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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.

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.

Let's all be glad that Grindhouse has released a really pristine DVD of the elusive "Corruption". This really, really odd relic from 1968 looks very much like tableaux from some department store windows, from the fashions to the stilted action that takes place. Nothing looks real, seems real, or sounds real.

"Corruption" is pretty much a product of it's time. It appears to be a Hammer Films product, from the starring presence of Peter Cushing to the claustrophobic interiors, but it's actually a Columbia Pictures release. In the genre of "crazy doctor tries to restore woman's face with bad science", this movie is the stepchild of "Eyes Without A Face" and even "Atom Age Vampire" as well as a pinch of "The Leech Woman" thrown in from years earlier. This time, the old story is dressed up in mini-skirts and groovy Carnaby Street duds, featuring an incredibly vain "model" who's the much younger girlfriend of surgeon Peter Cushing. At a happening party hosted by a thinly veiled Andy Warhol wannabe, the model is disfigured by an overheated photo lamp falling on her face. Unfortunately, her doctor boyfriend is responsible for the accident by attempting to punch out the Warhol stand-in, who was trying to get nudie shots of the model. Vain, and now disfigured, said model wants to die but the love-struck doctor saves her face by using nefarious surgical and laser treatments. Naturally, the treatment doesn't last long, so the doc has to stop using corpses for his raw materials and turns to murder.

The twist here is that the vain girlfriend knows all about the sources for her treatment, and eventually goads the doc into committing more crime to make her pretty. These two lovebirds retreat to a seaside getaway, where they encounter the cleanest hippies on film, who attempt robbery but meet karma at the end of a laser. This laser, which is the low budget version of the device used on James Bond in "Goldfinger" appears to be a psychotic dental drill that cuts up and then sets fire to everything...and everybody.

"Corruption" is worth a look for cultists, who've heard about this but never seen it. Unavailable for many years, the new Grindhouse Releasing DVD is crisp, clean, and beautifully transferred. Included in the extras are the "French scenes" in which a topless prostitute is brutally murdered. Cushing brings his usual gravitas to the role of a doctor who'd do anything for love. The hippies are more thugs, despite the Nehru jackets and vinyl mod hats. The ending of this tale of depravity is pretty weird for 1968, tip-toeing into more graphic violence than usual. Mild by today's standards, but probably a shocker in it's time.

Of real interest here is actress Kate O'Mara, who would achieve everlasting fame as Patsy Stone's ancient Eurotrash sister in TV's "Absolutely Fabulous". It's difficult not to think of Ab Fab while Kate attempts to bring some sanity to the murderous goings-on. Worth seeing for Peter Cushing, and an incoherent hit-man hippie named Groper who must have won the second-runner up prize in a John Lennon lookalike contest. Watching him kill an apple is the scariest thing in this movie. Points for what's in the freezer!

This is one of those UK lost flicks that is really worth hunting down. It's so rare that a flick with the legendary Peter Cushing never had a proper release after the VHS rage. And again he gives a perfect performance as Sir John Rowan a surgeon.

When John got into a fight with a photographer picturing his wife suddenly one of the spots falls on her face. Heavily burned he feels guilty and discovers that he can restore the scarred face of his girlfriend by murdering other women and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland. Sadly the effect of repairing the face doesn't goes on forever and he has to kill again. But he got mixed emotions about it.

There are two versions of this flick around, both are hard to get, the first one the normal version and the second one the uncut strong version. The latter I saw and it is in the first killing, the whore, that there are differences. In the normal, cut, version you only see a knife and some dolls when he is killing the whore but in the strong version she goes naked and is stabbed to death and beheaded by the surgeon. And for the time being I can understand that it was rather gruesome.

All acting was good and some faces did make it, for the horror buffs Billy Murray (Rik) will be recognized in Doghouse (2009) and Dead Cert (2010). A rather good example of British horror worth hunting down, if you will ever find it....

Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

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".

