Creeping Flesh, The (1973)

... aka: El esqueleto prehistórico (The Prehistoric Skeleton)
... aka: Essência da Maldade (Essence of Evil)
... aka: Il terrore viene dalla pioggia (The Terror Comes from the Rain)
... aka: La chair du diable (The Devil's Flesh)
... aka: Nachts, wenn das Skelett erwacht (At Night, When the Skeleton Awakens)

Directed by:
Freddie Francis

Competing for the same audience as Hammer and Amicus in the 60s and 70s was a smaller outfit called Tigon British Film Productions. Founded by Tony Tenser in 1966, Tigon would produce over 20 films in a brief span of time lasting no longer than a decade. Around half of those were horror films and, truth be told, most have gotten brushed aside for good reason. Their collection is highlighted mainly by WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), a good period witch hunt film / commentary on religious hypocrisy with a great Vincent Price performance, and The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), a creepy and atmospheric rural witchcraft tale. While other Tigon productions were generally at least watchable, most were forgettable and sometimes even outright duds, like THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968), which star Peter Cushing reputedly wasn't very fond of, and THE CRIMSON CULT (1968), which is best-known now for getting together one of horror cinema's all-time best casts yet somehow still managing to suck. The Creeping Flesh, the studio's final film as production company, is neither the best nor worst of what Tigon had on offer. Afterward, the company mostly distributed sex films until they fizzled out for good in the early 80s.

Frantic and quite possibly mad Victorian-era scientist Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) arranges for a young assistant to meet him at his lab to continue research "of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race!" Emmanuel seems to have somehow discovered the very origin of evil, with evil itself not being an abstract but its own living organism; its own entity entirely and one that's also capable of infecting man. He then flashes back three years in an effort to explain just what he's talking about.

It's now 1893, and Emmanuel has just returned from a year-long trip to New Guinea with a strange new specimen - a complete skeleton of a primitive man - that he hopes will be the most important scientific discovery of the century. The skeleton strangely predates a neanderthal skeleton yet is much larger, with an especially huge head and rib cage, and seems to have come from a much more advanced and intelligent species. The Missing Link? Well, Emmanuel seems to believe so. He and his assistant Waterlow (George Benson) immediately get to work examining it to find out more.

While he spends almost all of his time slaving away in his lab, Emmanuel's about to face the consequences of both ignoring his responsibilities and ignoring his lovely teen daughter, Penelope (Lorna Heilbron). He's always told Penelope that her mother, Marguerite (Jenny Runacre), had died when she was only a child. In reality, Marguerite has only recently (within the past few months) died. All this time she's been locked up at the Hildern Institute for the Criminally Insane; an institution run by Emmanuel's stuffy brother James (Christopher Lee). Fearing that she may inherit her mother's insanity, Emmanuel has not only lied to Penelope about her mother's mental illness, but has also forbidden her from talking about her, entering her bedroom or even leaving their home unless he can accompany her. She's basically been been kept locked safely away. And while he's been working on his various experiments and away on expeditions, the bills have been piling up and they may even lose their home.

Meanwhile, James and Perry (Hedger Wallace), another doctor in his employ, keep busy doing all kinds of unorthodox experiments... often on his living, screaming patients! They not only practice some primitive form of electroshock therapy at the asylum, but also keep most of the patients locked up in the cellar; treating them little better than animals. James has no problem shooting disobedient patients dead and also somehow manages to be well stocked on spare body parts to experiment on. He's working on a manuscript titled "The Cause and Prevention of Mental Disorder" that he hopes will win him the coveted Richter Prize; the same exact award Emmanuel is sure he's going to win with his discovery. But just to make sure he stands an even better chance at winning, James informs Emmanuel that he'll no longer be financing any of his future expeditions.

