Hey! It's The Curse of Frankenstein! And I'm on vacation, and have come down with a little case of vacation brain. And I've also get a pretty nasty case of Election Brain. So forgive me if things are short, bad(der), or more random. Seems like I have *more* to do when I take time off work, but whatever.
But The Curse of Frankenstein! I have always meant to see more Hammer Horror movies. They've got such a good reputation but I just haven't gotten around to them for one reason or another. And I figured I should start from the beginning, instead of just randomly jumping in somewhere in the middle. But after some free time at work, a little research, and some time on dvd.netflix.com (yep, I've still got an account), I've got about half of them queued up. Quick side note - they are obviously *old* DVD's - the "special features" are just blocks of text that you scroll through. How quaint. But the picture quality is never that good. Presumably there are better versions out there, but I've already met my blind buying blu ray quota for 2016. So to the outdated DVDs we go.
My Synopsis: It's "over a hundred years ago," and Baron Von Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) is in prison in "a mountain village in Switzerland." Frankenstein is accused of murder, but he claims to be innocent and has another version of events. One involving a creature that he constructed out of dead body parts and brought back to life. You know the story, yeah?
Elaborate Genre: Gothic Mad Scientist Monster Movie
Overall: Quite enjoyable. I haven't seen a lot of Frankenstein movies, but this one retooled the basic story in such a way to cut the fat, and it doesn't dwell too much on the philosophic conflicts about Frankenstein playing God.
Cushing plays Frankenstein with just the right mix of "noble scientific" and "crazy evil" intent. He's not necessarily a tragic figure, but you can see how his thirst for scientific discovery has driven him to great extremes. One really enjoyable aspect of the film was the relationship between Frankenstein and his tutor Paul Krempe (Robert Urquart). The film does a nice job setting the two up as partners in the experiment in its early phases (they bring a dog back to life). Krempe wants to report their findings to the scientific community, while Frankenstein wants to test their theories on human bodies. For Frankenstein, it's not so much about bringing the dead back to life - it's about creating a perfect human being (with the mind of a genius, the hands of a great artist, etc.). So there's some good antagonistic chemistry between the two. Krempe obviously thinks that Frankenstein is up to no good, but as a friend and colleague does not want to report him to the authorities.
After hearing so much about Hammer Horror, I expected things to be a little more moody and atmospheric than what is actually here in Curse of Frankenstein. It really feels like a relatively straight-forward film, stylistically-speaking. It's nicely shot and everything, but sometimes the sets look pretty cheap. The exception would be Frankenstein's lab, which is pretty awesome. It's filled with all sorts of glass beakers, tubes, tanks, etc. I'd guess that was where most of the budget went. But on the whole it's a well-directed film and looks pretty good.
I could see Curse being a little shocking for it's time - particularly the scenes where Frankenstein is procuring body parts. Most of it is implied, but it's still pretty unpleasant. And when the creature makes his first appearance, he's pretty nasty looking. Considering it's the late 50s, you can see the seams and whatnot, but still. The makeup design is going for more of a gruesome, almost melty look, and I think they pulled it off well.
I'm excited to get a little deeper into the Hammer catalogue - I've always loved Christopher Lee, and I'd like to see what he can do with a meatier role. He looks menacing here as the Creature, but he's pretty much just a mindless zombie. The film doesn't try to make him sympathetic, and as such he's just not much of a character.
Oh, and there's a SUPER good stunt fall at one point where a dude lands right on his face. I'm honestly not sure how they did it without injuring the guy. Even if the movie totally sucked, that one bit would make it worth it.
So even though I was expecting a little more of a moody tone, The Curse of Frankenstein was a fun watch. Even not having not seen a ton of Frankenstein movies, the story is pretty much just ingrained into my general consciousness at this point. But this is a unique enough take that it didn't feel totally recycled. It moves at a good pace and has some enjoyable performances, and is just good old-school horror.
I would recommend this film.
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