And without Mr. Cushing this would be a sorry little film indeed. Inspite of some nice Cornish backgrounds and the aforementioned star this is a film which gets more demented the longer it goes on, has a very dated 60s party scene (with a spontaneous fashion-shoot happening which kick-starts the plot) and a gang of thugs that have to be seen to be believed.The film does have its moments, notably Cushing's murder of a prostitute - all sweaty wrestling and stabbing, with female toplessness in the ahem, continental version - and a superbly acted train murder with Valerie Van Ost getting more and more creeped-out over our eminent surgeon's behaviour. But this goes for nothing when the thugs raid Cushing's holiday home. They are the most pathetic gang ever put on screen. They even have David Lodge as a gimpy fiend - a performance so unintentionally funny it should really have made it into a comedy.Cush and his rather young-for-him fiancée (Sue Lloyd), turn up at a swinging sixties party which is almost as hilarious as Mr. Lodge. "If you want to get struck off you've come to the right place." Our hero, as mentioned, is a gifted surgeon you see, which comes in handy when he gets into a fight with Tony Booth (Van Helsing versus the Scouse Git from Alf Garnett!) accidentally causing a powerful lamp to topple and ruin Ms Lloyd's face.If Polanski's Repulsion showed men as sexist pigs, this film shows women as conniving obsessed-with-their-looks Lady Macbeths. Only a young-looking Kate O'Mara bucks this trend.Cushing does a bit of research and with the aid of some pilfered glands he restores his girlfriend's good looks. It wears off though, and he resorts to murder to keep her beautiful.Much of this is ripped from the old Bela Lugosi disaster THE CORPSE VANISHES, and also THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH. It ends in a death by laser body pile up, with virtually the entire cast getting it. With a better script this might have worked but all I was left with was a sense of bemusement! Not one of Cushing's better vehicles.

I saw this film 35 years ago in 1978 I was 15 it was on TV and it has stayed in my mind since, when I saw it I couldn't sleep for a week and the fridge that was staying shut, I haven't seen this film since but still remember a photo shoot light burning her face the train sequence and the head in the fridge, I suppose compared to today's graphic films this would be considered rubbish but at 15 it had a big impact on my life and I am still thinking and talking about it,I would like to see it again because I would probably laugh at why I couldn't sleep, HOPEFULLY. From what i remember it was a very basic storyline, girl gets face burned husband regrets and needs to kill women to keep his wife's skin good which only lasts a short time so needs to keep killing. Peter Cushing was again excellent and i always thought this was a hammer film production which i now know it isn't, all in all this film was probably rubbish which never see the light of day again but as a young man it had an impact on me that is still there age 50.

This is one of those UK lost flicks that is really worth hunting down. It's so rare that a flick with the legendary Peter Cushing never had a proper release after the VHS rage. And again he gives a perfect performance as Sir John Rowan a surgeon. When John got into a fight with a photographer picturing his wife suddenly one of the spots falls on her face. Heavily burned he feels guilty and discovers that he can restore the scarred face of his girlfriend by murdering other women and extracting fluids from their pituitary gland. Sadly the effect of repairing the face doesn't goes on forever and he has to kill again. But he got mixed emotions about it. There are two versions of this flick around, both are hard to get, the first one the normal version and the second one the uncut strong version. The latter I saw and it is in the first killing, the whore, that there are differences. In the normal, cut, version you only see a knife and some dolls when he is killing the whore but in the strong version she goes naked and is stabbed to death and beheaded by the surgeon. And for the time being I can understand that it was rather gruesome. All acting was good and some faces did make it, for the horror buffs Billy Murray (Rik) will be recognized in Doghouse (2009) and Dead Cert (2010). A rather good example of British horror worth hunting down, if you will ever find it....Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 2/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

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.