Late one night while attempting to clean up the skeleton, Emmanuel makes the amazing discovery that simple water can regenerate the flesh of whatever it is he's found. He cuts off a finger and then further examines both it and New Guinea folklore, drawing the conclusion that the skeleton belongs to an ancient species representing pure, undiluted evil. And if evil is something cellular that can be found in the blood, why not use the creature's blood to create an antidote to cure all of man's ills? After Penelope discovers the truth about her mother (who was a Parisian dance hall trollop) and bad memories come flooding back to Emmanuel, he decides to inject her with the "inoculation" he's created. Needless to say, that's a big mistake.

Penelope runs off to London and starts frequenting a seedy pub where she drinks, dances, fends off an attempted rape by clawing the man's face bloody and then slashes the throat of a horny sailor who makes a grab for her. She flees into the night and runs afoul of bald escaped lunatic Charles Lenny (Kenneth J. Warren). Penelope manages to kill him but is apprehended by authorities and ends up exactly where he mother ultimately did: Hilbert Institute. However, after his latest experiments have fallen short, James decides to use this as an excuse to blackmail Emmanuel and sends a thug to the home to steal the skeleton. He just picks a bad time to do so... in the middle of a thunderstorm!

This is well directed, produced and shot (by Norman Warwick), with excellent sets, costumes and period detail plus fine performances from the entire cast, with Cushing and Heilbron being especially good here. Where it's lacking a bit is in the screenplay department. While there are plenty of decent ideas here, the focus frequently shifts due to one too many competing subplots; some of which are simply more interesting than others. The big payoff at the end (in this case, the full regeneration of the creature) also feels a little bit anti-climactic, though there's an OK little twist to the tale at the very end.

The cast includes Duncan Lamont (inspector), Catherine Finn (maid), Harry Locke (bartender), Michael Ripper (guy who delivers the skeleton) and Marianne Stone (asylum worker). Roy Ashton did the make-up fx. This has been released countless times on VHS and DVD over the years (Columbia, Image, RCA, Sony are just some of the distributors), and received a blu-ray release in 2017 courtesy of Mill Creek.

★★1/2

Peter Cushing: A One-Way Ticket to Hollywood (1989)

Directed by:
Alan Bell

For Peter Cushing (sitting down here to discuss his career with [the off-screen] Dick Vosburgh) acting was always in his blood and it's all he ever recalls wanting to do since childhood. To help him realize his dream, his father purchased him a ticket from England to California. The kicker was the ticket was only one-way. He'd pretty much have to make a living at it or else he'd be stuck. Upon arriving in America, Cushing walked 5 miles from Los Angeles to Hollywood, put up his watch for collateral at the local YMCA for a place to stay and soon after lucked out running across director James Whale, who was about to start production on The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Whale allowed Cushing to play opposite star Louis Hayward... except since Hayward was playing twins and split-screen would later be used to complete the effect, Cushing was merely filling in to help Hayward along in his dual characterization. Whale did however allow him to play a second tiny role, where Cushing had just one line and had to do some fencing. The film would begin of a long and distinguished career.

Baby Cushing.

Cushing struck up a close friendship with Hayward, and went with him to the set of High Sierra (1941) where he'd nervously meet such A List stars as Humphrey Bogart and Hayward's then-wife Ida Lupino. Cushing went to Hayward and Lupino's for dinner one evening and ended living with them for two years. After working alongside Carole Lombard in Vigil in the Night (1940) and taking on a few other small roles, Cushing (with financial help from Hayward) went to New York City to try his luck there. Unsuccessful, he went up to Canada where he eventually landed a job in the art department at a movie studio in Montreal. He worked making swastika's for the war movie The Invaders (1941) and other jobs, all the while saving up money. Cushing had become extremely worried about his family and homeland as World War II raged across Europe and eventually headed back home after his short stint in North America. He joined an acting troupe, honed his craft on stage for many years and met his future wife Helen along the way, whom Cushing credits owing everything to. From there it was a comedic supporting part in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) and - with his wife's help - employ at BBC TV, where he worked his way up the ranks as one of their top talents in various filmed stage plays (many of them aired live) such as Gaslight, Home at Seven and Julius Caesar. He also starred in a then-controversial adaptation of Nineteen Eighty Four and won three major awards for his TV work; even earning the nickname "Mr. Television" by the press.

