Never a big fan of the Hammer horror movies, it was not until recently that I was won over by the work of actor Peter Cushing.
Last year, I saw him in the 1961 bank robbery film “Cash on Demand” where he played the stiff-necked branch manager. Then, last week I saw him in a terrific little gore-fest called “Corruption” from 1968, which is not a Hammer film.
Cushing plays an eminent surgeon in love with a model, played by Sue Lloyd. An accident he causes damages her face. The doctor locks himself away and obsessively researches medical remedies to restore the young woman’s beauty.
He comes up with an unproven theory but will need to the pituitary gland of a recently deceased young woman. There happens to be such a corpse at his hospital.
But the procedure turns out to be a temporary fix and the model’s repaired skin starts to decay.
The only solution for a true cure is to get the gland of a living woman. So the obsessed surgeon goes out and kills a young prostitute. This seems to work, at first, but it too fails and the doc must kill again.
This weird little movie will keep viewers glued to the screen through the bloodshed and the crazy violent ending involving a runaway surgical laser.
Cushing plays the doctor to the hilt and completely straight, never winking at the audience to let them know he was a well trained theater actor before finding his niche in horror pictures.
“Corruption” is a guilty pleasure.
