Die Bestie mit dem Skalpell

After a model's face is burned by a lamp during a scuffle between a surgeon and a salacious photographer, the doctor (who had hopes of marrying the girl) promises to do everything he can to restore her beauty. Screenwriters Derek and Donald Ford concocted this twisted British blood-letter, a violent though somewhat muted variation on 1960's "Les yeux sans visage". Here, the mad doctor doesn't need to kill innocent lovelies for their faces--he needs their pituitary glands! Peter Cushing amusingly begins the picture a dapper, celebrated professional, and his descent into madness is quite a jolt; Sue Lloyd (who resembles Jill St. John) is also good as the vain, shrewish woman who becomes totally dependent on the need for fresh victims. The Swinging London atmospherics are heavily put-on, and the jazzy score from Bill McGuffie is occasionally inappropriate or over-emphatic. The third act, with the doctor and his girlfriend descended upon by thugs at their seaside home, becomes too hysterical, leading to an unsatisfying wrap-up. Still, a good-looking '60s slasher with some tightly-edited sequences and ghoulish suspense. ** from ****

I've always had a deep admiration for British actor Peter Cushing. He was, after all, able to convincingly portray such a wide range of characters on screen from Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Frankenstein, instilling each role with cool intelligence plus an element of human pathos. When one thinks of a Hammer horror film from the late 1950's through the ensuing fifteen years, inevitably(apart from his frequent co-star Christopher Lee)Cushing's name comes first to mind.

While CORRUPTION is not a Hammer film,(Columbia Pictures,surprisingly, is the distributor) it is a sheer delight for Cushing fans. Here, he portrays a respected surgeon who slowly goes insane, all for the love of his fiancé played by Sue Lloyd with her kitty claws rendered even sharper than the good doctor's scalpel. After a tragic accident which effectively ends her modeling career, Dr. Cushing works obsessively to repair the damage to poor disfigured Sue's face. Realizing the cure is to be found in the female pituitary gland, he wantonly murders and decapitates young, pretty lasses to achieve his goal.

After each of Cushing's kills in this flick, the camera graphically provides a distorted, fish eye lens view in which we see this eminent physician with hair disheveled and a manic look which has to be seen to be believed. Eventually, an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame reduces the doctor to a quivering mess of nerves as he tries to find solace in the bottle. He certainly won't find it in Sue. She has issues of her own which, in comparison, make Dr. Cushing look almost sane. The climax to all this blood & spatter is provided by a high powered laser(part of the cure,apparently, for Sue's face) which looks more at home in GOLDFINGER than a spartan medical lab.

CORRUPTION is a florid feast for the eyes,too, as we see swinging 1967 Carnaby Street fashions worn by both sexes. Anthony Booth really camps it up as an Andy Warhol wannabe portraying a fashion photographer who tries to shoot a nudie-cutie roll of film with Sue Lloyd to devastating results. Since this is 'Swinging London' there are mini-skirted girls aplenty, with special mention to bimbette Shirley Stelfox whom no party would be complete without. She doesn't wear flowers in her hair, but under her eyes.

CORRUPTION is a delirious roller coaster of madness, mayhem and a minimum of mirth. Character actor David Lodge does appear as a cretinous villain called 'Groper.' Watching him salute(don't ask why) is one of the highlights.

Anyway, after seeing CORRUPTION, don't be surprised if you feel uneasy opening the freezer door of your fridge. Some cold cuts are better left untouched.

