Review: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed!

Disgraced doctor Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) seeks lodging from a boarding house run by Anna (Veronica Carlson). Frankenstein quickly learns that Anna’s doctor fiancé Karl (Simon Ward) has been stealing drugs from the asylum he works at. Ever the ruthless and self-serving sort, he blackmails the couple into being his assistants in a new experiment. The idea is to transplant the brain of a supposedly mad doctor (George Pravda) now a patient of the asylum, into the shell of asylum head Prof. Richter (Freddie Jones). Meanwhile, the nasty Frankenstein decides to take what he wants from Anna as well. Thorley Walters and Geoffrey Bayldon turn up as a police inspector and police doctor, respectively.

 

Hammer gets a little darker and more disturbing than usual with this 1969 film from their top director Terence Fisher (“The Horror of Dracula”, “The Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”). In addition to some rather gruesome violence – including a severed head in the opening scene – what really stands out here is the rather nasty bit where Peter Cushing’s thoroughly ruthless Baron Frankenstein seemingly takes delight in raping poor Veronica Carlson. He’s completely power mad by this point. It’s the one issue I had with the entire film on viewing, though I’ve eventually come around on it for the most part. Although it interestingly suggests that the Baron has further declined in morality than ever before, I initially felt it stood out like a sore thumb. When has he ever taken an interest in women before, let alone in such a violent fashion? However, the film is consistently black-hearted and grim so the idea of a rape scene certainly doesn’t seem to jar so much with the film itself tone-wise. So eventually I accepted that this is a Baron completely freed of any moral restraints now whatsoever, even if it seems a slight leap outside of the norm. Apparently the director, Cushing, and Carlson were against the scene but Hammer exec James Carreras insisted in its inclusion. Whatever you make of the scene, Cushing gives a thoroughly evil and ruthless performance in what may be the most evil role he has ever played. The Baron is not only brutally ruthless, he’s also a calculating blackmailer and thoroughly amoral.

 

The lovely and recently departed Veronica Carlson holds up her end wonderfully well. She and the equally underrated Simon Ward do an excellent job of looking suitably horrified and uncomfortable with the predicament their characters find themselves in. Apparently this was Ward’s film debut, but the quality of his performance is no indication of that whatsoever, nor does he appear to look down on genre material. Thorley Walters is amusingly unsubtle in a comically-minded performance, with an underplaying Geoffrey Bayldon stealing the occasional scene from him too. Speaking of unsubtle, although Freddie Jones is largely wasted in the first half he gets more to do in the second and plays his role as expected: Big. Very, very big. You don’t hire Freddie Jones to underplay and he most certainly doesn’t, bless his hammy heart. It’s probably one of his best-ever performances, and I mean that in unironic terms. By the end you actually feel rather moved by his performance, he owns the final act. The poor bloke didn’t ask for this, and it’s the closest to Karloff pathos that Hammer’s Frankenstein films ever got. There’s also some really fascinating stuff in here with Jones’ body housing someone else’s brain. The film handles that dilemma a lot better than most films with such nonsense in them do. I must also commend the film for its look, the best-looking film in the whole cycle. It has been stunningly shot by Arthur Grant (“The Tomb of Ligeia”, “The Devil Rides Out”, “Taste the Blood of Dracula”), some of his best work for Hammer.

 

Interesting, nasty, unpleasant Hammer sequel with terrific performances, gorgeous cinematography, and at least one scene that’ll start conversations. In terms of Hammer’s Frankenstein series, this one probably ranks third behind only “The Revenge of Frankenstein” and “The Horror of Frankenstein”. There’s a lot to like in this, just be warned that this is one Hammer’s nastier, more mature-minded films. The screenplay is by Bert Batt (a veteran assistant director in his only writing stint) from a story by Batt and producer Anthony Nelson-Keys (who also did uncredited work on Hammer’s “The Pirates of Blood River”).

 

Rating: B-