After an accident a successful surgeon (played by horror legend Peter Cushing) has to commit murder to preserve the once beautiful face of his fiance (Sue Lloyd). For a start we have here a very odd couple, Cushing being old enough to be Lloyd's father in real life, though I guess she could be a gold digger! When they attend a Swinging Sixties party in London (where the accident happens) Cushing looks uncomfortably out of place, which is intended, but for a fan such as myself who is used to seeing him in Hammer horror movies playing Baron Frankenstein or Van Helsing it just felt strange, and somehow wrong. Naturally it all goes pear shaped - "The more you succeed the more you feel failure" (Cushing). The action moves from London to the couple's cottage on the coast, where near the end we get a frankly bizarre home invasion/robbery. One of the heavies is called Groper, played by David Lodge he looks like he's walked straight of the set of a Carry On movie. Then there is the ending, I'm not giving it away but all I will say is Cop Out! I have waited years to see this but ultimately felt disappointed, despite Cushing giving his usual excellent performance. I did watch the cut UK version with less violence and nudity and would still like to see it uncut, until then it's only a 5/10 for me.

After reading the plot description, I was expecting a British take on the French classic 'Eyes Without a Face'. There's a great deal of Eyes Without a Face rip offs going around; Jess Franco's pair The Awful Dr Orloff and Faceless being among the best of them, and there's nothing wrong with basing a film around that premise; but Corruption doesn't bring much, if anything, new to it and that's a shame as considering the people involved, this could have been a lot better. The film does carry the British style well, although clearly it was a much cheaper production than a lot of the Hammer films. The plot focuses on Sir John Rowan, a doctor who finds himself in a precarious position after an accident involving his wife. Unfortunately, the accident left her badly burned, and feeling responsible; the doctor tries to do something about it. He discovers that if he extracts fluid from women's pituitary glands, he can restore his wife's face - however, the effects are only temporary, leading the doctor to murder again and again to keep his wife beautiful!

Corruption is directed by Robert Hartford-Davis, a capable if not brilliant director behind decent horror 'The Black Torment' as well as rubbish such as Incense of the Damned. As mentioned, it's obvious that Hartford-Davis didn't have much of a budget to work with, although his direction is competent enough, if not particularly enthralling. The film's big draw is, of course, Peter Cushing who takes the lead role as the murderous doctor. Being a horror fan, I am naturally a big fan of the legendary Peter Cushing and always enjoy watching his movies. He doesn't put in a particularly great performance here, although he is still good to watch. It's really a shame he isn't better since the role is quite meaty and could have been made more of. The film was released in 1968 and considering that, the gore is fairly shocking; although the film hasn't aged too well and not a lot of the budget was spent on special effects. The film doesn't stay completely interesting for the duration but it never slows to a standstill or becomes completely boring. I can't recommend anyone goes out of their way to track this one down; but it's worth seeing if you can find it.

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.

This is the sixth imitation within the genre of Georges Franju's marvelously lyrical hybrid of art cinema and horror, EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1959) – which just happens to be one of my all-time Top 20 movies. For the record, the others have been the Italian Gothic piece MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN (1960), the erotic French-made THE BLOOD ROSE (1970) and three from notorious (and incredibly prolific) Spaniard Jesus Franco – THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF (1961), THE DIABLOICAL DR. Z (1965) and FACELESS (1988). Furthermore, some time ago I had also acquired another Italian stab at the same theme – ATOM AGE VAMPIRE (1960) – but, in its case, the DivX was faulty and I couldn't get the thing to work properly!

Anyhow, director Robert Hartford-Davis has somewhat mysteriously acquired an aura within the ranks of British horror cinema history not unlike that of the much younger Michael Reeves; other exploitation fare of his include THE BLACK TORMENT (1964), THE SMASHING BIRD I USED TO KNOW aka SCHOOL FOR UNCLAIMED GIRLS (1969), INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED aka BLOODSUCKERS (1970) and THE FIEND aka BEWARE, MY BRETHREN (1972). Although I am aware that TCM USA had shown CORRUPTION (presumably in its correct Widescreen aspect ratio), the version I watched as a DivX came via a soft-looking, washed-out, full-frame transfer courtesy of some obscure outfit called Midnight Video with forced Asian subtitles to boot!! The film itself, while no neglected masterpiece, is good enough to survive these deficiencies and different enough from its prototype to stand on its own two feet.

