Corruption (1968)

One of my all time favorites.

Boring

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

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Although any movie that has the presence of Peter Cushing definitely has some interest value, unfortunately "Corruption" doesn't really generate that much more interest in its other aspects. For starters, the story will more likely than not have horror fans thinking to themselves, "I've seen this same plot in other movies before." It's the old story of a doctor trying to restore some feature for an ailing loved one, even resorting to murder to do so. Actually, it probably could have worked again, but the way that it's executed will have most (if not all) viewers one step ahead of almost everything that unfolds on the screen until the last fifteen or so minutes. It will also have viewers quite bored, because the bulk of the movie unfolds at a really slow pace; there's simply not enough story here for a 91 minute movie.To top it off, the musical score by Bill McGuffie is one of the worst I've heard in any genre for quite some time, being extremely strident and inappropriate. It's often hard to accept what's happening on the screen when that brash and sour music is playing.Oh, and if you're still thinking of watching the movie just for base thrills and shocks, you'll likely still be disappointed. Though the movie got an "R" rating at the time, there's very little in the way of gore, shocks, or sexual elements.Hardly Peter Cushing's finest hour.

Diabolical mad surgeon flick is unlike any Peter Cushing film you are liable to see. You can't help (and others have pointed this out) but couple "Corruption" with "Eyes Without a Face" as there is a select subgenre dealing with surgery and how deformity caused by accident can lead to some dark places. Cushing portrays as aging, but brilliant surgeon who is obsessed with a stunning model named Lynn (Sue Lloyd) he's engaged to marry. While she is perhaps too young for him and totally inserted in the "swinging 60s hippy youth culture" (also an oft-mentioned element of the film by others; which is rather fascinating considering how Cushing looks so incompatible to the active, rambunctious, loose, liberal, and noisy crowd gathered at a photographer's pad in London's party-hearty, lost-in-the-moment, spry youth scene), Cushing, a knighted, well-respected, gentlemanly, mannered, and seemingly held-together surgeon, would seem to be an odd match for her. But when a high-strung photographer (played by a demanding Anthony Booth with a personality that beckons the universe to center around him) wants all of Lynn's attention (and to get frisky and openly sensual in front of his camera as the party soon turns their eyes to them), Cushing's Sir John Rowan isn't so willing to just stand in the background and let all of this get out of hand. However, the photographer is determined to shoot her whether he likes it or not, so a scuffle ensues which results in a flood lamp (those lamps that emphasizes a great deal of light in the illumination of models) scarring the face of Lynn. This event sends Rowan into a quest to discover a method behind "curing" the facial trauma, which includes historical data from the Egyptians, fresh glands from murdered girls, and a laser that eventually does more than what is intended (as the ending tells us with bodies dropping like flies as it moves uncontrollably from one side of the room to another).Certainly the film will be most notable for the central performances of Cushing and Lloyd. Cushing shocked me in this film considering the kind of character he embodies. This picture of a notable authority in the medical field, having to nurture a career of calm and intellect, rational and clear-minded, just becomes folly for a narcissistic model totally beholden to this monstrous vanity was quite unlike any part Cushing has really ever played. That his surgeon would commit the ghastly crimes which require beheading young women, and that Lloyd would urge and demand him to keep doing so just so she could maintain her good looks gives the film this nasty quality that makes you almost want to take a shower just to clean it off you. Both actor and actress dedicate wholly to their parts, that's for sure. Lloyd becomes so crazed, it becomes camp, especially at the end when she turns on Cushing, wanting to use the leader of a gaggle of hoods who raid their seaside cottage for loot in order to forcefully convince further facial gland surgery! The camera-work is quite in-your-face and flashy, with a style that adds pizazz to the insanity that unfolds. The ending is compellingly enigmatic offering perhaps a worst case scenario to the good doctor if he allowed himself to become overwhelmed with jealousy. Whether or not what we have just seen actually happens is left for us to guess.Noel Trevarthen is Steve, Cushing's surgical colleague and moral compass while Kate O'Mara is Lloyd's sister, the reasonable member of the Nolan family. They have the misfortune of interrupting the killer laser struggle, not accomplishing what they hoped to. The final chapter of the film kind of introduces this posse of degenerates (a neanderthal used as muscle, a hungry gal with rude disregard for manners, the husband of a young woman that stayed the night at the cottage, soon ran down and strangled in a fight with Cushing, demanding to know where she is) out of the blue and it sort of feels like plot ambush considering how unexpected it is...perhaps intended as this leads to the downfall of the film's villains.

