ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

GazerRise Fantastic!

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

christopher-underwood This is the last film I saw with my late father. We both just happened to be at a BFI South Bank screening a few years back when they had recently unearthed this barely seen complete version. Peter Cushing looks pretty uncomfortable throughout most of it although this fits in with the part he plays as a man under duress. The scenes of violence are unprecedented for a British film of the time and this was no doubt why this version was not shown. Clearly though Cushing went through with these sequences of bloody naked killing and is most convincing. Apart from the stunning exploitative violence there is at the start (and repeated at the end) a rather good 'swinging 60s' party scene that is as good as I have seen portrayed in the cinema. Cushing, of course, also looks out of place here with all the gyrating mini-skirted young girls, but not unnervingly so and manages a smile or to. Overall an absolute must for Cushing fans and anyone interested in British horror movies, just try to ignore the ever overacting Anthony Booth and the rather unfortunate dive into farce at the end.

LeonLouisRicci Recently Re-Discovered Peter Cushing Horror Vehicle that is a Find for Cultists. It's Not a Hammer Film but has a Heady Mid-Sixties Vibe and Bloody Mayhem. It's the Same Old Story of a Surgeon Trying to "Fix" the Face of His Lover After a Tragedy Leaves the "Super Model" Disfigured.It has a Nasty Temperament This and it Betters the Commonality of the Story with Lurid Expressions and Abnormal Psychology. Sue Lloyd is a Vile and Worthless Wife Who Manipulates the Doctor to the Point of Murder and Breakdown.The Flourishes are Plenty With the Camera Working Overtime Using Psychedelic Colors and Distorted Lenses and is Bizarre Enough to Make This One Stand Out Among its Peers. It is Helped Along with Some Strange Characters that All Have Issues of Their Own. The First Ending is Brutal and Different for Its Kind. That About Sums Up the Film. Brutal and Different.

Kingkitsch 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!

ShadeGrenade As the '60's swung, movies changed. Comedies became rude, action films bloodily violent, sex films explicit, and horror? Well, you can guess. 1968 saw the release of George A.Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead', a landmark picture which pushed the genre to extremes. Even old school horror superstars such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing felt the need to keep up with the times. The latter later described 'Corruption' as 'fearfully sick', and he was right. In its most notorious scene, a woman searches a fridge for food, only to find a severed head wrapped in plastic.Peter plays Sir John Rowan, eminent surgeon. At a party in which his fiancée, model Lynn Nolan ( Sue Lloyd ) is present, he becomes involved in an argument with a brash photographer ( Anthony Booth ), culminating in a flood lamp accidentally being knocked over. The bulb burns away half of Lynn's face.Rowan had been experimenting with new surgical techniques that require the theft of a pituitary gland from a corpse in the morgue. A colleague, Steve ( Noel Trevarthen ) warns him that if he does anything like that again, he will report him. Her beauty restored, Lynn is a complete woman once more. Both she and Rowan set off for a round the world cruise. But the treatment turns out not to be permanent, and Lynn becomes disfigured once more. Rowan decides to steal the pituitary gland of a living person, necessitating the murder of a number of women...Donald and Derek Ford's script is like a swinging London version of 'Frankenstein', with butchery and blood amidst the false eyelashes and mini-skirts. But whereas the Baron was a misguided genius driven by concern for Humanity, Rowan is motivated by a selfish desire to see the woman he loves restores to her former glory. Cushing turns in his usual first-rate performance, complemented by Sue Lloyd, superb as the insane 'Lynn'. She does not care how many women her fiancée has to kill as long as she looks pretty again.The director, Robert Hartford-Davis, does a fair job, though I suspect the same script in the hands of Michael Reeves could have been a cult classic. I suppose we should give thanks the film was not bastardised the way 'Incense Of The Damned' ( based on Simon Raven's classy vampire novel 'Doctors Wear Scarlet' ) was. The scene where sadistic hippies ( among them the comedy actor David Lodge, playing a half-wit ) invade a cottage and terrorise the owners anticipates 'A Clockwork Orange' by three years.The version I have on D.V.D. lacks the murder of the Soho prostitute, and the train killing is much shorter. Perhaps Anchor Bay could find the missing footage and reinstate it?What really grabs you about 'Corruption' is the ending. For years, horror movies traditionally ended with the hero saving the leading lady in the nick of time from being burned alive in a vampire's castle or whatever, yet this ends with the entire cast wiped out by an out-of-control laser beam ( where clearly most of the budget went ), including Kate O'Mara who plays Lynn's goody-two shoes sister. We then go back to the trendy party we saw at the beginning, and a freeze-frame of Cushing's face suggests the horrible story is some sort of macabre premonition.'A most unworthy vehicle for Cushing's talents", sniffed one critic. Fair comment, but the great man could not give a bad performance if he tried, and the film is worth tracking down for that alone. Great Bill McGuffie soundtrack too.