The Creeping Flesh

The Skeletal Spotlight shines this time on:
"The Creeping Flesh" poster
(click on images to view hi-rez.)

The sensationally-titled "The Creeping Flesh" from 1973, starring horror gods Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is among one of director Freddie Francis' most interesting efforts, standing tall among his already impressive movies. (Here is an insightful review of the film from another site that I think you'll find most interesting.)

"Man, I'm so scary I make my own flesh crawl!"

Turnabout is fair play, as we see from the poster below. This artwork is very unusual in that the poor skeleton is the helpless victim and the monster is a naked, though oddly nipple-less woman.

"He ain't heavy, he's my daddy's skeleton!"

The IMDB synopsis for the 1970 "Blood Mania" reads "A sex-crazed nympho helps speed along her father's death so she can use the inheritance to help out her depraved boyfriend." By most accounts it's a waste of time. But we got an amusing poster out of it! Scary though, it's not.

But, the story is not over... for look at the image used on the DVD release of "The Creeping Flesh!" Yes, the skeleton is being carried by the man. Full circle.

(Which brings up a point; why is it that so many recent DVD horror releases forego using the awesome poster artwork, in favor of a lame screen-capture from the movie? I mean, there's nothing particularly scary about a man carrying around a lifeless skeleton, is there? Makes the skeleton seem harmless. Whereas in the original poster spotlighted this time, the evil skeleton seems anything but harmless. )

"Good grief, you been packing in those fried twinkies lately, haven't you?"
As he stumbled over the threshold with his new bride, his insinuations about her weight got the honeymoon off to a bad start.

And so, as we draw the curtain on the happy couples, we have learned that it matters little who carries whom... as long as they have each other to hold.