If it looks and tastes like Hammer, then it must be a Columbia Picture, hey, what the heck?? Either way, it doesn't matter, because
"The Creeping Flesh" is a great little flick, and the good news, your early X-Mas present is, that it streams beautifully for free over at this
Crackle Website!! Sure, there are a couple of very brief commercials, but it's worth it to be able to see this awesome flick gratis!
Peter Cushing is Emmanuel Hildern, and this is his very hip pad. Chicks dig the big skeleton guy he brought back from New Guinea!
Emmanuel's brother is James Hildern, portrayed by Christopher Lee, they have a very competitive relationship! Just how many movies
did Pete and Chris make together anyway? Only 22? I thought it was in the 100's! Christopher Lee not only did all his own stunts, but he was also at one time a 'scratch' golfer, but it makes sense when you consider that he is the consummate performer, no matter what!
This is Emmanuel Hildern's daughter, Lorna Heilbron as Penelope. Lorna was busy for years but mostly on TV! She was only in 5 other movies besides this one!! Penelope is a sweet and innocent girl who has never quite gotten over the death of her Mother!!
Mrs Hildern, Penelope's Mom, who was played by Jenny Longacre, is featured briefly in a dream sequence. Jenny was working a lot in the 70's and 80's, and even put in an appearance in the 2009 flick, "Boogie Woogie," that also had Christopher Lee in it!
Jolly old Victorian England, if you had a problem, you had two choices, shock therapy or............
..........
Pub Therapy! Hey Doc, pour me another draft, and send one of them wenches on over!!!
Here's the deal, that big skeleton turns to flesh when it gets wet, so by mistake, Emmanuel re-constituted a finger. Not by mistake, he drew some blood from the finger he cut off, and shot up his daughter with it, and shall we say, Penelope's had quite a personality change,
and, on top of that, she's drinking!!
This jackass buys her a drink, because he thinks she's a hooker, but she resists his advances, so he pushes even harder!
To which she reaches out and in perfect Freddie Francis fashion, scratches his face like some kind of wild animal!!
Penelope then proceeds to go back downstairs to dance and flirt, and let this guy know she didn't want to dance, by slicing his jugular vein with a broken bottle!!
She runs out of the pub, and everyone chases her, and crazy Lenny, who was so mean, that he had earlier cleared the pub single-handedly, tries to help her get away, and this is how she repays him!!! A hand stomp is next!!
Kenneth J. Warren had the role of Lenny! Ken managed to be involved in 91 TV and movie projects in his short 43 years on the planet, playing characters with colourful names like Clobber, Jumbo, Dingus, Curly, and Warlock!
Emmanuel and his assistant had also injected a monkey with the blood serum, and the monkey freaked out and messed up the Doc's place, then Emmanuel gets the news about his daughter, who now resides at his brother's sanitarium, and his buddy tells him, "Well, Thank God we didn't use it on any humans!!" Oh, Shit!!
Now it's time to shift gears, and here's what happened!
Richard Hildern decides to take advantage of his brother's untimely confusion, and steals the big skeleton! He doesn't know anything about the finger, so the pounding rainstorm has no meaning to him! In a nutshell, the carriage crashes and releases the newly re-formed creature!!
And he wants his finger back!!!
Peter instinctively knows exactly what the Hell is going on, and realizes he is in deep,
deep crap!!
It's been a while since we've seen a movie with a real monster in it, and before I forget, the music for "The Creeping Flesh" was composed by Paul Ferris, who had a total of 13 films he composed for, including "She Beast," "The Sorcerers," "The Blood Beast Terror," and "Witchfinder General!"
Another classic Freddie Francis POV shot from inside the monster's head! Freddie rarely fails to deliver the goods! So, what are you waiting for? Go check it out! You've got nothing to lose, except maybe a finger or two!!
I was in a crappy mood when I recently sat down to watch Boris Karloff in "Corridors Of Blood", and it didn't hit me right, from the get go, so I put it off for a day, but then I found out that it was Mrs. Grewbeard's favourite Karloff film, so I decided I better give it another try, and boy, was I glad I did, because "Corridors Of Blood" is a real dandy of a film that should be on everybody's list, not just Santa's!
I'd had a bad day at work, and when "Corridors Of Blood" started, there was a lot of screaming going on from people getting operated on without anesthetic. It was pretty gruesome, and I just wasn't ready for that whole concept, but from there on this movie is very intelligent, but also pretty brutal for 1958!
It's a lurid tale of addiction, scamming con artists, and murder!
Boris Karloff is Dr. Thomas Bolton, a good, honest man dedicated to freeing the world of pain and suffering, who, by using himself as a guinea pig, has become a victim of his own science, because the narco based anesthetic he developed, has turned out to be quite addictive! What was he supposed to do, he had to try it on someone!!
Boris becomes such a loadie, and then he has to make an appeal to this crew, that kinda reminded me of Hunter Thompson in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," when he is stoned out of his gourd and has to go to the law enforcement convention on narcotics!! Tough crowd!!
What an awesome backdrop!! The music for "Corridors Of Blood" was created by Mr. Buxton Orr, who only composed the music for 9 movies, but out of those nine, you've got "The Haunted Strangler," "Fiend Without A Face," "First Man Into Space," "Dr. Blood's Coffin," and "The Snake Woman!" Nice run!
Here's the scam! Black Ben, and his best gal pal, Rachel, have people killed, then they get the good Dr. Bolton (who doesn't know anything about the scam) to sign the death certificate as accidental, and then they sell the bodies for pure profit! Adrienne Corri as Rachel has had a magnificent career, from Doris in "Devil Girl From Mars," to the lady that gets raped, Mrs Alexander, in Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," with stops at "Vampire Circus," and "Moon Zero Two" in between! Francis De Wolff was in everything from "Moby Dick" to "From Russia With Love!"
They cut Boris off at the dispensary.......
.....so he is forced to turn to the underworld to enlist some help in getting his drugs some other way besides legal!
This is a killer portrait of the genius Boris Karloff!
How can you go wrong with Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff in a scene together, between the two of them they have 465 titles under their belt!!
Jiggers!! The Cops!!
Black Ben steals the Doctor's notebook, and now they know what he's up too!
Christopher Lee does a grand job as the quite despicable Resurrection Joe, Black Ben's hitman!! Chris Lee had already been acting for 10 years at this point in his career!
In a situation like this, there is no real opportunity for all to end well........
........and it doesn't!!
