The Creeping Flesh

1973

1h 32m

IMDb RATING

5.9/10

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21 Images

Horror

Science Fiction

A scientist comes to believe that evil is a disease of the blood and that the flesh of a skeleton he has brought back from New Guinea contains it in a pure form. Convinced that his wife, a Folies Bergere dancer who went insane, manifested this evil, he is terrified that it will be passed on to their daughter. He tries to use the skeleton's blood to immunise her against this eventuality, but his attempt has anything but the desired result.

Directors

Freddie Francis

Writers

Peter Spenceley(screenplay by)

Jonathan Rumbold(screenplay by)

Stars

Peter Cushing

Lorna Heilbron

Christopher Lee

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Videos1

Trailer
Watch "The Creeping Flesh" (1973) Trailer

Photos21

Top cast

Emmanuel Hildern

Penelope Hildern

James Hildern

Waterlow

Emily

Doctor Perry

Inspector

Charles Lenny

Chief Asylum Warder

Barman

Young Aristocrat

Marguerite Hildern

Young Doctor

Carter

Bar Girl

Woman Doctor

Sailor

Lunatic

Directors

Freddie Francis

Writers

Peter Spenceley(screenplay by)

Jonathan Rumbold(screenplay by)

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Review

Featured review

6/10

Right until the end, I was convinced that this was just a bit of nonsense. At the end, though, a great deal of it falls into place and through it still isn't really very good, this film made a lot more sense. In a nutshell, "Hildern" (Peter Cushing) returns from Papua New Guinea with some artefacts (human ones). When they get wet, they reanimate into a rather nasty skeleton that wreaks havoc. Determined to stop this evil from spreading, the professor tries to use it's blood to immunise his young daughter from it's effects - bad move! Meantime, his half-brother Christopher Lee - who has been supervising the care of his sibling's mentally ill wife for some years, has his own agenda not just for the treatment of the wifely insanity, but also for our marauding bundle of bones. The script offers us just a little too much half-baked, amateur psychology but there is still enough gravitas delivered by Messrs. Cushing and Lee to make the conclusion worth the wait. This genre was losing it's appeal by 1973, the colour photography robbing the storyline of much of its eeriness and jeopardy and at times this looks more akin to a "Sherlock Holmes" style of investigative costume drama, but it is still worth a watch.

Geronimo196727 May, 2023