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SPOILERS INCLUDED ‘Corruption is a super shock film' boasts the press book set to pictures of screaming women- and indeed for audiences and critics in 1967 it was just that. The enfant terribe of sixties horror films Corruption manages to touch upon every topic censors feared in movies at the time- the hedonism of swinging london, prostitution, violent youth gangs and mad surgeons. It was also an independent production- released through a major company (Columbia) which further took critics off guard. Almost ten years after it was made a critic of the old guard was still using it as a benchmark for british cinema at its sickest- it had that a lasting impact. Corruption posits a typically regal Cushing as Sir John Rowan- surgeon extraordinaire Rowan is to be married to younger model Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd). A woman who ‘lives for cameras' Lynn drags Rowan to a swinging party, she's only really happy when she's the centre of attention- revelling in the leers of swinging photographer Tony Booth ‘give me the pretty girl bit.. freak out baby'. Jealousy rears its head and there is a fight between Rowan and this hipster that ends with a photographers floodlamp crashing down on Lynn's beloved face. Lynn and Rowan retreat into their own narcissistic little worlds she lamenting her mutilated looks while he becomes obsessive in attempts to restore his ‘masterpiece'. Rowan takes to doing DIY surgery with his laser machine, eventually becoming a reluctant Soho slasher to remove the pituitary glands that briefly restore his beloveds face. Taking a trip down the West end that ends with him calling on prostitute Jan Waters, Rowan appears edgy and guilt ridden as if he really has come for a quickie- instead he butchers the girl bringing her severed head home in a bag. A ‘continental' take on this scene available on french video- replays it as a primal expression of the sex and death ethos- here Rowan wrestles with topless Marianne Collins who he stabs and decapitates, copping a feel of her blood splattered chest inbetween- everyone behind the camera denied shooting this footage. (For Derek Ford this was the first of many times he would disown the more egregious aspects of his career- he later distanced himself from Diversions the hardcore version of Sex Express as well as the whole of the Dick Randall produced dialogue free oddity Erotic Fantasies). With headlines like ‘new clue in headless girl murder' the couple flee the capital and head for their seaside house in Seaford. Rowan sees this as his own Shangri-la but ‘mad' Lynn's need for another pituitary gland fix is as strong as ever and soon Rowan is back to his butchering ways. In keeping with the spirit of the times the murder scenes are shot like bad acid trips with memorable closeups on a dishevelled Sir John reduced to a dirty old mac doing unspeakable things to young girls. Boarding a train he decapitates blond passenger Valerie Van Ost, regaining his gentleman posture as he puts the girl's head in his bag and hides the decapitated torso under the seats like a used broadsheet. Eventually Rowan's home is invaded by freaky juvenile thugs including Groper (David Lodge) a primate in beatniks clothing. Chunky Alexandra Dane who later specialised in playing busty barmaids goes to raid Rowan's fridge only to find Valerie Van Ost's severed head wrapped in polythene- with that all hell breaks loose, people are thrown over cliffs, theres brawls and dramatic fistfights. Lynn turns on the laser machine which like everyone else by this point goes berserk- everyone gets zapped and dies, but its still not over. Inspired by an article in The New Scientist but more commonly compared to Franju's Les Yeux sans Visage, Corruption is so tied to Robert Hartford-Davis' overblown take on the swinging sixties scene that it develops an identity thats all its own. Aware that the whole worlds eyes were on London at the time Corruption feeds off audience expectations of the ‘swinging' capital with amongst other things Rowan's cinema verite trip around the West End with hand-held shots of the Windmill theatre and the Jacey cinema where Onibaba is playing along side Nudist Paradise. Earlier Davis had made Saturday Night Out (1963) based around the London experience with a bunch of sailors encountering strip-bars, sexual blackmail and boho chicks. Today both Corruption and Saturday Night Out seem visionary- Saturday Night Out setting the tone for many sexploitation features that followed and Corruption laying railroad tracks for tawdry horror films of the topless prostitutes and severed heads in the fridge variety. For all the films detractors, Davis brings to Corruption a spirted anarchic bent thats rarely been matched in British horror films before or since. According to Cushing, Corruption made Davis enough money to retire, but he went onto direct such worthwhile pictures as the greek psychedelic oddity Incense for the Damned (1969/76) and the bitter The Fiend (1971). Unfortunately as a gun for hire filmmaker Davis' most commercially available films lend him the posthumous tag of a hack- like the blaxploitation movie Black Gunn (1972) and the misfire Gonks Go Beat (1965). He ended his days directing television movies in Hollywood- the long unavailability of his best work denies him the recognition that films like Corruption surely warrant.

