The Creeping Flesh (1973)
Directed by Freddie Francis

Film Review

Whilst its plot is grounded in some pretty lunatic concepts (what can be dafter than the proposition that evil is a disease 'like any other'?), The Creeping Flesh is one of the more ingenious horror films to be made by the small British company Tigon Pictures.  It may not be in the league of Tigon's better known films, Witchfinder General (1968) and Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), but it has its fair quota of thrills and offers a compelling treatment of a highly imaginative yarn.  Stylishly directed by Hammer regular Freddie Francis and featuring yet another on-screen tussle between horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, The Creeping Flesh takes us on a spine-tingling joy ride into the most terrifying domain of all - insanity.

Mental illness in its most graphic manifestations has enjoyed a long association with the horror genre, Htchcock's Psycho (1960) and Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) being perhaps the most terrifying cinematic excursions into this field.  The Creeping Flesh derives most of its thrills from our fear of insanity, that aberration of the mind that warps our understanding of the world around us and allows our most horrific fantasies to become a terrible reality.  The two main protagonists in the film (played to perfection by Lee and Cushing) present themselves as experts in mental disorder but it soon becomes evident that they could be as mad as those they set out to treat.  Cushing believes he can cure insanity with a vaccine made from cells of a prehistoric skeleton.  Lee thinks he can do the same with flashing lights.  Is the monster that Cushing brings into the world real or a figment of his imagination?  We can never be sure, and this is why the film is so remorselessly unsettling.

Lacking the resources of its wealthier cousins Hammer and Amicus, Tigon had to make do with cheaper, less convincing special effects, and this is the one area where The Creeping Flesh disappoints.  After a remarkable sequence near the start of the film, where part of the ancient skeleton regains its flesh, we are led to anticipate something far more spectacular later on.  The moment never arrives.  The skeleton comes to life, but the animation process is too hurried, and the resulting monster, when briefly glimpsed, fails to impress.  After a promising build-up, the punch line seems to have been overlooked.  The film ends in whimsical ambiguity and if you want a nice tidy resolution you'll have to make it up yourself.  Flawed as the film is from a narrative point of view, it is nonetheless compelling and disturbing throughout - one of the better attempts by a British film studio to offer something new in the horror line in the 1970s.

Film Synopsis

In the late 19th century, Professor Emmanuel Hildern believes he is about to make a major scientific breakthrough that will change mankind's destiny forever.  He has just returned from New Guinea, having unearthed the skeleton of a humanoid creature that predates modern man and has an extraordinarily large brain cavity.  When the professor begins washing the skeleton with water, he is surprised to see it suddenly acquire a layer of flesh.  Examining the creature's blood cells, he then finds he can use them to create a vaccine to inoculate human beings against evil.  So confident in his theories is he that Hildern injects the serum into his own daughter, Penelope, hoping to cure her of the insanity she has apparently inherited from her mother.  The experiment soon proves to be a disaster when Penelope goes out on a killing spree.  Meanwhile, Hildern's ambitious half-brother James steals the skeleton, unaware that if exposed to water it will be reanimated and bring about mankind's destruction...