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Corruption

  • 1968
  • R
  • 1h 31m
IMDb RATING
5.8/10
2K
YOUR RATING
Peter Cushing, Kate O'Mara, Sue Lloyd, and Noel Trevarthen in Corruption (1968)
Official Trailer
Play trailer1:50
1 Video
71 Photos
Horror

A doctor goes to extreme lengths--even murder--to restore the badly burned face of his fiancée.A doctor goes to extreme lengths--even murder--to restore the badly burned face of his fiancée.A doctor goes to extreme lengths--even murder--to restore the badly burned face of his fiancée.

  • Director
    • Robert Hartford-Davis
  • Writers
    • Donald Ford
    • Derek Ford
  • Stars
    • Peter Cushing
    • Sue Lloyd
    • Noel Trevarthen
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.8/10
    2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Robert Hartford-Davis
    • Writers
      • Donald Ford
      • Derek Ford
    • Stars
      • Peter Cushing
      • Sue Lloyd
      • Noel Trevarthen
    • 62User reviews
    • 54Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Corruption
    Trailer 1:50
    Corruption

    Photos71

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    Top Cast18

    Edit
    Peter Cushing
    Peter Cushing
    • Sir John Rowan
    Sue Lloyd
    Sue Lloyd
    • Lynn Nolan
    Noel Trevarthen
    Noel Trevarthen
    • Steve Harris
    Kate O'Mara
    Kate O'Mara
    • Val Nolan
    David Lodge
    David Lodge
    • Groper
    Anthony Booth
    Anthony Booth
    • Mike Orme
    Wendy Varnals
    • Terry
    Billy Murray
    Billy Murray
    • Rik
    Vanessa Howard
    Vanessa Howard
    • Kate
    Marian Collins
    • Girl in the Flat (International version)
    Jan Waters
    • Girl in the Flat (UK version)
    Phillip Manikum
    • Georgie
    Alexandra Dane
    • Sandy
    Valerie Van Ost
    Valerie Van Ost
    • Girl in the Train
    Diana Ashley
    • Claire
    Victor Baring
    Victor Baring
    • Mortuary Attendant
    Shirley Stelfox
    Shirley Stelfox
    • Girl at the Party
    Marianne Morris
    Marianne Morris
    • Topless Girl in the Flat
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Robert Hartford-Davis
    • Writers
      • Donald Ford
      • Derek Ford
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews62

    5.81.9K
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    Featured reviews

    5moonspinner55

    Far-fetched, derivative thriller with two good performances...

    After a model's face is burned by a lamp during a scuffle between a surgeon and a salacious photographer, the doctor (who had hopes of marrying the girl) promises to do everything he can to restore her beauty. Screenwriters Derek and Donald Ford concocted this twisted British blood-letter, a violent though somewhat muted variation on 1960's "Les yeux sans visage". Here, the mad doctor doesn't need to kill innocent lovelies for their faces--he needs their pituitary glands! Peter Cushing amusingly begins the picture a dapper, celebrated professional, and his descent into madness is quite a jolt; Sue Lloyd (who resembles Jill St. John) is also good as the vain, shrewish woman who becomes totally dependent on the need for fresh victims. The Swinging London atmospherics are heavily put-on, and the jazzy score from Bill McGuffie is occasionally inappropriate or over-emphatic. The third act, with the doctor and his girlfriend descended upon by thugs at their seaside home, becomes too hysterical, leading to an unsatisfying wrap-up. Still, a good-looking '60s slasher with some tightly-edited sequences and ghoulish suspense. ** from ****
    8dbonk

    Peter Cushing Slices & Dices For Love

    I've always had a deep admiration for British actor Peter Cushing. He was, after all, able to convincingly portray such a wide range of characters on screen from Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Frankenstein, instilling each role with cool intelligence plus an element of human pathos. When one thinks of a Hammer horror film from the late 1950's through the ensuing fifteen years, inevitably(apart from his frequent co-star Christopher Lee)Cushing's name comes first to mind.

    While CORRUPTION is not a Hammer film,(Columbia Pictures,surprisingly, is the distributor) it is a sheer delight for Cushing fans. Here, he portrays a respected surgeon who slowly goes insane, all for the love of his fiancé played by Sue Lloyd with her kitty claws rendered even sharper than the good doctor's scalpel. After a tragic accident which effectively ends her modeling career, Dr. Cushing works obsessively to repair the damage to poor disfigured Sue's face. Realizing the cure is to be found in the female pituitary gland, he wantonly murders and decapitates young, pretty lasses to achieve his goal.

    After each of Cushing's kills in this flick, the camera graphically provides a distorted, fish eye lens view in which we see this eminent physician with hair disheveled and a manic look which has to be seen to be believed. Eventually, an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame reduces the doctor to a quivering mess of nerves as he tries to find solace in the bottle. He certainly won't find it in Sue. She has issues of her own which, in comparison, make Dr. Cushing look almost sane. The climax to all this blood & spatter is provided by a high powered laser(part of the cure,apparently, for Sue's face) which looks more at home in GOLDFINGER than a spartan medical lab.

    CORRUPTION is a florid feast for the eyes,too, as we see swinging 1967 Carnaby Street fashions worn by both sexes. Anthony Booth really camps it up as an Andy Warhol wannabe portraying a fashion photographer who tries to shoot a nudie-cutie roll of film with Sue Lloyd to devastating results. Since this is 'Swinging London' there are mini-skirted girls aplenty, with special mention to bimbette Shirley Stelfox whom no party would be complete without. She doesn't wear flowers in her hair, but under her eyes.

    CORRUPTION is a delirious roller coaster of madness, mayhem and a minimum of mirth. Character actor David Lodge does appear as a cretinous villain called 'Groper.' Watching him salute(don't ask why) is one of the highlights.

    Anyway, after seeing CORRUPTION, don't be surprised if you feel uneasy opening the freezer door of your fridge. Some cold cuts are better left untouched.
    8ferbs54

    A Lesser-Known Cushing Film That Is Well Worth A Look

    Did anyone else watch the true horror rarity that TCM showed recently? The film was "Corruption" (1968), and as a matter of fact, it is so rare that I had never even heard of it before. This film is another retread of the great French horror film from 1960, "Eyes Without a Face," but it branches off into different directions from that earlier classic. Here, the great Peter Cushing stars as a prominent surgeon who is dating a much younger woman, a fashion model (Sue Lloyd, whose work I had just admired in "The Ipcress File"). He attends a swinging party with her (yes, the film does take place during the swinging mod London of 1968) and gets into a fight with a fashion photographer there. During the fight, a floodlight crashes down on his girlfriend's face, burning and scarring her. Cushing swears to restore her looks. He removes the glands of a cadaver at his hospital and inserts the glandular fluid into his girlfriend's face, also using a laser in the process. The treatment works, but only temporarily, and Cushing soon realizes that he must procure glands from LIVING specimens. Thus, he murders one beautiful blonde woman while on a moving train, and, in his cottage in the country (beautiful shots of the White Cliffs are featured in the film), lures in a female hippie drifter to be his next victim. The picture ends with as bonkers a spectacle as one could wish for, with just about all the film's major characters, as well as some nasty house invaders, killed off by that wildly out-of-control laser beam. This film was directed by somebody named Robert Hartford-Davis, who does a marvelous job here. The print of this obscure movie that TCM showed the other night looks fantastic in wide screen, with brilliant colors and high-def images. I believe the film was recently issued on the Grindhouse Releasing label. Cushing, need I even say, is just terrific in this role as the doctor who becomes increasingly unhinged during his mission to restore his girlfriend's looks, only to repent when things have already gone too far. There is really no predicting where this bizarre film will turn next, and the picture surely does have some surprises up its sleeve...right up to those head-scratching final 30 seconds. Very much recommended for your viewing pleasure!!!
    6Coventry

    The Beastly Peter Cushing

    Veteran actor Peter Cushing depicts Sir John Rowan, an utmost genius and respectable surgeon. The passion for his work is only surpassed by his obsessive love for the lewd photo-model Lynn Nolan. When her pretty face gets badly burned in a very banal accident that Rowan jealously caused at a jet-set party, he swears to restore it. He performs an initially successful operation, using tissue and a particular facial gland of a recently deceased young woman, but the results are only temporary. In order to strengthen and prolong the effect of the gland, our doctor needs to use living tissue instead…

    The plot of "Corruption" is one of the most derivative and clichéd ones in horror cinema. In 1959, in France, director Georges Franju delivered the penultimate genre landmark "Les Yeux Sans Visage" – "Eyes without a Face" – and particularly during the next two decades, the tale of fanatic scientists and obsessive surgeons murdering innocent young women in order to restore and maintain the youthful beauty of their own mutilated wives or daughters has been copied numerous times, most notably by Jess Franco ("The Awful Dr. Orloff), Sidney Hayers ("Circus of Horrors") and Terence Fisher ("The Man who could Cheat Death").

