The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray

The Creeping Flesh

 (1973)

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray offers solid video and poor audio in this poor Blu-ray release
Can an evil human being be cured? Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing), a 19th-century scientist, believes it can, and develops serum from the blood of evil men. While his half-brother James (Christopher Lee), who runs a mental institution, envies Emmanuel's accomplishments, his daughter Penelope (Lorna Heilbron) does not. Born of an insane mother, the girl is injected with her father's serum, slashes a sailor and kills an escaped madman. Sadly, she must then be committed to her uncle's asylum. Undaunted, Emmanuel continues his experiments on a primitive skeleton, inadvertently creating an evil monster when the skeleton comes to life. The trauma of the events that follow drives Emmanuel insane and frees the creature to spread its reign of terror...

For more about The Creeping Flesh and the The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray release, see the The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on April 1, 2017 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.0 out of 5.

Director: Freddie Francis
Writers: Peter Spenceley, Jonathan Rumbold
Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Lorna Heilbron, George Benson, Kenneth J. Warren, Duncan Lamont
Producers: Norman Priggen, Michael P. Redbourn, Tony Tenser

» See full cast & crew

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman, April 1, 2017

Note: 'The Creeping Flesh' is currently only available in a three-film collection from Mill Creek.



Emmanuel Hildern (Peter Cushing) has just returned from New Guinea with a startling discovery: the remains of a humanoid creature much larger than other prehistoric discoveries, or modern man. He theorizes the being was of significantly greater intelligence and brain capacity than any humanoid to ever walk the Earth. He makes another shocking discovery in the lab: the remains react to water. When a bony finger becomes wet, the skin around it regrows. Hildern severs the digit but continues on with his investigation, believing it will make him a sure-fire winner for the prestigious Richter Prize. Meanwhile, he receives word that his long mentally ill wife has passed. He does what he can to keep the news from his daughter (Lorna Heilbron), whom has been led to believe that her mother was long deceased. But when she learns the truth, she panics. Hildern has no choice to but to inject her with a serum he's developed from the creature's regrown skin in hopes that it will protect her from evil. But will it?

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

The Creeping Flesh arrives on Blu-ray from Mill Creek with an imperfect but nevertheless enjoyable 1080p transfer. The image opens with severe wobble over the opening titles. Minor instability remains through parts of the image thereafter. Flickering is occasionally problematic as well. Contrast lightly fluctuates in places and print wear is obvious, but never seriously distracting or debilitating. The image retains a mildly sharp but generally pleasing grain structure. Image clarity is quite good. Detailing pleases, particularly on close-ups of the bone props, gooey monster flesh and blood, and brass scientific instruments. Clothes and faces are nicely detailed, a little smooth but finding solid enough fundamental texturing with the 1080p definition. Colors are fairly neutral, often earthy, with some deeply saturated and bright red blood. Colors in various dreamlike sequences are a fairly diffuse. Black levels generally maintain good depth but are prone to mild crush. Flesh tones are a little pasty. The list of "problems" is rather lengthy, but in the aggregate none of it is of major concern, particularly for a budget release. This is a very watchable and in many ways pleasing vintage film image.

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

The Creeping Flesh creeps onto Blu-ray with a baseline adequate but frequently underwhelming Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Music is crunchy, unkempt, scratchy, shrilly. Definition flounders at every turn, whether score be light or more aggressive. It's unevenly flawed, too, with various pieces of music coming across as more accurate than others. Spacing is limited to the center area of the stage, never stretched to its limits. Dialogue is a little more stable, enjoying a fairly natural front-center imaging, though there's some underlying crunchiness. Atmospherics are nicely pronounced about the stage, such as bubbling liquids in the lab. Obviously it's limited to front-end placement but the effect is at least clear enough, pushed far enough out to the side, that a very basic sonic landscape is created.

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

This Blu-ray release of The Creeping Flesh contains no supplemental content.

The Creeping Flesh Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

The Creeping Flesh is a neither here-nor-there throwback British Horror film with a few good ideas, a tendency to meander, and just enough oddity to keep the viewer interested. Mill Creek's Blu-ray boasts solid enough video, troubled but passable audio, and no supplements. Worth a look, particularly at the price of the three pack in which it is included.

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