The lead roles are portrayed by Peter Cushing and Sue Lloyd who are both excellent: Cushing is the middle-aged surgical genius married to a much younger beauty who is reluctant to put her modeling career behind her. This exhibitionistic trait proves her undoing as, during a groovy party sequence (the Swinging Sixties also served as backdrop for the contemporaneous THE SORCERERS [1967] – coincidentally directed by the afore-mentioned Michael Reeves and starring another horror legend on his last legs, Boris Karloff!), Lloyd suffers partial but permanent facial disfigurement when a spotlight topples squarely on her face – following an unprecedented outburst of jealous rage in public from the usually calm and collected Cushing which culminates in a scuffle with a fashion photographer (Anthony Booth). Remorse-stricken, Cushing oversteps his bounds at the hospital where he works in search of a miracle cure but when this withers after a few days' success (with the improbable help of a laser beam dreamed up by ancient Egyptians!), he takes to scouring London's red-light district for possible 'live' donors of the required organ specimen.

Lloyd's sister (Kate O'Mara) – who, unaccountably, seems to live at her married sibling's house – is inconveniently (for Cushing) engaged to a suspicious colleague of his. To avert undue attention from their clandestine activities, they take a trip to a house by the sea but, even here, they are needful of an urgent transplant which presents itself in the lone figure of a bathing and seemingly innocuous youngster but she escapes their grips during the night before they can make 'use' of her. So, egged on by his increasingly batty and nagging wife, it's back to the drawing-board for Cushing…or, rather, the train station as he follows a blonde into her carriage and does her in (cutting her head off and stuffing her lifeless body unceremoniously under the seat) when they are left all alone.

Back at the seaside cottage, the ingénue bursts in on Cushing as he is 'playing around' with the blonde's head on the kitchen table – cue a jazzed-up three-way chase sequence across the beach and cliff-tops which ends, inevitably, in the girl's death (but not before she slams Cushing down with a rock in the face). A short while later, it transpires that the girl was married and her husband and his gang of misfits (including a butch and busty blonde and a gruff John Lennon-lookalike!) in search of "bread" crash the couple's household; Lloyd, completely insane by now, spills the beans about Cushing's involvement in the girl's death (even if it was she who actually killed her) and coerces the leader of the gang into forcing her reluctant husband to perform the usual operation on her face.

However, another scuffle breaks out in the operating room as a result of which the laser beam goes berserk and literally slices everybody up (including O'Mara and her doctor fiancé) who appear on the scene unheralded at the very last minute. The ending of the film seems to suggest that all the events that we've been witness to might just be somebody's feverish dream but one can't be too sure but, thankfully, this ambiguity dos not hamper the film's overall effectiveness or render it a cop-out (as usually happens in cheat ending cases like this). Hartford-Davis' direction is only occasionally flashy – particularly during the killings (although an unwilling participant, Cushing was rarely ever this unhinged) and afore-mentioned chase sequence. The latter third of the film – in which the gang impinges on the couple's seaside home – is its least successful element but that part is still relieved by its crazy ray free-for-all coda.

The film seems to have been available for some time in a longer, more exploitative Continental variant which went under the dubious title LASER KILLER! By the way, the cinematographer-producer of CORRUPTION was Peter Newbrook who would himself later helm a notable and cerebral British horror film – namely THE ASPHYX (1972).

Brilliant surgeon Sir John Rowan (Peter Cushing) gets into a fight with the photographer taking pictures of his model girlfriend Lynn Nolan. A light falls on Lynn disfiguring her face. John is desperate to appease her and fix his mistake even if it includes murder.