Veteran actor Peter Cushing depicts Sir John Rowan, an utmost genius and respectable surgeon. The passion for his work is only surpassed by his obsessive love for the lewd photo-model Lynn Nolan. When her pretty face gets badly burned in a very banal accident that Rowan jealously caused at a jet-set party, he swears to restore it. He performs an initially successful operation, using tissue and a particular facial gland of a recently deceased young woman, but the results are only temporary. In order to strengthen and prolong the effect of the gland, our doctor needs to use living tissue instead…

The plot of "Corruption" is one of the most derivative and clichéd ones in horror cinema. In 1959, in France, director Georges Franju delivered the penultimate genre landmark "Les Yeux Sans Visage" – "Eyes without a Face" – and particularly during the next two decades, the tale of fanatic scientists and obsessive surgeons murdering innocent young women in order to restore and maintain the youthful beauty of their own mutilated wives or daughters has been copied numerous times, most notably by Jess Franco ("The Awful Dr. Orloff), Sidney Hayers ("Circus of Horrors") and Terence Fisher ("The Man who could Cheat Death").

This version, helmed by Robert Hartford-Davies, isn't exactly what you'd call a masterpiece, but it definitely contains a couple of elements that make it noteworthy and recommendable for horror fans. For starters: the almighty Peter Cushing! He's one of my personal favorite actors of all times and, even though he played a lot of villainous roles in his lengthy career, this one feels rather special. Due to his naturally elegant charisma and typically British appearance and behavior, Cushing usually depicts the 'sophisticated' type of villains. You know; the type of evil mastermind who invents fiendish schemes but uses grisly minions to do the nasty work. His character here also seems very sophisticated (so much even that his choice of muse is highly implausible), but when he's forced to stalk and murder another poor victim to steal her glands, Dr. Rowan transforms into a relentless maniacal beast! The sequences in which the prowling Cushing goes berserk and literally butchers young girls, consecutively a prostitute and a random blond beauty on the train, are excessively vile and misogynic. Cushing, with pure insanity in his eyes and his hair all messed up, savagely stabs them to death and cuts off their heads in ways that are quite graphic for a British film released in 1968. Still, I'm thankful for Cushing's performance as well as for the gory make- up effects, since the rest of the movie is mediocre at best. The protagonists, Sir John Rowan and Lynn, are a mismatched couple, to say the least, and the extended finale set at Rowan's beachside cottage is overlong and exaggeratedly far-fetched. Like they haven't got enough trouble already, Rowan and Lynn are held captive by a troop of anti-menacing thugs and the whole thing ends rather hectically (and foolishly…) with an out-of-control laser machine. In case you're a fan of qualitative British horror from the sixties and seventies, I advise sticking to the Hammer productions or the Amicus anthology films. If, however, you watched all of those already and you want to see a different side of Peter Cushing, then I warmly recommend "Corruption".

Story of a brilliant doctor (Peter Cushing) in love with a beautiful younger woman (Sue Lloyd). During a fight at a party they're at, Lloyd becomes disfigured when a flood lamp falls on her face. Cushing becomes obsessed at restoring her beauty and will do anything to do it--even murder.

Plot wise this has been done before (most notably in the French film "Eyes Without a Face") but this isn't totally without merit. Cushing is excellent as a man who is driven to murder for his lover. You can see that he hates doing it but feels he has to. Lloyd, surprisingly, is not an innocent woman. She knows he's killing for her and actually spurs him on! Aside from those two performances though this is pretty by the numbers...except for an incredibly silly ending which had me laughing out loud! Also there is incredibly inappropriate music blaring sometimes on the soundtrack that's totally out of place. This is pretty much forgotten and it's easy to see why. Worth catching though for Cushing's acting alone.

A surgeon discovers that he can restore the beauty to his girlfriend's scarred face by murdering other women and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland.However the effects only last for a short time,so he has to kill more and more women.It is ultimately a killing spree which ends with considerable death and disaster."Corruption" aka "Laser Killer" is a surprisingly sleazy British shocker.The murder of semi-nude Soho prostitute is quite nasty and depraved.Peter Cushing's performance as an insane surgeon is brilliant."Corruption" ain't tasteful and restrained.To put it simply it's an exploitation flick with incredibly noble Peter Cushing in the main role.That's why it's worth checking out.Connect it with "Diversions" and have fun.7 eyes without a face out of 10.