Review: Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell

Unethical medical student Shane Briant gets nabbed by the police for body snatching and subsequently sentenced to an asylum. It turns out that the Dr. Victor (Peter Cushing) who works at the asylum is actually Baron Frankenstein, whom Briant is an avid admirer of. Having blackmailed the asylum head, Dr. Victor conducts his creature-creating experiments within the asylum walls, and Briant becomes his new surgical assistant. Meanwhile, the asylum’s patients start mysteriously dying. Funny that. Doe-eyed Madeline Smith plays a mute girl, whilst future Darth Vader costume-wearer David Prowse plays the ape-like Creature.

 

1974 Terence Fisher (“The Horror of Dracula”, “The Mummy”, “The Man Who Could Cheat Death”, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”) film was the last in Hammer’s Frankenstein series, and as with their final Dracula entrant “The Satanic Rites of Dracula”, it’s not hard to see why. It’s bloody ordinary. Scripted by Anthony Hinds (“The Curse of the Werewolf”, “Rasputin – The Mad Monk”), it’s the goriest entry of the lot but not all that interesting. The most memorable scene is the admittedly very fake but icky scene where Peter Cushing twists and pops the top of someone’s head off to reveal the brains. If that doesn’t make you squirm, check your pulse. Otherwise, the admittedly slow first 30 minutes are at least more interesting than the rest, and there aren’t enough detached eyeballs in the world to really save the film.

 

Shane Briant gives a top performance, though his character (like the film) gets less interesting as it goes along. That’s a shame, because his smug, arrogant character was gearing up to be the most interesting of the young leading men in the “Frankenstein” series, who tend to all be a bit same-y. In fact, he's the focus of the first 15 minutes, whereafter Peter Cushing takes centre stage (though Briant is more impressive here than Cushing to be honest). The best thing is the wonderful cinematography by Brian Probyn (“The Satanic Rites of Dracula”, “Inn of the Damned”, “Badlands”), which is particularly effective in the opening foggy graveyard scene with Patrick Troughton. It’s a memorable, but small turn by Troughton, and Sydney Bromley has a fun cameo too as a patience who thinks he’s God. I was much less impressed by an actor named John Sutton, whose overly hammy performance would make Freddie Jones seem restrained by comparison. He’s irritating and frankly time-wasting. As for the Monster of the film’s title…oh, boy. Hammer went in a wildly different direction this time, giving the Monster a kind of Neanderthal Man meets Bigfoot design and it’s…different, alright. It’s just not interestingly different, and David Prowse doesn’t do anything memorable in the role. The film is much more interesting before he comes into play.

 

Tired, dull closing to Hammer’s “Frankenstein” series has a few commendable elements but is surprisingly unengaging. A sad end to Fisher’s mostly very solid directing career.

 

Rating: C-