Sadly Over-hyped

Brilliant and touching

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.

This has Peter Cushing as scientist Emmanuel Hildern, who returns from New Guinea with a huge humanoid skeleton. This skeleton forms skin when water is dropped on it and somehow Hildern is able to deduce from the blood in the skin that evil is a sickness that one can get like a cold. By combining good and bad blood, his theory is he can make someone immune to evil. He promptly injects it into his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron), hoping she will not become mentally ill like his wife who recently died in a sanitarium run by his brother James (Christophe Lee). She, naturally, goes nuts and hits the town hitting on men in bars before running into an escaped lunatic. Are you still with me? The script for this is really out there and seems like three good ideas rolled into one. It is a credit to Cushing and Lee that they make it work. Of course, you should also praise director Freddie Francis for making it look good. You won't get too many surprises here, other than the fact that the monster comes back to life and feels the need to knock on the front door to announce its arrival. The opening minutes set up an ending you can see coming from a mile away, but it still has a nice sinister stamp on it.

Unlike other Peter Cushing outings, in which he garners star-billing, he is undoubtedly the "star" of this picture. Here he plays a absent-minded professor who finds the skeletal remains of a giant man/ape creature and brings them home to his lab in England. Although he is on the verge of occupational success, his personal life is slipping. Determined to win a prestigious science award for his discovery, he fails to give ample time to his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron) who wants to know more about the mother she has never known.Cushing isn't alone in this picture; he gets support from fellow horror icon Christopher Lee. Lee plays Cushing's half brother who operates an asylum--the very asylum Cushing had his whore of a wife sent to when Penelope was just a child. Lee serves as a nemesis for Cushing because he is seeking to win the same science award Cushing is with his research on electroshock therapy. The two men use science as a method of explaining the perverse things they do, culminating, for Cushing, in injecting Lorna Heilbron with an experimental serum he has concocted in order to keep her from the nuthouse. But the serum has the reverse effect: it speeds up her route to wearing strait-jackets.This is a wonderful horror film, the likes of which aren't made anymore, as the genre has descended into revolting displays of gore that test an audience's gag reflex. This is story and character driven--not blood and guts driven--with Cushing carrying the piece. Both horror icons, Cushing and Lee, are in splendid form and Lorna Heilbron, as the female lead, is equal to the task of sharing the screen with them. She does a marvelous job as Penelope, beginning the film as a meek do-as-your-told daughter before transforming into a depraved nutcase that dances in the courtyard in her nighty to the music that only plays in her head.There are enough Darwin principles and theories used in this film to sustain interest of science aficionados. Even with all the science talk, this is a quite a splendid film. Keep in mind, this is nothing like modern horror films. The monster has a fifteen minute screen time and the lone "gore scene" is tepid at best when Lorna Heilbron slits the throat of a sailor trying to rape her.

The mere presence of horror legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee ought to alert potential viewers that this film might be a cut above the usual fare, and happily enough, such indeed is the case here. "The Creeping Flesh" turns out to be a handsomely mounted, well-acted and even literate little potboiler of a scarifier, expertly helmed by British horror director Freddie Francis. The plot concerns an ancient skeleton that Prof. Cushing has brought back to London from the wilds of New Guinea in 1894; a skeleton that harbors the essence of evil, and that becomes revivified when water touches it. Cushing's half-brother, Lee, who runs an insane asylum, steals the skeleton to further his own researches, which leads to (in the words of Beaver Cleaver) "all kinds of trouble." There are also some interesting subplots regarding an escaped madman, as well as what happens to Cushing's daughter (wonderfully played by the actress Lorna Heilbron) after she receives an injection of blood taken from said skeleton. The look of the film is so handsome that it indeed looks like a cross between an old Hammer horror flick and an episode of "Masterpiece Theatre." If the potential viewer has enough time one evening, this film would make for a wonderful double feature with another Cushing/ Lee film, the similarly themed "Horror Express." I really did enjoy this one!