The Creeping Flesh (1973)

I love this movie so much

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

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

I mean, can you really go wrong with a 70s horror/sci-fi flick by a veteran Hammer director starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and some kind of huge, undead creature that is the embodiment of evil? No, no you can't.The story centers around Professor Hildern (Cushing), an ultimately well-meaning but deeply sad Victorian-era scientist who brings home the remains of some kind of humanoid being from an expedition to New Guinea. In his studies of the mythology of the region, and of the remains themselves, he becomes convinced that the bones are what remain of a huge, malevolent giant — a biological representation of evil itself — that will be reanimated by rain. He tries to use this discovery to better the world, starting with his own small family, but things don't go quite as planned…** SPOILERS! **I'm always a big fan of the whole theme of "mad scientist gone wrong", despite the fact that those movies often have big plot holes (and this film is no exception). In some cases it's a scientist driven to immoral acts because of an irresistible urge for power, money, invincibility, whatever… but in some cases, like this one, it's the urge to improve the world that steers someone in such a calamitous direction. It gives the movie a quality of sadness that is interesting to me.I loved all of the simultaneous battles between good and evil. The battle of this mysterious, mythical creature embodying evil and needing to fight against the good of the world. The smaller scale battle of Professor Hildern — wanting to turn the world into a paradise — vs his half-brother, Dr. James Hildern (Lee), wanting his own recognition and fame even at his own relative's expense. The more complex battle of Professor Hildern wanting to keep the truth about his wife from his daughter, Penelope (Lorna Heilbron), seemingly for her own good.Christopher Lee, naturally, brilliantly plays the cloaked half-brother who runs the asylum, and Peter Cushing is fantastic per usual.The very Gothic settings, camera work, and even some of the special effects are pretty great. It's a fairly low budget horror film from the 70s so the special effects aren't exactly going to rock anyone's world, but I thought the scene where the flesh first formed on the finger bone was pretty impressive considering (and Cushing staring, perplexed, through his magnifying glass was a great touch).The entire concept of evil being physical rather than psychological — a disease rather than a mental disorder — I thought was, in some ways, surprisingly complex for a horror film. It gave an air of hope — of being able to defeat what had always seemed to be unstoppable.There were some interestingly conservative touches (though I could be wrong) to both Professor Hildern's wife, Marguerite's (Jenny Runacre), mental collapse and his daughter, Penelope's. Not much is shown of either aside from them becoming extremely uninhibited, particularly when it comes to attracting and enjoying attention from men. I mean, yes, Penelope starts to enjoy being physically cruel with no provocation, but her initial "madness" is simply her finally breaking free of the bonds in place by her father trying, maybe naïvely, definitely unfairly, to protect her. (And her scratching the one dude's face up and slitting the other guy's throat were pretty justified, from what I could see.)The atmosphere is pretty great throughout, but particularly during the ending scenes. I loved the horse-drawn carriage chase through the rain with the added tension of knowing the skeleton was quietly reanimating. When Professor Hildern finds the tipped carriage and sees the hooded monster silhouetted up ahead, with thunder booming and lighting flashing… awesome. One of my favorite shots was when you could hear the creature shuffling towards the house and see its shadow first moving horizontally and then becoming larger and larger as it approached (without seeing the creature itself) — so good. And the look of terrified surprise on Professor Hildern's face as we view it from INSIDE the hollow creature… good times.And THE ENDING. I actually, for once, won't spoil it here but DAMN, I loved it. It almost leaves it up to your interpretation but there's one tell-tale clue (at least from the way I interpreted it) that makes it, in some ways, even more horrifying than the alternative. Great twist.All in all a solid watch. The fear is more impending, more slowly creeping, than some might enjoy (with more deep concepts to chew on in the meantime), but I really appreciated that.