It's got the 60's mod London vibe even with Cushing. It comes off a little like a spoof of a horror. It's definitely not scary. It's a muddle. I was hoping for Cushing to be a mad scientist type but he's not doing that. In a strange way, Lynn defuses a lot of the tension by pushing John. Beside the non-tense horror, there are weird stuff going on with a wacky mod gang invasion. This could be camp but I am not sure at all about this.

A doctor (Peter Cushing) will go to great lengths for his lover. When her face is scarred, he develops a new treatment to cure skin blemishes by using the endocrine glands of the dead. But fresh dead bodies are in short supply, so when he discovers the treatment may take a few doses, he has to resort to extreme measures.

What bothers me about this review is that I know I've seen multiple films that feature doctors who have to kill again and again to help treat the woman they love, but I can't think of any examples just now. I am a failure in the horror historian department right now. (Edit: Obvious examples include "Eyes Without a Face" and "The Ape".)

But as this film was made in the 1960s, one would suspect that a great many films owe a debt to Cushing and the creators of this film. (At the time of this review, the movie is not available on VHS or DVD, so good luck tracking it down.) I really enjoyed this movie, as it captures the 1960s feel and has a dirtiness to it without being gory or disgusting. Sure, there's some stabbing and a severed head. But it's pretty tame by modern standards. Hippies and beatniks have a role in here and there's a gang of thugs that seem to be heavily influenced by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Two things really sell this film beyond the fact it is just a simple but great plot. First, Peter Cushing. Between Cushing and Christopher Lee, Cushing was always my preferred of the two. I think Vincent Price will always be the master of the era, but Cushing is capable of roles that Price would never be considered for. (It is amazing how often either of them get to play evil doctors, really.) The other thing is a twist towards the end that evokes "A Clockwork Orange" in some respects (though, again, this film came first). I will not give it away, because once I was restfully in position to see a third act about a doctor screwing up and getting caught, I was thrown into a whirlwind and given something almost completely random.

If you can find a copy of this one, see it. Peter Cushing does not disappoint, and the supporting cast is also excellent. I especially enjoyed the actress who played the hitchhiker Terry (Wendy Varnals). The video quality on my original copy was pretty shot, but given the manner I watched it in, that was not surprising. Since then, Grindhouse Releasing has put out a beautiful 2K scan with audio commentary, liner notes and interviews. They have taken this forgotten gem and made it a cult classic.

I remember as a kid in Ipswich a local cinema's publicity gimmick of daring a local women to sit alone with a panic button at a midnight screening of this very poor man's "Eyes Without a Face' in which - conducting himself rather like Steve Martin in 'The Man with Two Brains' - Peter Cushing gives the film more gravitas than it merits in his quest for nubile young flesh to the accompaniment of a loud and annoying jazz score by Bill McGuffie.

As it progresses it becomes progressively more visceral and ludicrous, while the final 'twist' ending copying 'Dead of Night' serves only to remind you of just how spine-chilling the original was.

Bizarre plastic surgery horror film with acceptable acting and atmospheric imagery from the Sixties . A surgeon doctor (Peter Cushing) goes to extreme lengths , even killings , to restore the seriously scarred face of his fiancée (Sue Lloyd) . But effects last for a short time and as soon as they end , he has to kill again .This is not a woman's picture! No women will be allowed in alone!."Corruption" Is Not A Woman's Picture! Therefore: No Woman Will Be Admitted Alone To See This Super-Shock Film!.Where will the bodies turn up next? ...under a car seat? ...in a valise? ...or in a deep-freeze?

