Lust for Frankenstein

A sexy lesbian Frankenstein with large breasts. As in most of Jess Franco's recent work not much plot, just a very erotic and bizarre take on Mary Shelley's classic tale of Frankenstein (1931) with the nude Scream Queen Michelle Bauer [Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)], as the monster with a strange voice, and Franco favorite and aging life companion Lina Romay [Female Vampire (1973); Tender Flesh (1997)] as the sex-starved mad scientist. Her long dead father was of course Dr. Frankenstein, and he has been appearing in her dreams, which sets her off on a mission to make her own creature. The monster becomes jealous, and enraged at her masters sexual encounters, and destroys all who come near. Shot on video with a new American production company called One Shot Productions, it is great to see Franco still making films after all these years. Make sure to pay attention to the weird digital layering effects and the strange industrial metal music. The Shock-O-Rama DVD comes with both the US, and euro version, as well as a Michelle Bauer interview.

I don't have much of any experience with evaluating these kinds of films (one could criticize the film for excessive nudity, but that's kind of the point of the subgenre), so I'll do my best at reviewing it. Its story wasn't the easiest to follow and the poor quality of the dialogue didn't help much, but I think I got the gist of what was going on. To get what I enjoyed out of the way, I liked the use of colored filters for several sequences, a few shots which obscured the actors in shadows worked pretty well, and the soundtrack was nice as well. Overall though, I was deeply unengaged with the film. I got that Moira had to lure victims for the monster to kill, but this premise grew thin rather quickly and that the film seemed half an hour longer than it needed to be didn't help much. So yeah, story was kind of just whatever, but the style made up for this to a degree as this is the kind of bizarre, risk-taking film that's hard for me to hate. Also, in spite of what I said about the story, I did enjoy the final scene with Moira's former husband as a confirmation that she had lost interest in him (I have no idea what was going on after that though). So yeah, I don't have a lot to say for this one, but I'm curious to hear what some other people have to say about it.

Senile creator of celluloid crud Jess Franco is perhaps the only director inept enough to make gorgeous scream queen Michelle Bauer look unattractive. The star of THE TOMB & HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS might not be in her "prime" anymore, but here she looks bloated and dumpy. Yet, in films made around the same time, Bauer still looks GREAT!!! Plus, why on earth did Franco give her that ridiculous half-penis???? At any rate ... yikes, this film STINKS!!!! No, really, it's virtually UNWATCHABLE. Lina Romay -- DEFINITELY past her prime as a '70s sex symbol -- is a wretched descendant of Dr. Frankenstein who revives his hermaphoditic monster, "Goddess," and has frequent lesbian sex with it. These sex scenes are, perhaps, the LEAST erotic things ever committed to film!!!! Please, avoid this atrocity at all costs -- it's not even "so bad it's funny," it's simply PAINFUL!

Lust for Frankenstein (1998)

* (out of 4)

Softcore take on the famous story has Moira Frankenstein (Lina Romay) seeing a vision of her dead father and bringing back his creature (Michelle Bauer). Franco had previously made two other Frankenstein films, both in the 70s and while neither of them are classics they certainly are miles better than this thing, which is just downright trash. The film pretty much brought a new style in Franco's career, which has become known as the One Shot years. I'm not a fan of this period and for countless reasons that could be seen here. For starters, the film looks incredibly cheap even by Franco standards with its digital video. The movie features all sorts of strange visual effects, which don't add anything. The worst thing is that the film is pretty much disgusting as it features the elderly Romay in all sorts of sexual situations. She's certainly seen better days and I'm not meaning to insult the elderly folks out there but when you make an erotic movie it's probably better that you show two young people making out the entire time. I think it's a sad state for Romay who really comes off bad in this film but it would get worse with future One Shot films. If someone can find an actual story in this movie then they'll win a dollar from me because I couldn't spot one.

What the hell was this movie about? What was the point of it? What were they thinking when they made it?

You should not - I repeat, NOT - spend a cent of your own money to watch this crap. But if there was some kind of a fly-on-the-wall documentary available, that might shed light on what they were thinking, I'd pay good money to see it.

What happened to Jess Franco? He started out with a classic horror film, 1961's "The Awful Dr. Orloff", and just drove his talent straight into the ground. This isn't even really a movie.

Ignore any "plot description" you might find online. This movie has no plot. It's also not related to the classic Frankenstein story in any sense at all. The movie basically just shows Lina Romay wandering around, often undressed, and Michelle Bauer naked with fake stitches on her body and bolts on her temples. It is amusing to see her stomping naked up to people and killing them by twisting their heads, which she does once or twice. What the hell did she think about her role in this movie? Some might say it's kind of degrading.

Who wants the sight of their naked body to be met with laughter? Especially a beautiful woman like Michelle Bauer.

The movie has minimal dialogue, and what it does have is weirdly filtered so you can't understand it. Much of the footage is also filtered, so that even on DVD, it looks like you're watching a decaying VHS tape. Actually, these visual effects are so weird and pointless and ugly that I wonder if they were even done on purpose. Perhaps Franco just spilled something on the lens, or accidentally pointed it at the sun and didn't realise until too late.

You know, the kind of mistakes you'd expect from a forty year veteran of the film business.

There are only two things you could possibly remember about "Lust for Frankenstein". One is the shocking ineptitude in its filmmaking, and I believe I have made that point strongly enough. The other is the fact that the movie features a liberal dose of sex and nudity from its two middle-aged stars. There are regrettably few movies in which we are given an opportunity to admire the beautiful bodies of 40+ year old ladies. It's such a shame, then, that they had to use such a crappy movie to provide us that.