Scientist Peter Cushing digs up an ancient skeleton that's pure evil or something. When you pour water on the bones, flesh grows. So don't do that. Anyway, this is all weird and interesting enough but then there's a huge chunk of the movie dealing with Cushing's daughter who he is overprotective of because he doesn't want her to turn out like her mom, who died in an asylum. This stuff is a lot less fun. Christopher Lee plays Cushing's brother. He runs the asylum and he's got a subplot about an escaped inmate. All of these plot threads eventually meet but I can't say they do so satisfactorily.It's a decent British horror movie with two top stars and a good director in Freddie Francis. The problem is it's got too much going on and it devotes more time to the uninteresting stuff than the skeleton business. Now, the ending is cute and perhaps lines the meandering plot up a bit but it doesn't fix everything. You're still left feeling like you didn't get as much of the "creeping flesh" aspect of the movie as you might have expected.

Compared to other movies that paired up Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, "The Creeping Flesh" is a bit more obscure than some other offerings. Which is too bad, because this effort is quite a bit of fun to watch. One of the interesting things about it is that there is significantly more plot than usual, so much so that part of the fun is wondering how all these plot threads will eventually meet up. There is admittedly a bit TOO much plot and not quite enough monster thrills; those looking primarily for horror violence and action will probably be somewhat disappointed. There are also some slow bits here and there, though the movie never gets to the point of being boring. Also, the way that the movie is told - it's almost entirely one long flashback - will probably have you correctly guessing what the twist at the end of the movie will be during the first few minutes of the movie. (I certainly predicted it.) Despite those aforementioned problems, those who enjoy British horror movies from this period will probably enjoy this entire package. After all, any movie project that could attract both Cushing and Lee must have something to it.

Recovering a skeleton from New Guinea, a London doctor finds that the creature might be a possible missing link in human evolution only for the discovery of water to reanimate the body and tries to keep his friends and family safe from the news.This one turned out to be quite the fun effort. What really gives this one quite a lot to really like here is the fact that there's a great deal of fine backstory generated by the presence of the skeleton and what it really means which is rather intriguing. By allowing for the unique location in New Guinea, there's a believability granted here to what the attempted course of action of having the skeleton get reanimated with their knowledge of studying it, and that's a rather nice achievement here made all the more possible with the film's insistence on spending the vast majority of the time studying the creature. Coming up with the manners of study, which brings the fun scenes of him reviving the beast and the discovery of the creatures' blood that leads into the attempt to inject it into her which is what really drives the film along here with this one featuring some solid work here in the later half trying to find her as she ventures out into the world for the first time as the lead-in comes off very nicely getting it out of their laboratory. The resulting scene in the pub where she nearly gets assaulted and runs away leading to the chase through the streets and into the warehouse leads to some nice action scenes here as well, and the rather frantic finale here is even more fun with the abduction of the creature and the eventual reanimation of the skeleton inside while they're all completely unaware of the incident really makes for a much livelier and engaging effort than it really should be as the full-on Gothic sensibilities are brought about in full-force during this section which is what makes it so fun. Although these here make this one enjoyable enough, there's still some problems here in the fact that there's just not a whole lot of action to be had within this as a vast majority of the time this one doesn't really do much other than really helping to build the boredom of just watching the two fumble around their equipment spouting off tons of inane scientific babble that doesn't really focus on anything interesting. Though the film moves along at a decent-enough pace, these are just overall bland and dull which just don't have any kind of interest throughout here with the film really generating the kind of endless monotony of just staring at these scenes of nothing going on which just goes on quite a long time. Spiced within these scenes is another rather lame angle, with the film focusing on nothing but truly lame sub-plots to pad out the running time as there's little need for the scenes of the doctor wandering around the grounds complaining about his charges or focusing on the escaped mental patient that really has no place in the film and should've been taken out as it has no place in the film. Alongside the weak effects for the creature who looks like a mass of jelly walking around, these here are the film's weak points that lower it overall.Rated PG: Violence and an attempted Rape.