With buddy Louis Hayward.

With Ida Lupino.

With wife Helen.

Cushing would not become an internationally known name until taking on the role of Victor Frankenstein in Hammer Film Productions' THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957), which was a huge hit all over the globe, particularly in the U.S. and Japan. The film made back its entire budget in just one week and immediately after Cushing became a worldwide star. We then get to see clips from other Cushing films, such as HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Mummy (1959), The Fury at Smuggler's Bay (1961), She (1965), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed! (1969), Legend of the Werewolf (1975), Star Wars (1977) and Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death (1984) as well as his work on the TV series Sherlock Holmes and even a funny commercial for Holsten Pils.

Cushing sings, does accents, dishes some behind-the-scenes dirt, talks about some of his costars and goes into detail about overcoming a death sentence (he was given a year to live in 1982) after being diagnosed with cancer. He says fake smoking a pipe while playing Holmes made him feel nauseous and discusses suggestions he made that were used to enhance some of his films, having to shoot an entire scene backwards for the comedy Top Secret! (1984), disapproving of the poster art for The Mummy and his two best-selling autobiographies, which he says he wrote as a form of therapy after his wife passed away. Cushing's love for both film and his wife really shines through and both are simultaneously illustrated by a poignant clip from TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972).

Since there's much less material on Cushing than there is on his contemporaries Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, this 76-minute documentary is a treasure trove for fans of the star. It's filled with film and TV clips, movie stills and personal photos, all well-edited together with a long and casual discussion with the actor about his life and career (shot by Freddie Francis). The end credits tell us that in total Cushing appeared in 97 stage plays, 91 feature films and 117 television programs over the course of his 51-year career.

★★★

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)

... aka: Blood Suckers, The
... aka: Die Todeskarten des Dr. Schreck
... aka: Le train des épouvantes (Train of Terrors)

Directed by:
"Freddy" (Freddie) Francis

Neither the best nor the worst anthology from either Amicus or director Francis. The film is generally well-made, the cast is good and it's entertaining, but it also suffers from trying to cram too many stories (five of 'em, plus a lengthy framework) into just an hour and a half. This results in three of the five tales being sadly underdeveloped. Late one evening, five different well-groomed men board the same compartment on a train for presumably an all-night trip. Mysterious occult / metaphysics expert Dr. Schreck (Peter Cushing, with fake caterpillar eyebrows and a German accent) becomes the sixth. A few of the men help Scheck pick up his belongings after he drops his bag and notice he's in possession of a deck of tarot cards. Franklyn Marsh (Christopher Lee) labels it "nonsense" and accuses Schreck of being a charlatan, but the other men are interested in having their fortunes told. All they have to do is tap the cards three times, then they're shuffled and dealt. The first four cards foretell destiny and the fifth gives him the knowledge to change it if he so chooses. Well, unless it's already too late.

After selling his ancestral house, located on a foggy island, architect Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum) gets the opportunity to go back to help its new owner - wealthy and attractive widow Deirdre Biddolph (Ursula Howells) - with some alterations. She wants to tear down a wall to create a large room to showcase her deceased archeologist husband's collection of artifacts. Also living there are a groundskeeper Caleb (Peter Madden) and his granddaughter Valda (Katy Wild), who both lurk around acting mighty suspicious. Jim gets to work on the renovation, but discovers a coffin behind a newly built wall in the cellar. The coffin - decorated with an ornate wolf head - supposedly belongs to one Cosmo Waldemar, who was rumored to be a werewolf and has a grudge to pick with the Dawson family for a wrongdoing centuries earlier. Cosmo's body disappears from the coffin, wolf tracks are found on the dirt floor, howling is heard at night and Valda turns up dead after trying to warn Jim of something. He makes silver bullets out of a heirloom cross and waits by the coffin... Cramming all of this into just over 10 minutes turns out to be a mistake, since it's poorly paced and underbaked. The 'werewolf,' by the way, is just a dog.

