Young Victor Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) murders his father to inherit a fortune. After running into moral problems at the university, he uses his wealth and title to acquire body parts and make a man (Dave Prowse), which he brings to life. Along the way he dallies with his maid Alys (Kate O’Mara), is courted by his childhood friend, Elizabeth (Veronica Carlson), and is aided by his foolish friend Graham James (Wilhelm Kastner), and a grave robber (Dennis Price).
Just how devoid of ideas do you have to be to remake your own films (Hitchcock excluded)? And remake them with no glimmer of wit or originality? Hammer studios needed a hit, and felt that a new, young (at studio meetings, they undoubtedly said “hip”), Baron Frankenstein, replacing the aging Peter Cushing, would bring in the kids. So, they produced The Horror of Frankenstein, a new adaptation not of Shelley’s book, nor of the Universal classic, but of their own 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein. I’m happy to say that ’70s teen were not taken in by this farce, and the sixth Hammer Frankenstein flick went down in flames, resulting in Cushing’s return for Hammer’s seventh and final shot at the mad doctor.
Hammer had lost touch with its audience, and while it was innovative and shocking in the 1950s, it hadn’t changed since. The Horror of Frankenstein is devoid of frights, suspense, and blood. The multiple cleavage shots are too gratuitous for a serious film, but too tame to titillate. With the Italians poised to flood the market with topless vampires, Hammer’s work looked like something grandpa would watch.
As for the story, if anyone cares, it follows Victor (not the monster) as he cruelly, and oh so slowly, makes his monster for no particular reason. The Baron doesn’t come off as evil, but as a deeply unpleasant child who never grew up. He only gets away with his deeds because all the other characters are deeply stupid. Hint: if you know someone is a cold blooded killer, don’t threaten to reveal him, then happily accompany him to a secluded room in a castle.
The monster has little to do in the film and doesn’t show up for over an hour. Hardly an object of fright (or pity, or any other emotion unconnected to ridicule), this monster looks like a guy with a bit of rubber glued to his head. He doesn’t speak. He just stomps around a bit, and dies.
I can’t complain about the camera work, sets, and acting, but neither do they excite me. The attempt to stick the thirty-year-old actors into a school room with only bad wigs to disguise their age works as well as you might expect, but happily, the film skips ahead seven years and that charade can be forgotten. Still, the notion that the bosomy Kate O’Mara (my father would call her a very healthy girl) was sixteen at the film’s opening flows into the absurd.
For its concept, I should denounce The Horror of Frankenstein as a foul swamp toxin, but it has a few redeeming features. How poor Dennis Price, the masterful star of Kind Hearts and Coronets, sunk so far as to end up here is beyond me, but he brings talent and comedy to his small role of the gravedigger. I’d cheerfully watch a film about him and his contentedly put-upon wife, who digs up the bodies as he sits and snacks. It is in those characters, and other touches that the film is confusing, as it appears that at least one draft of the film was a comedy. There are quite a few almost-funny moments that make me wonder if it couldn’t have beaten out Young Frankenstein as a parody with a bit of work and altered direction. The demise of the monster should have been hilarious, but the mood is wrong; as drama, it fails miserably, but as a comedy, it had great potential. That’s true of the entire production.
But unfulfilled potential is that and nothing more. There are too many versions of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster for you to waste time with this one.