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Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I mean, can you really go wrong with a 70s horror/sci-fi flick by a veteran Hammer director starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and some kind of huge, undead creature that is the embodiment of evil? No, no you can't.The story centers around Professor Hildern (Cushing), an ultimately well-meaning but deeply sad Victorian-era scientist who brings home the remains of some kind of humanoid being from an expedition to New Guinea. In his studies of the mythology of the region, and of the remains themselves, he becomes convinced that the bones are what remain of a huge, malevolent giant — a biological representation of evil itself — that will be reanimated by rain. He tries to use this discovery to better the world, starting with his own small family, but things don't go quite as planned…** SPOILERS! **I'm always a big fan of the whole theme of "mad scientist gone wrong", despite the fact that those movies often have big plot holes (and this film is no exception). In some cases it's a scientist driven to immoral acts because of an irresistible urge for power, money, invincibility, whatever… but in some cases, like this one, it's the urge to improve the world that steers someone in such a calamitous direction. It gives the movie a quality of sadness that is interesting to me.I loved all of the simultaneous battles between good and evil. The battle of this mysterious, mythical creature embodying evil and needing to fight against the good of the world. The smaller scale battle of Professor Hildern — wanting to turn the world into a paradise — vs his half-brother, Dr. James Hildern (Lee), wanting his own recognition and fame even at his own relative's expense. The more complex battle of Professor Hildern wanting to keep the truth about his wife from his daughter, Penelope (Lorna Heilbron), seemingly for her own good.Christopher Lee, naturally, brilliantly plays the cloaked half-brother who runs the asylum, and Peter Cushing is fantastic per usual.The very Gothic settings, camera work, and even some of the special effects are pretty great. It's a fairly low budget horror film from the 70s so the special effects aren't exactly going to rock anyone's world, but I thought the scene where the flesh first formed on the finger bone was pretty impressive considering (and Cushing staring, perplexed, through his magnifying glass was a great touch).The entire concept of evil being physical rather than psychological — a disease rather than a mental disorder — I thought was, in some ways, surprisingly complex for a horror film. It gave an air of hope — of being able to defeat what had always seemed to be unstoppable.There were some interestingly conservative touches (though I could be wrong) to both Professor Hildern's wife, Marguerite's (Jenny Runacre), mental collapse and his daughter, Penelope's. Not much is shown of either aside from them becoming extremely uninhibited, particularly when it comes to attracting and enjoying attention from men. I mean, yes, Penelope starts to enjoy being physically cruel with no provocation, but her initial "madness" is simply her finally breaking free of the bonds in place by her father trying, maybe naïvely, definitely unfairly, to protect her. (And her scratching the one dude's face up and slitting the other guy's throat were pretty justified, from what I could see.)The atmosphere is pretty great throughout, but particularly during the ending scenes. I loved the horse-drawn carriage chase through the rain with the added tension of knowing the skeleton was quietly reanimating. When Professor Hildern finds the tipped carriage and sees the hooded monster silhouetted up ahead, with thunder booming and lighting flashing… awesome. One of my favorite shots was when you could hear the creature shuffling towards the house and see its shadow first moving horizontally and then becoming larger and larger as it approached (without seeing the creature itself) — so good. And the look of terrified surprise on Professor Hildern's face as we view it from INSIDE the hollow creature… good times.And THE ENDING. I actually, for once, won't spoil it here but DAMN, I loved it. It almost leaves it up to your interpretation but there's one tell-tale clue (at least from the way I interpreted it) that makes it, in some ways, even more horrifying than the alternative. Great twist.All in all a solid watch. The fear is more impending, more slowly creeping, than some might enjoy (with more deep concepts to chew on in the meantime), but I really appreciated that.

Scientist Peter Cushing digs up an ancient skeleton that's pure evil or something. When you pour water on the bones, flesh grows. So don't do that. Anyway, this is all weird and interesting enough but then there's a huge chunk of the movie dealing with Cushing's daughter who he is overprotective of because he doesn't want her to turn out like her mom, who died in an asylum. This stuff is a lot less fun. Christopher Lee plays Cushing's brother. He runs the asylum and he's got a subplot about an escaped inmate. All of these plot threads eventually meet but I can't say they do so satisfactorily.It's a decent British horror movie with two top stars and a good director in Freddie Francis. The problem is it's got too much going on and it devotes more time to the uninteresting stuff than the skeleton business. Now, the ending is cute and perhaps lines the meandering plot up a bit but it doesn't fix everything. You're still left feeling like you didn't get as much of the "creeping flesh" aspect of the movie as you might have expected.

