Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie

I swear I thought someone put acid in my drink when this little nugget got rolling. I'm even a little ashamed that I'm taking the time to write about this flick. I haven't looked for this title as an individual product and I got this through a Brentwood collection for like $4.00. If it is available as a stand alone DVD, they should be paying the customer to take this crap away. I think this DVD would fail as a coaster. Stay away from this Great Aunt. She sucks big time.

Oh yeah, this movie is terrible...and not in a good way.

Actually I don't think anyone in this gem knew what the thing was about. I don't think they cared. There isn't one thing in this DVD (since I can't call it a "film" anymore without throwing up in my mouth)that provides it any redemption. Don't even watch it for giggles, you won't giggle at all.

This movie fails so hard that it's hilarious. It's funny in ways that the filmmakers, who were on some potent drugs, couldn't possibly have intended. The surreal dialogue, the terrible sound recording, the huge-breasted actress changing costumes on camera to work in yet another shot of her cleavage, Donald Pleasence on an apparent bender, all of it. It's a perfect storm of awful. Dysfunctional hilarity!

I write this review not because this is a particularly good film, but to counteract some of the (in my opinion) overly harsh reviews and the overall low rating. If even Ed Wood's films can crack the 3/10 mark, surely Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie deserves its due. Firstly, this film contains Donald Pleasance in a maid's costume - this alone is worth 2 stars. Throw in some questionable period set pieces, incompetent government officials, an actress who is far too, shall we say, 'buxom' for the early 20th century setting, and some particularly bad monster make-up -- what's not to love?!

In the vein of spoof films of classic monster films (i.e. Young Frankenstein), Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie, directed by Yvonne Furneaux, does not have any pretentions to being a 'good' film. Whether or not the comedy is intentional or unintentional, the film offers up a big fat slice of delicious 80s cheese. For fellow fans of trashy film, this one deserves more recognition. After all, they don't make 'em like this anymore!

Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie (1984)

BOMB (out of 4)

Incredibly awful film has Baron Frankenstein (Donald Pleasance) and his Aunt Tillie returning to the family estate to try and get money. When they discover the monster's body they decide to bring him to life to make some cash off of him. This so-called comedy is without a doubt one of the worst films I've ever seen. I'm a firm believer than every film has at least one fan but I don't see how anyone could enjoy this mess. The comedy doesn't work on any level and the story is so confusing that I had a hard time following it. The subplot with women's rights also didn't work. No horror, no laughs, no nudity, no gore, no violence. Worthless on all levels even when Pleasance goes out in drag.

Donald Pleasence appeared in 137 movies; of those, I've seen just 30, but I'll hazard a guess that this is his worst film. Not only do I believe that Frankenstein's Great-Aunt Tillie must be the absolute nadir of Pleasence's career, I also reckon that it is the worst Frankenstein film ever made, the worst comedy ever made, and quite possibly the most terrible film I have ever seen (and I can regularly be found scraping away at the bottom of the cinematic barrel).

The script (if indeed there was one) feels like a stream of consciousness from a drunken Chinese madman, translated into English by another drunken madman whose first language is neither Chinese or English. The actors spout their lines of gibberish as though they're tripping on peyote (the film WAS made in Mexico, after all). Come to think of it, the whole experience felt like a bad hallucinogenic trip for me too, such is its sheer nonsensical nature.

Pleasence plays a descendant of Baron Frankenstein, who travels with Great Aunt Matilda (Yvonne Furneaux) to the ancestral estate to try and locate a hidden treasure and prevent developers from buying the place. In the basement of the castle, they discover Frankenstein's monster and bring it back to life. What follows is a series of seemingly random scenes in which everyone rambles incoherently whilst acting like fools.

Clocking in at an excruciating 100 minutes, Frankenstein's Great-Aunt Tillie is a virtually unwatchable mess that only the most dedicated fan of z-grade films will be able to finish. Those who do manage to stay the distance (and stay sane) will be treated to such garbage as women's rights protestors attacking the police with soda siphons, Pleasence dressed in a frilly maid's outfit, a parody of the Karloff classic's 'monster meets a little girl' scene that is off-the-charts insane, and an epilogue that continues the agony just when you thought it was all over.