Austerily mediocre terror film that contains thrills , chills , surprises , violence , creepy happenings , Swinging London atmospere , and considerable death . Furthermore , packing a symbolic attack on the ethics of science by practicing bad surgical expèriments and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland for reconfigurate the burned face. This surprising as well as terrible flick displays some thrilling set pieces as Sir John and his girlfriend are chasing Terry on the beach and run through some water, climbing on some rocks . As well as an amazing and silly final with a laser ray that goes wrong resulting in a killing spree . It belongs to sub-genre of mad surgeons discovering that can restore the beauty to their women by murdering more and more people , whose main representation is ¨Eyes Without a Face¨ by George Franju , this splendid picture is generally characterized by unforgettable images that owed a great deal to early cinema in general and German Expressionism , likewise it established a string of imitations as Jess Frank's Doctor Orloff saga , this ¨Corruption¨ (1968) and even Pedro Almodovar himself with the movie titled "The Skin I Live In" (2011) . Although ¨Corruption¨¨ the film passed European censors upon its original release in 1968 the disturbing scenes about beheading , slitting , facial surgery and other grisly killings still caused controversy . Good acting by Peter Cushing as a brilliant but demented surgeon haunted by a tragedy who abducts girls removing their faces and tries to graft them onto the head on his beloved sweetheart . However , Cushing is miscast due to his disagreeable role , that's why Peter used to play upright , honest and brave characters , no heinous killers . He's finely accompanied by a good British cast , such as : Sue Lloyd, Kate O'Mara , Noel Trevarthen , David Lodge, Anthony Booth, Vanessa Howard, among others.

The picture packs a colorful atmosphere and strange color by the fine cinematographer Peter Newbrook, who produced too, and subsequently directed the Cult terror : The Asphyx . The movie was middlingly directed by Robert Hatford Davies who often used pseudonym as Michael Burrows , author of some other Horror films and other genres as ¨Corruption¨ (with Peter Cushing) , ¨The Fiend¨ (with Patrick McNee) ,¨The Sandwich Man¨, ¨Ritual¨, ¨The Smashing Bird I Used to Know¨ , ¨Nobody Ordered Love¨, ¨Gonks Go Beat¨, ¨Saturday Night Out¨, ¨Crosstrap¨ and Blaxploitation movies as ¨Black Gunn¨ (with Jim Brown) and ¨ The Take¨ (Billy Dee Williams) . Rating : 5/10. The motion picture will appeal to British horror enthusiasts , but only for Peter Cushing fans .

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The idea behind "Corruption" was VERY common in 1960s films--so common that the film is basically a reworking of these previous films. The French movie "Eyes Without a Face" (1960) and Japanese "The Face of Another" (1966) are basically the same film as "Corruption" and Ztracená Tvár (1965) was very similar. So, when it comes to originality, "Corruption" is hardly unique or groundbreaking. This is, however, as far as I know the first English language movie about crazed doctors stealing folks' faces to graft onto a loved one.

When the film begins, Dr. John Rowan (Peter Cushing) is going to a party with his girlfriend, Lynn (Sue Lloyd). At the party, an obnoxious photographer begins taking photos of Lynn and the party gets wild-- and he tries to get Lynn to take off her clothes in front of everyone. Dr. Rowan naturally objects and he and the photographer get into a tussle--and a very hot lamp falls onto Lynn- -badly scarring her face. The Doc is naturally upset and blames himself--and creates a way to temporarily restore her looks and it involves killing women and extracting their pituitary glands!

One thing that makes this film unique is that unlike the other films, this victim who is receiving the benefits of murdered girls knows full well what is happening and actually pushes the doctor to kill MORE girls! She's a complete sociopath and her own looks and needs are all that matter--making her a sick but very interesting character. Heck, she's even more than willing to go out and get her own victims! Also, her disfigurement ISN'T that bad--it's all about vanity as opposed to other films where there really isn't much face left. I loved these angles. Sick...but really interesting in its awfulness.

So what don't I like about the film other than the lack of originality? The music is, at times, very distracting, loud and awful. A few times it totally dominates the picture and is more of an annoyance than enhancement. Also, the killings would have been VERY bloody and it isn't like you can easily get to the pituitary-- yet the film made it all look too bloodless and simple. Finally, the film's ending was a bit too long in coming and the film completely loses its momentum as a result of this and crappy ending. Otherwise, it's a creepy little horror picture--more about the evil in human nature than anything else. And the good far outweighs the bad.