Freddie Francis finds himself working for Tigon on the ambitious, albeit flawed, horror opus The Creeping Flesh. It's always fun to see Cushing and Lee working together and this is no exception, although it's fair to say that they don't get enough shared screen time in this particular film. Nevertheless, The Creeping Flesh is an extremely interesting and well-made offering. Ultimately it bites off more than it can chew, but there's still plenty of enjoyment to be had from a viewing of it.Victorian scientist Emmanuel Hildern (Cushing) returns from New Guinea with the skeletal remains of a humanoid creature. His excitement about the creature is tempered somewhat when he discovers his wife has died while he has been away. Not that their relationship was a normal one anyway – Mrs Hildern had been put into a lunatic asylum run by Emmanuel's brother, James (Christopher Lee), on account of her unquenchable sexual appetite. Furthermore, Emmanuel's daughter, Penelope (Lorna Heilbron), has no idea that her mother has been locked away, believing that she died years ago. Whilst examining the skeleton, Emmanuel discovers if it comes into contact with water its flesh and blood cells are able to regenerate. In other words, the skeleton can regrow flesh when wet. Believing the creature may be the 'Evil One' mentioned in the ancient prophecies of the tribes of New Guinea, Emmanuel decides to investigate further. He discovers strange cells in the creature's biological make-up and concludes they may be a germ-like form of evil, suggesting that evil itself is a virus like any other, as easy to 'catch' as a common cold. Emmanuel attempts to use the cells to create a vaccine against evil. He tests it on his daughter, believing that she may need to be protected in order to prevent her from turning out like her mother. Alas, his tests have the opposite effect and soon Penelope becomes a dangerous murderess intent on luring others to their death. Meanwhile, James plots to steal the New Guinean skeleton for himself… but makes the mistake of attempting to spirit it away during a rainstorm.As one can see, there's an awful lot going on in The Creeping Flesh considering that it is merely a 94 minute horror film. We have brotherly rivalry and betrayal; messed-up family politics; tribal prophecies; a flesh-growing monster; and the radical concept of evil as a contagious illness rather than an immoral mind-set. Where The Creeping Flesh comes undone somewhat is in its doomed effort to tie so many disparate components together into a coherent whole.Fortunately, the good points outweigh the flaws, resulting in a film that is worth watching in spite of any weaknesses. Flawed it may well be, but The Creeping Flesh still has much to admire. It takes a while to click into gear, biding its time in setting up the main 'evil-on-the-loose' story thread. However, once the consequences of Emmanuel's experimentations become clear - with Penelope going on a murderous rampage - things become exciting and compelling. Plus, of course, running alongside this thread we have the scheme hatched by Lee's character to steal the creature, not realising the potentially catastrophic result of taking it outside in the rain. With its steady but intriguing build-up, disturbing apocalyptic ending and plenty of atmospheric chills in between, The Creeping Flesh is a film that undeniably rewards patient viewing.

I saw this reason for the same reason many others probably watched the film--it starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee...AND, of course, it was a horror film. This combination is usually pretty interesting and this film is quite interesting--even if it is also a bit silly now and then.The story finds Cushing as a scientist of sorts. He seems to be a combination of a paleontologist and biochemist back in the late 1800s. When the film begins, he is arriving back home with a skeleton he unearthed in Indonesia. Oddly, the skeleton is an enormous humanoid but it is much older and radically different from anything found in the past. Odder still, if you know much about skeletons, you know that once the flesh decays, the bones all become disconnected--but the one in this film is fully articulated--even after a bazillion years in the ground. In other words, the ligaments and tendons and muscles holding everything together decompose after death and the bones naturally all fall apart from each other. However, like I've seen in a lot of bad horror movies over the years (such as TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE), the skeletons are fully articulated--like some sort of Halloween novelty skeleton. This is a silly mistake, but one that will most likely only bother doctors, biology majors and compulsive film nuts like myself.For some inexplicable reason, Cushing is convinced that the skeleton belongs to a creature of pure evil. His reasons for this are pretty vague, as is his theory about evil itself. While working with the skeleton, he washes off some dirt and soon flesh begins growing around the portion he dampened!! Quickly, he cuts off this finger and puts it in water. Soon, it has grown into a huge flesh covered finger and it actually bleeds! The blood, naturally, is not normal blood...it's EVIL blood.A parallel story occurs in Cushing's house. It seems that years before, Cushing's wife went mad and was incarcerated in his brother's hellish mental hospital. However, he has always told his daughter that her mother died in order to spare her from the stigma and pain. In an odd twist, when the daughter accidentally discovers this, she almost immediately turns into a sluttish psycho murderer--though she'd been previously normal her whole life. And, when the brother (Lee) looks at her blood under a microscope, it turns out she, too, has evil blood--just like the skeleton's! There's a lot more to the story than this--especially a plot involving Lee experimenting on his own patients. Up until the end, most of the film makes no sense at all and there are lots of inconsistencies. However, believe it or not, pretty much all the problems with the film are explained away well by the twist ending which is highly reminiscent of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. So, be sure to stick with it--the mistakes and problems just seem insurmountable until late in the film.An interesting and unusual film.