This is another situation where I have no idea how the hell I've managed to go this long without watching this movie. It has an awesome title, Peter Cushing is in it and I love him, it has Christopher Lee and I love him too...I really should have checked this movie out by now, but at least I'm getting around to it finally. I hope I enjoy it.
This movie is about a scientist in Victorian times who believes that evil is a disease, and as such humans can be vaccinated against it. He returns home with a dismantled skeleton that he thinks contains a dose of evil in it's purest form, but once he adds water to the bones, something happens and a horrible evil is unleashed. I hate it when that happens.
I don't know why scientists are always fucking around with evil things that could destroy humanity. Scientific curiosity only goes so far as an excuse. In this guy's case you hough, it's kind of his trademark. All his life he's been making decisions for everyone else, deciding what was best for them no matter what they seemed to want. It's a wonder his daughter can even stand him, let alone idolize him the way she does. He's been lying to her for most of her life about many things, practically keeping her a prisoner in her own house. He's looked down on his brother, another doctor played by Christopher Lee. He's generally a very frustrating character.
This movie drags a bit in the middle. There are long scenes in the lab where the doctor performs the same experiments over and over and over again, like the filmmakers thought we weren't paying attention the first time. And the movie is short on action for a long time, too. We see the titular"flesh" right away, but it doesn't do any "creeping" for over an hour. Seriously, it takes so long for the plot to get going that I had nothing to do but glare daggers at the doctor and want to reach through the screen to punch him in the face.
And the good doctor does some of the dumbest things I've ever seen a character do in a horror movie, and that's saying a LOT. One plot twist, where he decides on a way to test the blood from the creeping flesh to see how it affects humans, is so idiotic I didn't believe it when I read it in a plot summary, I had to see it for myself. I still don't believe it, and the movie is over with. Come ON dude, how can you be this stupid? Were you dropped on the head as a baby? And where the hell was the editor for this movie? Why are there long, boring shots of people walking around that just drag and DRAG and feel like they'll never end?
There's some good stuff here. Obviously the acting is good, and there's a sense of tragedy and impending Doom and a self-fulfilling prophecy that is intriguing, but it's buried under so much useless crap that it's ridiculous. I wanted to like this movie, and indeed there is a lot that I like here, but I felt like I was slipping into a coma half the time waiting for something to actually happen, so I can't say that I enjoyed the experience.
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