Talking to a friend about Horror related movie clips that they had recently discovered on Youtube,the one which instantly stood out from the pack was a "deleted scene" from a near forgotten 1967 Horror movie starring Peter Cushing!. Checking round online for info about the film,I was shocked to discover that this movie is said to be the only one the Peter Cushing (who agreed to do the movie,due to it being filmed near by to where he was looking after his very ill wife.) found truly unsettling to work on.Quickly finding out that no edition of this distinctive film was available on Amazon,I decided to do an extensive search,until I eventually ran into the completely uncut "France cut"! of the movie,which would give me a chance to view this corrupt operation in full.The plot:Getting himself caught up in a shoving match with a photographer over the photographer wanting the female model to "show more skin",surgeon Sir John Rowan accidentally causes a camera light to fall and land on his girlfriend and wannabe model Lynn Nolan.Pushing everyone else to the side,Rowan rushes to pull the now set a blaze light off Nolan.Reaching her in the nick of time,John is able to save Lynn from certain death,but is sadly unable to save half of Nolan's beautiful face from being burnt.Taking it upon himself to look after Lynn's every need,Rowan soon begins to relies that no matter how much of his heart he gives to her,Nolan will always see her self as a "beast" due to the damage that he has done to her.Finding all his other ideas to fail in repairing Lynn's skin,Rowan begins to consider about doing an "expirmeant" on Nolan,which will involve him having to kill young women,so that he can cut out glands from their faces and put them into Lynn's,so the she can finally see herself to be as beautiful on the outside as John sees her on the inside.View on the film:Opening this terrifically psycho film on the sight of Peter Cushing being in the middle of a "happening" party,director Robert Hartford- Davis gives the movie a real grubby sticky feeling which is most prominent in scenes such as Sir John Rowan operating on the unlucky victims,and also when one of the paternal victims (a prostitute) shows Rowan that she wont take his murdering ways laying down!.Along with the moments of grubbiness,Davis shows a real skill in building up tension for two of the best scenes in the film,with a scene on a train having Davis cleverly use the "steam" soundtrack to match the increasing heartbeats of the characters,and also turn a simple "walk along the beach" into a sped-up proto-Slasher moment.Being the centre of attention in a wonderfully mix 'N' match cast,which features the future father in law of Tony Blair, (Anthony Booth) a star from the Carry On series (David Lodge) and an unexpectedly great,mean and cunning performance from Soap star Sue Lloyd,Peter Cushing's clear unease over the activates that Sir John partakes in Derek and Donald Ford's well paced mad scientist turned on its head plot,helps to give Rowan a more "natural" personality then simply being a crazy doctor.With the growing relationship between Lynn and John being the main thread of the story,Ccushing always impressively makes sure that Rowan's reasons for going to these extremes,as Cushing shows John to always give Lynn,a quiet tender hopefulness,which eventually leads to Rowan being blinded in seeing Nolan slowly becoming increasingly cunning and deranged.

As the '60's swung, movies changed. Comedies became rude, action films bloodily violent, sex films explicit, and horror? Well, you can guess. 1968 saw the release of George A.Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead', a landmark picture which pushed the genre to extremes. Even old school horror superstars such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing felt the need to keep up with the times. The latter later described 'Corruption' as 'fearfully sick', and he was right. In its most notorious scene, a woman searches a fridge for food, only to find a severed head wrapped in plastic.Peter plays Sir John Rowan, eminent surgeon. At a party in which his fiancée, model Lynn Nolan ( Sue Lloyd ) is present, he becomes involved in an argument with a brash photographer ( Anthony Booth ), culminating in a flood lamp accidentally being knocked over. The bulb burns away half of Lynn's face.Rowan had been experimenting with new surgical techniques that require the theft of a pituitary gland from a corpse in the morgue. A colleague, Steve ( Noel Trevarthen ) warns him that if he does anything like that again, he will report him. Her beauty restored, Lynn is a complete woman once more. Both she and Rowan set off for a round the world cruise. But the treatment turns out not to be permanent, and Lynn becomes disfigured once more. Rowan decides to steal the pituitary gland of a living person, necessitating the murder of a number of women...Donald and Derek Ford's script is like a swinging London version of 'Frankenstein', with butchery and blood amidst the false eyelashes and mini-skirts. But whereas the Baron was a misguided genius driven by concern for Humanity, Rowan is motivated by a selfish desire to see the woman he loves restores to her former glory. Cushing turns in his usual first-rate performance, complemented by Sue Lloyd, superb as the insane 'Lynn'. She does not care how many women her fiancée has to kill as long as she looks pretty again.The director, Robert Hartford-Davis, does a fair job, though I suspect the same script in the hands of Michael Reeves could have been a cult classic. I suppose we should give thanks the film was not bastardised the way 'Incense Of The Damned' ( based on Simon Raven's classy vampire novel 'Doctors Wear Scarlet' ) was. The scene where sadistic hippies ( among them the comedy actor David Lodge, playing a half-wit ) invade a cottage and terrorise the owners anticipates 'A Clockwork Orange' by three years.The version I have on D.V.D. lacks the murder of the Soho prostitute, and the train killing is much shorter. Perhaps Anchor Bay could find the missing footage and reinstate it?What really grabs you about 'Corruption' is the ending. For years, horror movies traditionally ended with the hero saving the leading lady in the nick of time from being burned alive in a vampire's castle or whatever, yet this ends with the entire cast wiped out by an out-of-control laser beam ( where clearly most of the budget went ), including Kate O'Mara who plays Lynn's goody-two shoes sister. We then go back to the trendy party we saw at the beginning, and a freeze-frame of Cushing's face suggests the horrible story is some sort of macabre premonition.'A most unworthy vehicle for Cushing's talents", sniffed one critic. Fair comment, but the great man could not give a bad performance if he tried, and the film is worth tracking down for that alone. Great Bill McGuffie soundtrack too.