Arrested for multiple murders, scientist Victor Franks (Rhett Giles) tells the story of his experiments to a psychologist. He had developed nonobots for repairing and revitalizing tissue, but an error caused his subject to go insane. Frank killed him, and then brought him back, but what he got was a murderous monster.
Did there need to be another rendition of Frankenstein? The book is filled with possibilities, but every angle has been cinematically developed, expanded, twisted, and generally mangled ten or fifteen times. But, if you are going to make an unnecessary movie, the folks at Asylum had the right idea. This splatter updating of the classic has sex, drugs, and background-droning rock-n-roll. It is much more entertaining than it has any right to be, but not quite what is should have been.
Rhett Giles, who made a bland, lifeless Van Helsing in Way of the Vampire, has no problems with the brilliant, arrogant, party-hardy sociopath, Victor Franks. Sure he’s technically the bad guy, but there’s charm mixed with his mayhem. Partly, that’s due to a marvelous relationship with Elizabeth, a “simple girl from the Midwest” who enjoys bondage, S&M, and three-ways. The two of them take such joy in their actions, both in and out of the lab, that its impossible not to wish them well.
The homages to both the book and earlier films come fast and furious (I say “homage” because “rip-off” is rude, and it’s too far away from the source material to be considered a direct rendition). The best has the monster befriending a child, but instead of tossing her in the water, he takes out the babysitter. (And quite properly. When the kid says she doesn’t want to call 911, the soon-to-be corpse yells “Do it you little bitch or we’re going to die!” Well, the lesson here is, don’t call a cute little girl a “bitch.”)
The story is told in flashback, but to a psychologist at an insane asylum instead of to a captain on a ship in icy waters. It works as well as the original as a framing device. The events are told slightly out of order, with segments overlapping, sometimes giving a different perspective on what happened. It is artfully done.
The creature design, looking too much like Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations for it to be entirely coincidental, is one of the best you’ll find in the low-budget world. No one has come close to Karloff”s 1930s version and most attempts are sad, pathetic makeup disasters. This monster is skeletal and lanky, and gurgles with menace. There is no innocence it in. It’s the doctor’s ID on the warpath.
Gore-hounds will be more than satisfied with limbs torn off, hearts ripped out, and a neck sawed through. There’s blood everywhere. Flesh fans won’t find as much to occupy their time, but there are multiple breast-shots, a lesbian kiss, and some implied bondage.
Just when it looks like this is going to be a first-rate shocker, the fun starts sliding away. Someone forgot that a wrapper for a story, should wrap it, and that’s all. The psychologist is only useful as a straight man, and then only for a very limited conversation. But we are taken away from Franks and his blood and nudity-filled epic far too often. There’s nothing worth seeing with the psychologist, or with the two ludicrous policemen. Everything in the “present” seems to be written by someone else than the past segments, someone with no sense of fun and no idea how characters should act. Time is wasted as the police comment how they didn’t bother to interview the lone witness in a multiple murder case because she’s a child (Ummmm. Yeah. Right.), and with the psychologist almost randomly ignoring his job.
The rushed conclusion is disappointing and conventional, turning the psychologist that no one will care about, into the hero. There were so many options, but none were taken, and a movie that was pushing the envelope mildly folds up into the same kind of thing you’ve seen a hundred times before.
One technical problem also spoils the experience. Either the sound mix was done by an amateur who couldn’t see the dials, or there just weren’t enough properly placed mics. At times characters can’t be heard. This is most common when someone is speaking from off screen. This is a movie you’ll need to watch with your remote in hand to constantly raise and lower the volume.
award. But, I have to withhold that purely on the basis of special effects. The film does a poor job of showcasing its immense extraterrestrial walkers, but they are still pretty cool to watch. And I enjoyed the gun that left only shredded cloths blowing in the wind when a person was shot. I didn’t enjoy it enough to ever watch this movie again, but such little things are what separate a miserable film from a crime against humanity.