Upon returning from holiday, Bill (Alan Freeman) and his wife Ann (Ann Bell) notice a strange vine growing alongside their home. The plant seems to cry out in pain when hit with a hoe and even knocks a pair of shears out of Bill's hand when he tries to snip it! The family seeks the aid of a few scientists (including Bernard Lee), who draw the conclusion that this is the new evolution in plant which may take over the planet if not stopped. It's superintelligent (enough so to cut the phone line!), kills the pet dog when it digs at the roots, strangles one of scientists and eventually surrounds the entire home, trapping the family inside. But like most other living beings, it's scared of fire. Potentially interesting segment but again it's too short and could have used some fleshing out. The open ending won't sit well with some viewers.

In our next story, jazz trumpeter and all-around goofball Biff Bailey (Roy Castle) gets a gig at the Flamingo Club on an island in the West Indies. Though he's warned against it, Biff sneaks out at night to attend a voodoo ceremony, where he copies down the catchy music of the "Great God Damballah." Natives warn him not to use, but when he returns to London he does anyway, which leads to wind destroying his club and an evil presence following him home. Much better than the first two segments, this seems paced about right, is amusing, has several great musical numbers and a surprisingly non-horrific or mean-spirited finale. By the way, the misleading title for the film comes from this segment: the lead characters passes by a mock "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" poster on a wall stating its stars are "Franklyn Marsh," "Sandor Shreck" and "Biff Bailey!"

Back on the train, Dr. Schreck finally convinces Mr. Marsh / Lee to have his fortune told. Marsh is a snooty, uptight art critic who gets his jollies humiliating artists with bad write-ups in the local paper. During a showing of work from painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough), the tables are turned when it's Marsh who gets humiliated by praising a painting done by a chimpanzee. Landor continues to harass Marsh by constantly referencing the incident to destroy his credibility. Fed up, Marsh runs him over with his car, severing his hand in the incident. Unable to paint, Landor gets depressed and commits suicide. But Marsh gets his just desserts in the form of a living, disembodied hand that never seems to go away regardless of what Marsh does to it. This segment is the most memorable of the bunch, has one of the more enjoyable Lee performances and the special effects on the crawling hand are surprisingly effective.

Finally, things wrap up with a rather ordinary vampire tale. Doctor Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland) has just taken a new bride - the sexy Nicole (Jennifer Jayne). Nicole disappears late at night every night; turning into a bat and going out to do her bloodsucking thing. Meanwhile, a young boy shows up at Bob's clinic with a bad case of anemia and puncture wounds on his neck. Strangely, this segment completely ignores the vampires cannot go out in the daytime mythology but sticks to the rest (turning into bats, being afraid of crucifixes, being killed with a stake through the heart, etc.). There's a cheeky end twist involving Bob's boss, Dr. Blake (Max Adrian), which is the only thing to breath any life into this tired tale. We return to the train for the final twist involving Dr. Schreck and the passengers, which is rather predictable itself.

What would have greatly improved this would have been to cut out one of the lesser segments, preferrable the werewolf one since it's the weakest, least interesting and boasts the lamest twist of the bunch, and then used that saved time to expand upon the other two weaker tales. The "Voodoo" and "Disembodied Hand" stories work just fine as they are, as does the framework itself thanks to the wonderfully sinister Cushing. It's worth watching for these... just expect some lulls along the way.

Francis also made the Amicus anthologies TORTURE GARDEN (1967) and TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1971) as well as the non-Amicus TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973). The widescreen German DVD from Koch Entertainment is the one I viewed (their title translates to something like "Death Cards of Dr. Schreck"). It was distributed by Anchor Bay in the UK and might finally be getting a DVD release in America later this year through Olive Films (though I wouldn't hold my breath waiting).

★★1/2