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Corruption was the fifth movie of its kind I watch and since it’s British, you don’t risk watching an edited and poorly dubbed version with this one. Not that it makes it much better because it is overall a step back in quality from “Gritos en la noche”.
Since it came out in 1968 it means that unlike the previous titles, it has colours, which is a plus, but also now it’s more noticeable when something looks off, and in this case, that applies to most special effects and gruesome scenes, even for its time. Also, the movie tried to capture the trippy and colourful aesthetics from that time and place, and it looks and feels goofy in what is supposed to be a horror movie, even more compared with the gothic and sci-fi-ish looks of the previous films. There are wide shots which show some beautiful landscapes and places, so that’s a plus. The directing can be a bit weird, it abuses close ups to try to scare the audience but it’s not effective at all anymore.
Another weird thing from the directing is the music, also reflecting the vibe it was going for, which means that, just like the visuals, it doesn’t fit the type of movie, plus it’s not used very well, but at least it was better in that regard that “Eyes Without a Face”, which ironically was the worst at that despite being the best movie of the bunch. The sound effects are ok for its time and the acting…well, the main couple did their job fine, but everyone else wasn’t as convincing.
The plot this time is about a scientist who feels guilty to be responsible of damaging his girlfriend’s face after getting into a fight with another man, and you know the rest. He shares most of his scenes with the woman so that’s an improvement over the previous movie. What’s different now in this film is that the female lead is the actual villain, as she only cares about herself and wants her boyfriend to keep going with the killings, all for the sake of her face and career as a model, while he feels remorse for what he does and wants to quit, so that’s an interesting change from earlier titles and an interesting new character dynamic, despite the cost of character appear from her part. Another good thing is how the main abducted girl is not a clueless and helpless girl, but part of a band of robbers that was targeting the main couple the whole time, so that’s another interesting plot point.
Unfortunately the actual writing is weak since the very beginning because most things work the way the protagonist wants to purely because of luck, or you know, because the script says so, and the weak acting and the weird directing don’t help in making it feel any less worse nor make it any less noticeable.
It gets even worse in the third act of the film because characters appear out of nowhere, have some very trashy interactions, antagonists are taken stupidly one by one, and the final confrontation was just laughably bad. Plus the very ending of the film ruins absolutely everything by being ambitious and making it seem that nothing even ever happened, in a dumb attempt to make the viewer think if what they watched was real or not. If I wanted to watch a movie like that, I would rewatch American Psycho, which was a character study through and through, not this, so I guess that’s a much better alternative thing to do.
So in a way Corruption is the opposite of “Gritos en la noche”, in the sense that that one was implementing, and not exploiting, improvements in the plot and pacing, while this one wasted all of its potential in its new character dynamics. The Spanish movie remains then the second best one of its kind in its decade, after the only one that’s barely worth watching “Eyes Without a Face”, while this one and “Seddok” are placed at the bottom, though I wouldn’t know which one to choose as the worse one to be honest.
4/10
