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

X: The Unknown (1956)

... aka: X contro il centro atomico (X versus the Atomic Center)

... aka: X... the Unknown

Directed by:

Leslie Norman

Joseph Losey (uncredited)

Made smack in the middle of the two classic black-and-white Quatermass films; the 1955 hit The Quatermass Xperiment (aka The Creeping Unknown in the U.S.) and 1957's Quatermass 2 (aka Enemy from Space in the U.S.), this was actually originally written and planned as a follow-up to the first Quatermass. However, things didn't go quite as planned as Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale refused to let them use the name. The lead character's name was then changed... but I doubt much else was because this definitely in done in the spirit of the first Quatermass. X is also noteworthy in several other regards. For starters, it was among just a small handful of Hammer Film Productions in the horror genre made before the huge international success of The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) changed the dynamic (and reputation) of the studio forever. Second, it marked the feature screenplay debut of Jimmy Sangster, who'd become one of the top horror, fantasy and sci-fi screenwriters in Britain for several decades afterward and also went on to write many of Hammer's finest films. Third, there's a much more famous American film made just two years later that pretty blatantly copies key aspects of this one. And finally, there were a few minor issues both during production and after the film was completed...

An interesting director; Joseph Losey, was initially chosen for the project. Losey was a victim of the Hollywood blacklist and ended up exiled to the UK for a spell, where he worked on a handful of films utilizing an alias (usually "Joseph Walton;" his first and middle names). However, somewhere early on in production, Losey either quit or was let go. I have read three completely different accounts about what happened: 1. Losey lost interest in the movie and quit on his own accord. 2. Losey shot a week's worth of footage, became ill and had to be replaced. 3. Losey's "illness" was a fabrication by the studio leaked to the press to cover up for the fact star Dean Jagger refused to work with him because he believed him to be a "Communist sympathizer." Either way, neither he nor his "Walton" alias is in the credits of this film nor in any of the publicity materials. His replacement, Leslie Norman, was apparently disliked by nearly the entire cast and crew but technically knew how to put together a competent film. Still, it's no coincidence Hammer never used him again after this.

The film also saw distribution difficulties that delayed its release by eight months. Around half of this film's budget was put up by Sol Lesser and RKO Pictures in the U.S.; much of which went toward the salary of American star Jagger. The deal between Hammer and RKO eventually fell apart and the film somehow ended up in the hands of Warner Bros., who finally released it in the U.S. in May 1957. Lesser's name is, again, not listed in the credits nor in any of the publicity materials with the exception of the Italian poster pictured above.

During an army training exercise in the Scottish highlands, a Geiger counter goes crazy, suddenly the earth cracks open and smoke and fire spew forth. The army phones up The Atomic Energy Establishment and has them send out eccentric scientist Dr. Adam Royston (Jagger). He finds no signs of radioactivity at the site, but the men exposed to the underground explosion have come down with third degree burns that resemble radiation burns all over their bodies, and the one soldier closest to the explosion dies from it. In addition, the fissure where the ground cracked open is so deep there seems to be no bottom. A little boy then encounters something in the marshes while out late at night and also ends up in the hospital with severe and ultimately fatal skin burns. Soon after, something shows up at Adam's workshop while he's away and wrecks the place after stealing all of his tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) then makes an appearance at a hospital to swipe some radium and ruin a playboy doctor's backroom tryst with a nurse in the process.

Mac McGill (Leo McKern), an internal security investigator for the Atomic Energy Commission, shows up on the scene and joins Dr. Royston in his investigation. Peter Elliott (William Lucas), Royston's boss's (Edward Chapman) eager-to-impress son, who works at his father's lab as an administrator but really wants to be a scientist, volunteers to be lowered down into the deep cavern. After finding the charred corpse of a soldier and seeing an unknown being that looks like "something out of a nightmare," the military (led by John Harvey and Hammer regular Michael Ripper) use flamethrowers and explosives in an attempt to kill it and then seal up the crevice with concrete. Unfortunately, that "something out of a nightmare" turns out to be a powerful, shapeless glob of black goo from the center of the Earth out to absorb radioactive elements wherever it can find them. If someone happens to get in its way, well, too bad for them.

This is a fine, professionally-assembled little low-budget B flick. Performances are all decent, the actor play off each other well, it's fast-paced, contains little filler, is very handsomely shot by Gerald Gibbs and the dialogue is rather serious and pragmatic, with only the occasional bit of humor. In addition, the makeup (courtesy of Philip Leakey) and special effects (courtesy of Jack Curtis and an unbilled Les Bowie) are good for the time and even include a few gory moments, such as a face meltdown. It's been noted time and time again how most of these 50s sci-fi films reflect the fears of a society uneasy about "Atomic Age" advancements and this is no exception to the rule. There are several well-meaning cautionary asides, such as how scientific innovation can be a double-edged sword used to either help or harm mankind, but these elements never bring the story to a halt and are credibly worked into the dialogue.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this one is how much THE BLOB (1958) lifted from it. The creatures are both shapeless, gelatinous masses that invade small towns. They both grow larger and larger as the film advances; The Blob grows from consuming victims while the glob in this one grows from consuming energy. The both have an acidic property that allows them to dissolve / melt victims. Even the 1988 remake of The Blob seemed to borrow its own ideas from this one, including having the townsfolk barricade themselves in a church as the menace oozes through the area. Perhaps being the original Blob film isn't the most prestigious thing in the world but, hey, at least it's something, right?

★★★