Corruption

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!!!

This is one of those UK lost flicks that is really worth hunting down. It's so rare that a flick with the legendary Peter Cushing never had a proper release after the VHS rage. And again he gives a perfect performance as Sir John Rowan a surgeon.

When John got into a fight with a photographer picturing his wife suddenly one of the spots falls on her face. Heavily burned he feels guilty and discovers that he can restore the scarred face of his girlfriend by murdering other women and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland. Sadly the effect of repairing the face doesn't goes on forever and he has to kill again. But he got mixed emotions about it.

There are two versions of this flick around, both are hard to get, the first one the normal version and the second one the uncut strong version. The latter I saw and it is in the first killing, the whore, that there are differences. In the normal, cut, version you only see a knife and some dolls when he is killing the whore but in the strong version she goes naked and is stabbed to death and beheaded by the surgeon. And for the time being I can understand that it was rather gruesome.

All acting was good and some faces did make it, for the horror buffs Billy Murray (Rik) will be recognized in Doghouse (2009) and Dead Cert (2010). A rather good example of British horror worth hunting down, if you will ever find it....

Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

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 ****

Story of a brilliant doctor (Peter Cushing) in love with a beautiful younger woman (Sue Lloyd). During a fight at a party they're at, Lloyd becomes disfigured when a flood lamp falls on her face. Cushing becomes obsessed at restoring her beauty and will do anything to do it--even murder.

Plot wise this has been done before (most notably in the French film "Eyes Without a Face") but this isn't totally without merit. Cushing is excellent as a man who is driven to murder for his lover. You can see that he hates doing it but feels he has to. Lloyd, surprisingly, is not an innocent woman. She knows he's killing for her and actually spurs him on! Aside from those two performances though this is pretty by the numbers...except for an incredibly silly ending which had me laughing out loud! Also there is incredibly inappropriate music blaring sometimes on the soundtrack that's totally out of place. This is pretty much forgotten and it's easy to see why. Worth catching though for Cushing's acting alone.

Let's all be glad that Grindhouse has released a really pristine DVD of the elusive "Corruption". This really, really odd relic from 1968 looks very much like tableaux from some department store windows, from the fashions to the stilted action that takes place. Nothing looks real, seems real, or sounds real.

"Corruption" is pretty much a product of it's time. It appears to be a Hammer Films product, from the starring presence of Peter Cushing to the claustrophobic interiors, but it's actually a Columbia Pictures release. In the genre of "crazy doctor tries to restore woman's face with bad science", this movie is the stepchild of "Eyes Without A Face" and even "Atom Age Vampire" as well as a pinch of "The Leech Woman" thrown in from years earlier. This time, the old story is dressed up in mini-skirts and groovy Carnaby Street duds, featuring an incredibly vain "model" who's the much younger girlfriend of surgeon Peter Cushing. At a happening party hosted by a thinly veiled Andy Warhol wannabe, the model is disfigured by an overheated photo lamp falling on her face. Unfortunately, her doctor boyfriend is responsible for the accident by attempting to punch out the Warhol stand-in, who was trying to get nudie shots of the model. Vain, and now disfigured, said model wants to die but the love-struck doctor saves her face by using nefarious surgical and laser treatments. Naturally, the treatment doesn't last long, so the doc has to stop using corpses for his raw materials and turns to murder.

The twist here is that the vain girlfriend knows all about the sources for her treatment, and eventually goads the doc into committing more crime to make her pretty. These two lovebirds retreat to a seaside getaway, where they encounter the cleanest hippies on film, who attempt robbery but meet karma at the end of a laser. This laser, which is the low budget version of the device used on James Bond in "Goldfinger" appears to be a psychotic dental drill that cuts up and then sets fire to everything...and everybody.

"Corruption" is worth a look for cultists, who've heard about this but never seen it. Unavailable for many years, the new Grindhouse Releasing DVD is crisp, clean, and beautifully transferred. Included in the extras are the "French scenes" in which a topless prostitute is brutally murdered. Cushing brings his usual gravitas to the role of a doctor who'd do anything for love. The hippies are more thugs, despite the Nehru jackets and vinyl mod hats. The ending of this tale of depravity is pretty weird for 1968, tip-toeing into more graphic violence than usual. Mild by today's standards, but probably a shocker in it's time.

Of real interest here is actress Kate O'Mara, who would achieve everlasting fame as Patsy Stone's ancient Eurotrash sister in TV's "Absolutely Fabulous". It's difficult not to think of Ab Fab while Kate attempts to bring some sanity to the murderous goings-on. Worth seeing for Peter Cushing, and an incoherent hit-man hippie named Groper who must have won the second-runner up prize in a John Lennon lookalike contest. Watching him kill an apple is the scariest thing in this movie. Points for what's in the freezer!