading to a harrowing confrontation with pure evil unmasked. Though THE CREEPING FLESH is not a Hammer production, it could have been, as it shares many of the usual Hammer traits. Stylish and literate, THE CREEPING FLESH is particularly well-acted. That's to be expected anytime Lee and Cushing team up, but the unheralded Lorna Heilbron nearly steals the show away from her elders with a superbly realized performance as Cushing's benighted daughter. The haunted young woman's painful transformation from wilting violet to cursed vamp is flawlessly executed and her subplot is one of the film's real triumphs. But for all THE CREEPING FLESH has in its favor, there are some siginificant flaws. It is a rather slow vehicle, and at times the plot seems to get lost in itself, so that even at a relatively spartan 94 minutes the movie seems to take a full two hours. Moreover, you can see the finale coming a mile away, and however symmetrical the denoument may be it's nonetheless very unsatisfying and a dramatic flop. Finally, while special effects are not what this period piece is about, there is a climactic moment when the low-budget FX are a real let-down. Sometimes it's better NOT to show the monster head-on. Sharing some thematic features with HORROR EXPRESS (which also stars Lee and Cushing), THE CREEPING FLESH is not quite as good as its cousin, but is still worth a look. The highly-developed and intricate plot, together with the very Hammer-esque atmosphere and exceptional acting, make this a good choice for any fan of classic horror to rent for a rainy evening's entertainment, warts and all.Movie Review: Decent, but decidedly lesser entry from Hammer Studios
Summary: 3 Stars
I never cared for Hammer horror films as a youth. Too much talk, not enough action. As I've aged, my tastes have changed and now I find myself almost preferring these great old British horror films to similarly-themed American stuff exactly because of the dialog. The Brit films actually took the time to develop the characters & plot before throwing the monster at us. This particular film is one I've wanted to see for some time. I was excited to find that Amazon had it - since it's now OOP (Out Of Print).
After finally watching it, I have to say that it was good, but not as good as so many other Hammer films I've enjoyed. Others will disagree, and that's fine. I just didn't like it as much as I had hoped to. Perhaps it was just a classic case of building it up in my mind over the years to a point where it could never have matched my expectations. Definitely a solid film in all aspects, but I must confess there simply wasn't enough of the actual monster - and this time I'm not saying that as an impatient 9-year old. The actual attack of the Creeping Flesh demon doesn't occur until the last 10-15 minutes or so of the film, and he's way too cool-looking to be given such measly screen time. However, for what I paid for a top-condition used copy ($6) I really cannot complain. Worth it just to see Cushing & Lee at odds with one another once again.