    This version, helmed by Robert Hartford-Davies, isn't exactly what you'd call a masterpiece, but it definitely contains a couple of elements that make it noteworthy and recommendable for horror fans. For starters: the almighty Peter Cushing! He's one of my personal favorite actors of all times and, even though he played a lot of villainous roles in his lengthy career, this one feels rather special. Due to his naturally elegant charisma and typically British appearance and behavior, Cushing usually depicts the 'sophisticated' type of villains. You know; the type of evil mastermind who invents fiendish schemes but uses grisly minions to do the nasty work. His character here also seems very sophisticated (so much even that his choice of muse is highly implausible), but when he's forced to stalk and murder another poor victim to steal her glands, Dr. Rowan transforms into a relentless maniacal beast! The sequences in which the prowling Cushing goes berserk and literally butchers young girls, consecutively a prostitute and a random blond beauty on the train, are excessively vile and misogynic. Cushing, with pure insanity in his eyes and his hair all messed up, savagely stabs them to death and cuts off their heads in ways that are quite graphic for a British film released in 1968. Still, I'm thankful for Cushing's performance as well as for the gory make- up effects, since the rest of the movie is mediocre at best. The protagonists, Sir John Rowan and Lynn, are a mismatched couple, to say the least, and the extended finale set at Rowan's beachside cottage is overlong and exaggeratedly far-fetched. Like they haven't got enough trouble already, Rowan and Lynn are held captive by a troop of anti-menacing thugs and the whole thing ends rather hectically (and foolishly…) with an out-of-control laser machine. In case you're a fan of qualitative British horror from the sixties and seventies, I advise sticking to the Hammer productions or the Amicus anthology films. If, however, you watched all of those already and you want to see a different side of Peter Cushing, then I warmly recommend "Corruption".
    5Stevieboy666

    Waited years to see this but sadly a tad disappointed with it

    After an accident a successful surgeon (played by horror legend Peter Cushing) has to commit murder to preserve the once beautiful face of his fiance (Sue Lloyd). For a start we have here a very odd couple, Cushing being old enough to be Lloyd's father in real life, though I guess she could be a gold digger! When they attend a Swinging Sixties party in London (where the accident happens) Cushing looks uncomfortably out of place, which is intended, but for a fan such as myself who is used to seeing him in Hammer horror movies playing Baron Frankenstein or Van Helsing it just felt strange, and somehow wrong. Naturally it all goes pear shaped - "The more you succeed the more you feel failure" (Cushing). The action moves from London to the couple's cottage on the coast, where near the end we get a frankly bizarre home invasion/robbery. One of the heavies is called Groper, played by David Lodge he looks like he's walked straight of the set of a Carry On movie. Then there is the ending, I'm not giving it away but all I will say is Cop Out! I have waited years to see this but ultimately felt disappointed, despite Cushing giving his usual excellent performance. I did watch the cut UK version with less violence and nudity and would still like to see it uncut, until then it's only a 5/10 for me.

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    Related interests

    Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
    Horror

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Like most British horror films of the Sixties, rumors of a continental version with added nudity and violence too strong for the UK version are rife. But in the case of "Corruption," these rumors are true. "Laser Killer", as the continental version is titled, adds many more exploitation elements, most most notably in the scene where Cushing kills a Soho prostitute. In "Laser," the prostitute character is played by a topless Marianne Morris instead of negligee-wearing Jan Waters, and Cushing's character cuts her throat and mauls her chest before eviscerating her. This version was originally shown in Scandinavia and the Far East and is available from several US based public domain video companies.
    • Goofs
      Sir John is chasing Terry on the beach and runs through some water, getting his pants wet. Seconds later, climbing on some rocks after her, his pants are completely dry.
    • Quotes

      Steve Harris: [to Val, upon her arrival at hospital] I'm Dr. Harris. I'm afraid there's been an accident. A floodlight crashed into your sister's face.

    • Alternate versions
      Like most British horror films of the Sixties, rumors of a continental version with added nudity and violence too strong for the UK version are rife. But in the case of "Corruption," these rumors are true. "Laser Killer", as the continental version is titled, adds many more exploitation elements, most most notably in the scene where Cushing kills a Soho prostitute. In "Laser," the prostitute character is played by a topless Marianne Morris instead of negligee-wearing Jan Waters, and Cushing's character cuts her throat and mauls her chest before eviscerating her. This version was originally shown in Scandinavia and the Far East and is available from several US based public domain video companies.
    • Connections
      Featured in 100 Years of Horror: Mad Doctors (1996)

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    FAQ13

    • How long is Corruption?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 1968 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Carnage
    • Filming locations
      • Seaford, East Sussex, England, UK(Hope Gap Beach)
    • Production companies
      • Oakshire Productions
      • Titan International Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 31m(91 min)
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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