For Peter Cushing, 1967's "Corruption" was a rare excursion away from Gothics straight into modern day and Swinging London, the final collaboration between screenwriters Donald and Derek Ford and director Robert Hartford-Davis (previously responsible for "The Black Torment"), achieving a real casting coup by signing Cushing but with too many cooks spoiling the brew no one could agree on how to proceed with a familiar story better told in "Eyes Without a Face" or Jesus Franco's "The Awful Dr. Orlof," that of a brilliant doctor forced to obsessively commit bloody murder to restore the beautiful features of a disfigured loved one. Cushing's Sir John Rowan is a revered surgeon engaged to wed self obsessed fashion model Lynn (Sue Lloyd), whose lovely features are damaged by a falling lamp caused by a scuffle with sleazy photographer Mike (Anthony Booth). Poring through volumes on the endocrine system he settles on the pituitary gland as a means to regain her former glory, but one taken from a corpse doesn't achieve lasting effects, forcing this humanitarian doctor to commit the most unpardonable sin of all. One sequence was done for two different markets, the UK/US seeing the fully clothed prostitute quietly expire from the scalpel, while a different actress was cast for the topless Continental version, where the actor was required to wipe his blood smeared hands on her naked breasts before slicing off her head (this version goes by the title "Laser Killer"). 95% of all the characters on screen are self satisfied sloths of supreme stupidity with hilarious dialogue to match ("you're a doctor, how's your kiss of life!"), and Cushing's descent into madness, though believably portrayed, is undone by a script that proves more insane than the ungrateful Lynn (the Fords did come up with one gem in "A Study in Terror"). Toward the end of his life, the actor would accept roles in worse films such as "Son of Hitler" or "Touch of the Sun," truly inept filmmaking to be sure, but none could match the bottom of the barrel repugnance of this dated look at Swinging London going limp.

Corruption is directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and written by Derek and Donald Ford. It stars Peter Cushing, Sue Lloyd, Noel Trevarthen, Kate O'Mara and David Lodge. Music is by Bill McGuffie and cinematography by Peter Newbrook.

When an accident badly scars the face of his young fiancée, skilled surgeon Sir John Rowan (Cushing) discovers a way to restore her face to normal by using a serum derived out of the pituitary gland. Unfortunately the treatment is only successful for a short period of time, and so the doctor is sent on a murderous spree of gland harvesting so as to keep his betrothed beautiful.

Heads you win...

I wasn't sure if I had been dreaming the other night? I found myself in the swanky and swinging 1960s, where mini-skirts and energetic dancing was the norm. Into this garishly flecked world was Peter Cushing as a mad surgeon type, cutting off heads, wrestling with naked women, hanging around with prostitutes. He has got a trophy wife, where Sue Lloyd is 26 years Peter's junior, and Sue is playing a conniving - come - psychotic - bitch. There was even some sort of bonkers laser weapon, and a home invasion sequence where carnage ensues, and all around is the faint whiff of Guignol excess, but the delirium is disgustingly enjoyable. A corruption of the soul most pleasing...

But I did have a touch of influenza, dosed up to eyeballs with medicine and grain mash liquor, so I'm sure it was all a dream/nightmare/hallucination. But then again maybe not? 7/10

I saw this film 35 years ago in 1978 I was 15 it was on TV and it has stayed in my mind since, when I saw it I couldn't sleep for a week and the fridge that was staying shut, I haven't seen this film since but still remember a photo shoot light burning her face the train sequence and the head in the fridge, I suppose compared to today's graphic films this would be considered rubbish but at 15 it had a big impact on my life and I am still thinking and talking about it,I would like to see it again because I would probably laugh at why I couldn't sleep, HOPEFULLY. From what i remember it was a very basic storyline, girl gets face burned husband regrets and needs to kill women to keep his wife's skin good which only lasts a short time so needs to keep killing. Peter Cushing was again excellent and i always thought this was a hammer film production which i now know it isn't, all in all this film was probably rubbish which never see the light of day again but as a young man it had an impact on me that is still there age 50.