Horror of Frankenstein
by Jimmy Sangster
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Product details
Actor: Dennis Price, Jon Finch, Kate O'Mara, Ralph Bates, Veronica CarlsonDirector: Jimmy Sangster
Cinematographer: Moray Grant
Producer: Jimmy Sangster
Writer: Jimmy Sangster
Editor: Chris Barnes
Writer: Jeremy Burnham
Writer: Mary Shelley
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 95 minutes
Release Date: 2001-08-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Starz / Anchor Bay
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
VHS Movie Reviews of Horror of Frankenstein
Movie Review: The Youngest, Most Insane Frankenstein Of Them All!
Summary: 4 Stars
The character of Victor Frankenstein in "Horror of Frankenstein" is the youngest, handsomest and evilest one I've seen. Victor will do anything to get what he wants, even kill his own father and best friend. This one has a reprobate mind; he is very dispassionate about the plights of others. He displays a flippant, contrite attitude whenever a "friend" is harmed. When questioned by authority, his sarcastic remarks are often humorous. Victor kills anyone who might reveal his secret hobby of bringing the dead back to life.
The acting in this gothic horror film from Hammer Production is quite good. The stellar cast consists of Hammer regulars including Ralph Bates ("Lust for a Vampire"), Kate O'Mara ("The Vampire Lovers"), Veronica Carlson ("Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed"), Dennis Price ("Twins of Evil"), and David Prowse ("Vampire Circus"). There is plenty of suspense, dark humor, and gruesome deaths to keep your attention.
My major complaint is with the ending. It was gruesome but abrupt. I felt that there was much more of the story that needed to be told. The ending was also left open for a sequel. Unfortunately, one was never made.
At one point in the movie, Victor claims that he doesn't know who he really is. His friend points out that he is kind one moment and cold another. However, I know that any kindness he exhibits is an act. He is pure evil, incapable of loving anyone but himself and his work. He labors to create life but all he can manage to do is destroy it. Victor is unimpressed when he learns that one of his schoolmates has waited her entire life to marry him; he is only interested in how he can use her love to his advantage.
Directed by Jimmy Sangster, "Horror of Frankenstein" is very enjoyable; it must be purchased by everyone who collects gothic horror from Hammer Production. It is far different from the other Frankenstein movies which were directed by Terrence Fisher and starred Peter Cushing in the role of Victor Frankenstein. It has its own unique qualities that must be seen to be believed.
Movie Review: He was quite a nice monster, really.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is late Hammer, so the baron does a lot of his anatomical study in the bedroom. Still, it looks and feels a lot like classic early Hammer even if it's a spoof. Very familiar Hammer sets. Very knowing and witty script and direction. Great colors. Gorgeous but clueless Veronica Carlson is the only female in the movie whose anatomical parts seem not to interest the baron in the least. The ending is a hoot. This one is so different from other Hammer Frankensteins that it may take a few viewings for some fans to appreciate. But taken on its own, it's enjoyable and better than some of the Cushing Frankensteins. Movie Review: A WORTHY AND DIFFERENT HAMMER FRANKENSTEIN FILM! 3 1/2 STARS!
Summary: 4 Stars
Not nearly as bad as it is said to be, this Hammer Frankenstein film has plenty to enjoy! There is cleavage, Kate O'Mara, Veronica Carlson,(did I say Cleavage?)blood, good FX, atmosphere and it's all done with a tongue and cheek approach that I found refreshing. It works as a straight horror film, but there are some funny little "digs" at the series here and there.
Hammer made quite a few Frankenstein films and even though Cushing and Lee are missing, this is far from the worst. The DVD has a very good print and this disc has some decent extras. Commentary, stills gallery, trailers, interview with Veronica Carlson, Art gallery of Veronica Carlson and more!
Movie Review: King Hearts and Cadavers
Summary: 4 Stars
"Tomorrow we shall initiate a new series of experiments. Something harmless, like splitting the atom, perhaps?"
Dispensing with Peter Cushing's services and intended to revitalize the series with a younger generation of stars as the studio headed into the uncertain 70s, The Horror of Frankenstein instead found itself on the wrong half of a double-bill with the inferior Scars of Dracula and much detested by many Hammer purists for its tone. Which is a great shame, because this is one of Hammer's best and most delightful latter films as long as you're not expecting the traditional horror film of the title - there may be one of the highest body counts in a Hammer film, but it's not frightening. Instead, despite a wonderfully crude moment with a reanimated hand and the odd joke at the expense of Kate O'Mara's cleavage ("You've put on weight in a couple of places"), rather than pure camp or gothic chiller, this is an elegant comedy of murders with much dry wit. If anything, the influence here is more Kind Hearts and Coronets as the presence of Dennis Price as a grave robber who leaves all the digging to his devoted wife attests. Ralph Bates' young Frankenstein is a sociopath with good table manners but no great purpose: creating life from various assorted body parts isn't a quest to free man from the shadow of mortality, it's just something he wants to do, and if that means killing a tortoise, his father or his best friend then he'll do it without his heart skipping a beat. As the sleeve notes to Anchor Bay's Region 1 DVD note, it's easy to see him as a forerunner of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman.