Corruption is a sleazy horror movie set in the swinging 60's in England starring the legendary Peter Cushing. Much different from the Gothic Hammer horror that he is known for, Corruption is set in a contemporary time and is a very colorful film with a jazzy score. This film is also pretty vicious and ahead of its time with regards to the sex and violence contained in it. Peter Cushing is a mild mannered doctor who has a beautiful fiance that is a model (Sue Lloyd) that got her face terribly disfigured in an unfortunate accident. Our good doctor discovers a way to restore his girl's beautiful face by taking a pituatary gland from other women, which under demand of soon to be mrs. sets Peter Cushing on a killing spree, slicing and dicing with bloody surgical precision, leaving the decapitated, bloody remains of unfortunate women in his wake. This sets this otherwise happy couple on a moral downward spiral, where the conflicted doctor kills at his wife's command in a process of restoring her face. While this is basically a low budget exploitation picture, Peter Cushing delivers an Oscar worthy performance as this layered and complex character's moral dillema and fall into psychosis and murder. This leads to a run in with a goofy, hippie gang that put our couple as victims of a home invasion that ends with a fight sequence with a surgical laser, for an appropriate and totally nihilistic ending. The hippie gang/ home invasion sequence reminds me of both A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs which this film predates by a couple of years. Corruption is a very dated and nasty film that is simultaniously a product of its time as well as being ahead of its time. Peter Cushing's performance is what makes this hold up and Corruption was a very shocking and extreme picture for its time.

Corruption is a somewhat unpleasant tale, featuring one of the most energetic and maniacal performances that Peter Cushing has ever given. It tells of a top surgeon (Cushing) who injures his fiancee during a violent argument. Her face is permanently scarred as a result and Cushing feels terrible about what he has done to her. However, since he's a surgeon, he decides that he might be able to help her. He discovers that by taking pituitary fluid from other women, he can restore the beauty to her scarred face for a short time. This leads to a vicious murder spree in which Dr. Cushing kills numerous women for the fluid that will keep his girlfriend attractive.

With a plot like that it was never going to be the best of films. But for a film made in 1967, this is really quite startling in its violence and depravity. In one extraordinary scene, a severed head is found in Cushing's refrigerator. In another, Cushing assaults and murders a woman on a train, his face twisted into terrible anger as he carries out the deplorable deed.

Corruption (or Laser Killer, as it is known on the continent) is a distinctly odd little film. Although it looks very dated, and the level of on-screen gore is mild in comparison to today's horror fare, it is nevertheless a disturbing work - not least because it features the gentleman - gentle man, indeed - of horror, the legendary Peter Cushing - behaving unspeakably.

What on earth was dear old Peter thinking when he signed up for the role of bonkers surgeon John Rowan, who ends up murdering his way to a "cure" for his disfigured girlfriend? (What, for that matter, was he doing with the girlfriend in the first place? He's almost 30 years older than her, and a stuffed shirt compared to her hedonistic party animal. But I digress ...) I won't bother going into the subtleties of the plot - mainly because there aren't any (the story is pretty much as old as horror movies themselves). And I won't mention the god-awful 60s would-be psychedelic jazz soundtrack, which is a) rubbish, b) horribly incongruous - a funky accompaniment to sadism, and c) really annoying; so much so, in fact, that it almost ruins the film. Neither will I dwell on the extraordinary antics of the low-rent, English seaside version of the Manson family who turn up at the end to torment Cushing and his fiancé (David Lodge's performance is simply indescribable).

But what I will do is ask how director Robert Hartford-Davies ever managed to persuade the infallibly polite, kind, nay saintly Peter Cushing to butcher a topless prostitute and then wipe his bloodied hands on her exposed breasts before hacking off her head. Peter as Dr Frankenstein, yes. But Peter the sex murderer? No way, Pedro. I just can't understand it. Admittedly this scene only appears in the European version of the film - there wasn't a cat in hell's chance of the BBFC letting such explicit nastiness through uncensored in 1968 - but that's not the point. The point is that Peter did it.

