Frankenhooker

Normally I run away screaming at anything labeled "horror comedy" but 'Frankenhooker' joins 'Motel Hell' as one of the few exceptions. This is an amusing take on Frankenstein with James Lorinz reveling in the role of a mad scientist obsessed with bringing back his girlfriend who died in a freak lawn mowing accident(!). Using the body parts of some local working girls and some "super crack" he ends up with a lot more than he bargained for! Frankenhooker! Played by the lovely Patty Mullen who is sexy and displays plenty of comic timing. Writer/director Frank Henenlotter had previously made the trash classics 'Basket Case' and 'Brain Damage', both of which are brilliant, and 'Frankenhooker' is just as good. Three movies as original and entertaining as those are three more than most film makers ever come up with, so it is a crying shame that Henenlotter has been strangely quiet for the last decade. Hopefully he will resurface one day with something new. In the meantime, watch 'Frankenhooker' for some serious fun. It's an absolute hoot!

Frankenhooker is without a doubt one of the most stupid, ridiculous, moronic, pointless, fun and brilliant films that I have seen. From the film's opening; which sees our would-be hero working on a strange brain with an eye in it, with some ridiculously out of place, relaxed suburbia music playing in the background; I knew that I was in for a comic treat. This movie features several moments of delicious comic brilliance; such as the out of control lawnmower sequence that sees the central character's girlfriend get tragically murdered, to the rather tactless news report detailing said tragedy, to the exploding whores and all the way down to the weather report which details a storm that is coming, "for all you mad scientists out there"; there's plenty to make you laugh in Frankenhooker.

The film takes obvious influence from the classic Frankenstein story, and it should appeal to anyone that is a fan of cheesy 80's gorefests. Of course, this was released in 1990, but that's incidental. As mentioned, the main character's girlfriend is killed in a lawnmower accident. The accident itself is a comic masterpiece; it's so absurdly silly! Anyway, this accident leads our hero to the brink of madness (to which his mother responds to by asking him if he would like a sandwich), and he decides to make his girlfriend a new body from the parts of various prostitutes that he picks up. Of course, it doesn't quite go to plan, which leads him into all manner of weird troubles. James Lorinz takes the lead role of Jeffrey Franken (and his girlfriend's surname is Shelly...can you spot the tribute?). Lorinz is great as the hero for the movie, he spends a lot of it acting on his own and he more than holds the audience's interest with his speeches and great accent. A film like this needs an offbeat star; and it has one in Lorinz.

Overall, this terrifying tale of sluts and bolts is sheer comic brilliance, and if you're a fan of weird and wonderful cult films, and even if you're not; you won't want to miss Frankenhooker.

If you're a tiny bit familiar with the more light-headed and grotesque 80's horror cheese, the name Frank Hennenlotter won't sound new to you. "Basket Case" and "Brain Damage" are classics that prove creativity and dynamic motivation are actually all that is needed in order to make a fresh-looking horror film. Another triumph of ingeniousness in Hennenlotter's career is this "Frankenhooker". His most comic and personal film to date. It looks like slapstick, yet with a fair amount of gore, but it never at one point becomes entirely ridiculous or dumb. It's actually hysterical and imaginative (unless you're one of the humorless critics like so many on this review-list). A young electrician/brain surgeon (funny combination, isn't it?) loses his girl in a nasty lawnmower accident. Now, that thing alone actually made me chuckle! He wants to resurrect her, but since most of her body got hacked up, he has to collect new "parts". And where better to find those but in the red-light district of New Jersey. Naturally, both the preparations as the operation itself go horribly wrong and the 'hero' has to face absurd consequences. Like few other directors can manage, Frank Hennenlotter inserts his trademarks and typical styles. Frankenhooker is silly, but also very imaginative (exploding whores, anyone?) and it doesn't feature one dull moment. Hennenlotter surely was one of the most talented and self-educated directors in the horror industry. If he would have slightly more movies, I'm sure he would now enjoy a more justified status. I keep on hearing he will return in 2005 with a project called "Sick in the Head". Well I, for one, really hope it's true.

I very much enjoyed this twisted spoof; it's inspired. The tone is perfect, but I give a lot of credit to James Lorinz and his amusing patter. I think most B-movie guys (you know who you are) will like this. It gave me a BIG smile!

The "special" effects are deliberately bad, but match the tongue-in-cheek story. I may even track down the unrated version, which is two minutes longer.

How Director Frank Henenlotter kept everyone on the same page here is a mystery. No one stood out for (inappropriately) bad acting. The weird set pieces and oddball props work great. There is a nice progression from bizarre low-key humor to complete absurdity. It's really well constructed.

I happily give this six (6) stars.

PS Patty Mullen is a poster child for a blonde who IMHO looks better with black hair.

If they could use Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975), among other bizarre iterations, then I don't see why not have a mad scientist re-animate his girlfriend with the leftover parts of prostitutes who exploded from lethal doses of crack cocaine. Moreover, after seeing fellow Frankenstein exploitation flick "Flesh for Frankenstein" (1975), it's difficult to be shocked by such a premise as that of "Frankenhooker."

The mad scientist here is a young man named Jeffrey Franker who lives with his parents and creates his hooker monster in their garage. He has a brain with an eyeball in it that he experiments with in the house, and he uses an electric drill to literally prod his brain to come up with good ideas. It's no wonder he didn't finish med school. His garage laboratory is essentially what one would expect from generations of Frankenstein films following in the footsteps of the original design of the 1931 version, full of gizmos, beakers and the spark of life from a lightning bolt. To this, Jeffrey adds his estrogen-based blood serum, which keeps the body parts fresh. Jeffrey's girlfriend, whose name Elizabeth Shelley is a combination of the names of Dr. Frankenstein's wife from the novel and of the author of that novel, is torn to pieces by a runaway lawn mower. Jeffrey preserves what he can of her in his serum and seeks to remake the rest of her out of the body parts of prostitutes. He kills these women with an especially lethal crack formula of his own design, which causes them to explode.

It may seem pointless to analyze a film such as this, which was clearly intended to be goofy and trashy fun not to be taken seriously. But, its overriding joke regarding the objectification of women is asking for it. From the start, Elizabeth is shamed for her supposed excess weight. Jeffrey plays doctor with the prostitutes to find the best bits for her re-animated corpse--grading the women on their arms, legs and breasts and writing a check mark on his preferred buttocks. The prostitutes are stereotyped as only wanting money and drugs. I'm sure film theorists of the Freudian-Feminist, Laura Mulvey persuasion could and probably already have had a field day with this one. To top it off, the film's conclusion, as poetic justice, is a literal realization of castration anxiety. I'd like to sit in on a film theory class that screened "Frankenhooker," as opposed to old chestnuts such as the male gaze of "Rear Window" (1954). Freudian film theory, after all, already always has me rolling my eyes and chuckling--something "Frankhooker" does just as well.