Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell
Year: 1973
Director: Terence Fisher
Written by: John Elder
Threat: Mad Scientist
Weapon of Choice: Glass
Based upon: none
IMDb page: 
Frankenstein and the Monster from HellYear: 1973 Director: Terence Fisher Written by: John Elder Threat: Mad Scientist Weapon of Choice: Glass Based upon: none IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
The Curse of Frankenstein
The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Evil of Frankenstein
Frankenstein Created Woman
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
The Horror of Frankenstein
The tyranist's thoughts
Last of the Hammer Frankenstein films, this one felt more like a low-budget remake than another
entry in the series. I was hoping for something on Hammer's usual, intelligent fare, but was
disappointed to find that this one was obviously filmed at the tail end of Hammer's great run in
a time when it appears few still cared that much.
A young doctoris trying to duplicate the work of Baron Frankenstein, but making very little
progress. After the drunk he uses to steal corpses from the graveyard fingers him as the
mastermind, he ends up in an asylum for the criminally insane. There he meets the good baron
who is now going by a different name and has a lovely, but speechless assistant.
Peter Cushing playes the Baron as always and Terence Fisher, who had something of a career
with Hammer, directs. As a special treat, David Prowse plays the monster quite ably and, I may
be showing a little too much of my geek roots here, Patrick Troughton makes what is basically
a cameo as the graverobber/sot. Add to them the lovely Madeline Smith and Shane Briant's
decent turn as the young doctor and really, the cast was top-notch.
So where does it fail? The set looked like it was constructed with the idea of performing this
on the stage. There were very few sets and all of them were very basic. Add to that how old
the Frankenstein myth gets after a while and the movie was just flat. At least when you are
doing vampires, you can tinker with the mythos to good effect once in a while. A reanimated
lumbering monster will probably always be a reanimated lumbering monster.
There probably isn't any reason to pick this one up. There are a lot of better Hammer films,
including some in this series. It's sad to see the end of a once great studio, but the signs are
plainly here if you care to look at all.
Total Skulls: 8
| Sequel |  |
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| Sequel setup | |
|
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | |
David Prowse |
| Former celebrity appears | |
Patrick Troughton |
| Bad title | ||
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | ||
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | ||
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location | |
|
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | |
|
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | |
|
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | ||
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | |
|
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |