The Creeping Flesh (1973)

Director:

Freddie Francis

Writers:

Peter Spenceley (original screenplay) &
Jonathan Rumbold (original screenplay)

Release Date:

1973 (UK)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A terrifying journey through the nightmare worlds of evil, insanity and terrible revenge.

Plot:

A Victorian-age scientist returns to London with his paleontological bag-of-bones discovery from Papua New Guinea...

Plot Keywords:

Scientist | Skeleton | Blood | Discovery | Reincarnation

Cast

Christopher Lee	...	James Hildern
Peter Cushing	...	Emmanuel Hildern
Lorna Heilbron	...	Penelope
George Benson	...	Waterlow
Kenneth J. Warren	...	Lenny
Duncan Lamont	...	Inspector
Harry Locke	...	Barman
Hedger Wallace	...	Doctor Perry
Michael Ripper	...	Carter
Catherine Finn	...	Emily
Robert Swann	...	Young Aristocrat
David Bailie	...	Young Doctor
Maurice Bush	...	Karl
Tony Wright	...	Sailor
Marianne Stone	...	Female Assistant

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:R | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

Tigon Pictures

Trivia:

Larry Taylor is dubbed by Michael Ripper.

Quotes:

James Hildern: I've got to get hold of that skeleton somehow.
Doctor Perry: Oh I don't know... There is the question of professional ethics.
James Hildern: Oh indeed, indeed... that is why I shall have to employ someone for whom ethics have no significance.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007) (V)

Fair hokum, toplined by Cushing and Lee

THE CREEPING FLESH

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Mono

A Victorian scientist (Peter Cushing) returns home to England from the jungles of Borneo with a grotesque skeleton which Cushing believes is the Missing Link. However, his experiments are quickly sidelined when his daughter (Lorna Heilbron) falls prey to the same mental illness which destroyed her mother, bringing her into contact with a dangerous lunatic (Kenneth J. Warren) who's escaped from an asylum run by Cushing's contemptuous half-brother (Christopher Lee). Then, an accident with a bowl of water has an extraordinary regenerative effect on the skeleton in Cushing's laboratory, with devastating consequences...

Always a better cinematographer than director, Freddie Francis arranges the material in his usual flat-but-efficient manner, though the film is bolstered by a terrific script (co-written by Peter Spenceley and Jonathan Rumbold) in which several disparate story lines dovetail nicely during the course of the narrative. At a time when Brit Gothic was forced to ring the changes on a tired formula, THE CREEPING FLESH is a little too quaint and genteel to be entirely successful, but the film provides another welcome pairing of Cushing and Lee, and is further distinguished by Heilbron's eye-opening performance as a strait-laced waif who doesn't so much inherit her mother's insanity as have it foisted upon her by Cushing's thoughtless (but well-meaning) actions; her descent into nymphomania and homicide is all the more potent since most UK horror movies of the period weren't noted for their complex female characters. Production values are cheap but stylish, and Norman Warwick's elegant cinematography makes the most of the sparse production design and well-chosen locations.