According to one biographer, Peter thought the script was very good (which it isn't, to be honest). But it is still the most amazingly out of character bit of acting you're ever likely to see. It makes Julie Andrews showing her bazookas in SOB seem distinctly normal in comparison.

There is a tacky cop-out ending which was presumably included in a vain attempt to atone for the sordidness that preceded it, but it doesn't work. You come away from Corruption with a slightly foul taste in your mouth, shaking your head in incomprehension that it was ever made. Bizarre in the extreme.

What to do when your fiancee's disfigured as collateral damage in a fight with your rival? Well, kill a bunch of other women for their pituitary glands' medicinal properties, of course. So, that's Peter Cushing's mission as Sir John Rowan in Corruption. I guess the title refers to the old-fashioned corruption of the flesh, but it could also cover unscrupulous medical practices. Like most mad scientist deals, the cure is worse than the disease; because Lynn (Sue Lloyd) needs more laser treatments to keep her face in shape.

Looks like a hospital movie at first; an operating table with doctors Rowan and Steve Harris (Noel Trevathen). That's just to set up Sir John's character. Next thing he's making nice with Lynn--then they're at a party. She introduces him to the foppish photographer Mike. She dances with Mike, but tells him that she's marrying John. It's a swinging party all right. John's obviously a couple of generations out of touch with this crowd.

He wants to go, Lynn wants to stay and pose for Mike. She does that very well. In fact, John steps in and fight off Mike. The result is Lynn getting bonked by a high-intensity lamp. "her face?" inquires John at the hospital; her sister Val Kate O'Mara) comes to check on her as well. Soon Lynn's pack home, with half her face bandaged. "It's over!" she wails. We still don't know what she looks like. Referring to Egyptian sources, John tells Val he's got some exotic cure in mind for her sister. Well, he gets busy in his lab. "I found a cure!" he tells Lynn.

So, what's he doing in the Post Mortem room at the hospital? To mess with a female corpse, of course. Well, she's dead anyway--why not make off with her pituitary gland? Steve isn't amused. That gross thing looks like a banana slug...whatever. Just like that, John's got Val assisting in his ersatz operating room. We finally see Lynn's disfigurement. He injects the pituitary fluid into the afflicted area; I'm not really getting what the laser treatment accomplishes.

Anyway, post-op, Steve comes calling. Lynn's fully recovered, and looks great. "I have Lynn back as she was, that's the only thing that interests me". All's well? No, not exactly. come back early from a cruise; yuck! the treatment didn't last, she's disfigured all over again. Ever resourceful, John figures that he problem was that only living tissue will work. Soon enough, he's looking up a prostitute; cuddling up to her, hearing voices, he stabs her.

With his handy doctor kit, he gets his sample forthwith. "Who was she?" Lynn adks. His response: "it doesn't matter." Strangely, she shows off her new-old looks to Mike, hoping to get back into modeling. They argue about who's better, who's more important. To covered all her bases, she gets a camera for John, not to mention equipment. That way, Mike's cut out of the picture. Later, Steve and John disagree about the treatment.

John's worried about a newspaper article about one of his victims. Somewhat rattled, they decide to go down to their seaside cottage. When he examines her, he estimates that her 'fix' only lasts a week. When he tells her that he won't continue the treatments, she turns on him. She doesn't care about the victims, she won't tolerate the disfigurement. Lynn watches a girl, Terry (Wendy Varnels) down at the beach, will John go and check her out? Just like that, they have her over. The girl's suspicious, but game "at least he's clean (John that is)". Lynn obviously want to kill her for her glands.

She tries to get him to rationalize murder by saying that the girl's suicidal anyway. Ok, he gives in. Problem is,she dodges them. Then, she lets in an accomplice, her boyfriend Rik (Bill Murray). Actually, they're thieves, and figure, creep factor notwithstanding, these four folks are an easy mark. "you must operate, soon!" But both Terry and Rik have skipped out.No problem, as John goes on the prowl in town.

He finds an attractive blond, and gets on the train with her. He attacks her, and after a long struggle, she's fatally stabbed. He gets off at the next stop with the goods. Unfortunately, the body was soon discovered, minus head. Steve and Val have figured out what's going on.; they're going down to the cottage to check things out. Why don't they call the police? Even John admits he was spotted in the train compartment before the last murder.