Although he was uncomfortable in the role, Jimmy Sangster's direction is above average for the studio at this period (their once-top director Terence Fisher's drinking having led by this time to a significant drop in the quality of his work), and the film looks better than a lot of the later Hammers. Despite the traditional 19th Century setting, it's very much of its time, even offering digs at the British welfare state (which makes finding bodies so much harder these days, what with people living longer) and the permissive generation (Victor sees no reason to get married when he can have sex with the hired help whenever he wants and merely sees Veronica Carlson's smitten heroine as a potential housekeeper). It's also quite anarchic in its own way, breaking with the expectations of the Hammer formula. The forces of good are completely powerless, retribution is not handed out and evil goes unpunished at the movie's back-to-the-drawing-board end. Well, more or less...
Movie Review: Atypical of Hammer, but still a super film!
Summary: 5 Stars
I want to say, up front, that this is a fine gothic Frankenstein film. It's actually based upon a fairly straightforward Frankenstein theme, (semi-mad doctor wants to make monster, the brain is damaged, and the monster kills people), but Dr. Victor Frankenstein (very credibly played by Ralph Bates) comes off as a classic, if cultured, psychopath. He cares naught in the slightest about the sanctity of human life, as long as his vision of creating a man (from used parts) is fulfilled.
Here are the numerous characteristics (events) which generate most viewers' dark paradigm of this particular Dr. Victor Frankenstein:
1. He has the sex drive of Don Juan and Rasputin combined and any consequences of his amourous advances do not concern him in the least. After impregnating his University Dean's daughter, he just drops her like a hot rock, never giving her a further thought. He also demands double-duty from his lovers... sex slave on demand and housekeeper routinely.
2. He really savours killing people (you can tell by the smirk on his face as he does so), including his father, a highwayman (whom he also decapitates), his best friend and assistant, the provider of his corpses, and a local professor (via poison). He even kills an associate's pet tortoise with a smile!
3. He much enjoys setting his monster to killing: the corpse-snatcher's greedy wife, a lover and, a woodsman who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
4. He's really into personal intimidation of those who are supposed to be his superiors while he is a medical student and later on too.
This 1970 British story goes like this: Dr. Frankenstein decides (as a student) that his big goal will be to create a man (basically from corpse parts) so he takes on a pal whom eventually becomes more and more skittish as the experiments with body parts become more and more audacious and heinous. People who get into the way of the young Doctor's plans are snuffed without a second thought. So, what I'm saying here is that there are no huge surprises.
True to the Hammer philosophy, this film is not hair-raising scary like, say, "The Exorcist," "Halloween," or Hitchcock's "Psycho," albeit it's a much darker film than all the other Hammer Frankenstein flicks. This is clearly due to the fact that this movie was directed by Hammer's fair-haired horror writer, Jimmy Sangster, who had clearly been drooling to actually direct one of these films. It's really all just quite entertaining.
There are even intermittent moments of sly humor to be found throughout the movie. At one point, a buxom lass of the Doctor's former acquaintance is practically displaying her mammalian wares for him and he wryly comments, "You've gained weight in a couple of places." Nicely put!
The monster is a bit of an enigma. Played by David Prowse, his face is left pretty much unchanged, make-up-wise -- there is just the add-on to the top of the head. The monster thus looks a lot like one of my larger neighbors. He's not a very shrewd monster as the brain, of course, was damaged somewhat by the corpse-snatcher having dropped it. Just your basic killer who generally follows his master's instructions in order to get fed. This particular brain, by the way, was a sort of steel-blue in its hue and I thought that was a little strange.
The filmscore is superb, composed and conveyed by Malcolm Williamson. It embraces that late 60s atmospheric ambiance which goes along so well with period monster flicks, akin to the themes of the great Les Baxter. The film is shot in letterbox and the sets and locations are outstanding. The long shot of the ominous castle is simply timeless. The color saturation is of equal high-quality.
In summary, we do somewhat miss the great Peter Cushing in this Hammer entry; however, it's a fine performance by Ralph Bates and his supporting cast and I think, overall, is one of the best Frankenstein films that I've seen anywhere.
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