Back at the cottage, John gets a fresh something out of the fridge. Terry pops back in, unannounced. Seeing the gross bundle (actually the train victim's head) she splits. Despite their best efforts, she gets away for a while. This scene is way too long; eventually she stuns him with a rock. But, he's relentless; in a mo tags of all the victims, John attacks her. Terry's done for.

Lynn's still pestering to keep killing. I interestingly, she threatens to call the the police. Mind of makes sense, because he's the only with his hands dirty, so to speak. Well, they weren't counting on Rik, and a bunch of other chums bursting in, led by Georgie (Phillip Mannikum) . "We don't want any trouble, do we?" It's clear that they're just ordinary criminal sociopath (ala Clockwork Orange-style 'ultraviolence'). Obviously, they're also looking for Terry.

The invasion becomes weirder when Georgie tells John that he has to operate. Meanwhile, Sandy, poking around for goodies, finds ye olde head. By now the hoods knows that something happened to Terry. Lynn has no choice but to tell them where her body is. Cleverly, she manages to push Rik off a cliff. Ironically, Georgie sends for the cops. Lynn, again thinking quick , turns the laser on. With its gizmo swinging around, the beam catches everything on fire.

If that's not bad enough, they're all dazed by it, and collapsed, while the place goes up in flames around them. There's an unexpected last scene which partly replays the party scene from the beginning; that is, the trigger for the subsequent story. The end.

This was disappointing. After a promising beginning, it sort of bogged down, but was nearly rescued by a more intriguing second half. That being said, everything at the cottage seemed to be from a completely different movie. It was generally better there than in London, even before the last ten minutes or so, which was nothing if not bizarre. As others have noted, Cushing is somewhat overshadowed by Lloyd's Joan Crawford-like Horror Hag role. That's surprising, because initially she doesn't think it's cool to kill people for her cosmetic benefit.

By the time we get to the cottage, she's pretty much in control. Terry works into the plot very well, outwitting John and Lynn for much of the time. She's got her own agenda, which she unintentionally foists on her hosts. The scene with woman on the train shows how John has become a vampire-like predator; unlike the string of murders in the first part of the movie (except for the prostitute), we see all the details. And it's that pesky head of her that turns up at the most inopportune times; it leads to Terry's death and the ultimate conflagration at the end.

There's a double shift from the original premise: Lynn becomes the mastermind, and John the underling; then Terry becomes the antagonist, with John and Lynn the prey of her crowd. The party scene promised one sort of stylish thriller; but when John turns himself into a modern Jack the Ripper/Dr. Frankenstein, we get a fairly repetitious cycle of murder, surgery, murder.

For the most part, the acting was very good. The gang of hoods are a bit over the top; when they appear, the tone shift is so complete that it's hard to take these scenes seriously. The all-consuming fire is about the most cliched of all horror movie endings. If the laser can be safely directed at someone's face, why should it catch everything else on fire? And why does everyone succumb to its powers when all of them still have the chance to escape?

For that matter, why is John untouchable? There's absolutely no police presence shown; how does a rookie criminal skulk about and not attract a lot of attention by his serial killing? Two oddities stand out: the trip to the coast is as much a traditional vacation as it is a way to avoid scrutiny, and Georgy's threat to call the cops just shows that the even weirdest characters think something nuts is going on.

This has some elements of a good psychological thriller. The horror aspect is more or less masked by what looks like conventional operation scenes (well, except for the laser stuff), the off-screen nature of most of the murders, and, most importantly, the less than horrific nature of Lynn's disfigurement. Yes, it's bad enough to ruin a modelling career, but she's no Phantom of the Opera or House of Wax victim.

This is worth a look, but not up to the usual Peter Cushing level.

Among the wackier films starring Peter Cushing. Surgeon Cushing is forced to steal pituitary glands from women in order to restore the face of his maimed girlfriend Sue Lloyd. Lloyd, a swinging model, becomes more and more demanding as her face gets more and more scarred. There's plenty of ensuing debauchery in director Robert Hartford-Davis clever movie. It's part horror, part love story, part home invasion movie and even part mod (there's a very BLOW UP like party scene and the music by Bill McGuffie is a lot of fun). This is very blunt, in your face (no pun intended) thriller. Cushing and Lloyd have great chemistry and there's a gang of goons headed by Phillip Manikum that has to be seen to be believed. If they weren't so nasty, you'd mistake them for Harvey Lembeck and his crew from the Beach Party movies.

Marketed with the ridiculously misogynistic tag-line 'This is not a woman's picture! No women will be allowed in alone!', Robert Hartford-Davis's Corruption is hugely enjoyable 60s horror trash which should prove to be of particular interest to fans of Peter Cushing, who gives an uncharacteristically manic performance as Sir John Rowan, an eminent surgeon who, after accidentally scarring his beautiful girlfriend, turns to murdering women to obtain the fresh pituitary glands necessary to repair the damage.

The normally reserved star of countless Hammer horrors slugs it out with an Austin Powers style photographer (played by Anthony Booth, ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's father-in-law) at a swinging sixties party, decapitates a blonde babe before shoving her headless body under a seat in a railway carriage, and, on the uncut version of the film known as Laser Killer, even smears blood all over a dead prostitute's tits. And if that isn't enough to whet your appetite for this bonkers take on George Franju's classic Les Yeux Sans Visage, viewers are also treated to a gang of psycho Sgt. Pepper rejects (which includes Eastender's star Bill Murray, and Carry On regular David Lodge as the completely demented Groper), a penultimate scene that sees everyone killed by a malfunctioning laser, and an outrageously daft twist ending that makes a mockery of all that has gone before!

In addition to all of this sleaze and craziness, Corruption also benefits from surprisingly well defined lead characters: although it is the guilt-ridden Rowan who does the actual killing, the real villain of the piece is his narcissistic fiancé Lynn Nolan (Sue Lloyd), whose lascivious behaviour at the party causes the fight that results in her accident, and who ultimately drives Rowan to murder. The poor surgeon is merely her pawn: a middle-aged man so completely obsessed with the young woman he has fallen in love with that he will do anything to keep her happy.

Since it is currently unavailable as an official release, a good quality copy of Corruption is hard to find. However, hunting down the film is highly recommended, whatever the format or condition.

Well, not exactly. Peter Cushing plays Sir John Rowan, a respected surgeon, in love with beautiful mod model, Lynn. He's mad about the girl, but when they go to a party with "her crowd" you can tell he feels about as comfortable as Dr. Victor Frankenstein would have felt on Laugh-In. When Lynn's photographer wants to take pictures of her right there with the crowd watching while she pulls down the straps of her dress and then he asks her to remove some more clothing, Rowan's blood gets up, there is a fight between himself and the photographer, and in the fist to cuffs one of the hot photographer lamps falls on Lynn's face.

The surgeons save Lynn's eyesight, but she has almost complete scarring of the right side of her face that will take years of painful skin grafts to repair. Sir John holds up in his laboratory and determines a way to shortcut the grafting process and quickly heal Lynn's face. This is actually more important to Lynn than it is to John, as illustrated when she begs her sister to help her commit suicide.

John is OK with breaking the rules in the hospital morgue, lying to the attendant and extracting the pituitary gland of a dead woman to restore Lynn's face, but when that treatment does not last, and he realizes that only very recently dead women will do, and then only for a little while, he refuses to go on killing. For a change it is not the doctor who goes mad - he initially says no - but the former model/girlfriend who is more thirsty for beauty than she cares about the lives that must be sacrificed. She figures John will go on decapitating women and keeping her beautiful forever.

Then a real monkey wrench - a home invasion occurs with a bunch of people who are part Chelsea London Hillbillies and part super villains that got stuck with the bargain basement Hslloween costumes. To further complicate things, Lynn's sister and fiancé who have figured out what is going on burst in on the doctor's house too.

Then just when you think you have figured out what is going on, the final scene throws you completely.

I can say this is not your usual tale of a doctor gradually turning murderer in a case of trying to restore a passive loved one to their original beauty. Here the beauty goes mad, and the doctor just works reluctantly and guiltily out of obligation and love. Plus there are plenty of plot twists and turns I have not told you about. A very good entry in the Hammer horror canon, but oddly frozen in time with all of the 60s cultural references.