La maledizione dei Frankenstein

Of all the many films in the longstanding Hammer Frankenstein series, after "The Curse of Frankenstein," I like this one the best. It has a classic, almost mythic, structure of the lover who sacrifices himself to preserve the virtue of his beloved and a good deal of existential discussion about human nature. But beyond the heavy academics of its plot, Peter Cushing is truly great here. He's completely sympathetic, intelligent, and witty as a man struggling outside society's version of morality. Some people criticize Terence Fisher as a director who--apart from "Dracula" and "The Devil Rides Out"--had a static and slow-paced directorial style. They're completely wrong. Fisher was a master of the medium, a genius of composition whose films demonstrate so much intelligence. I miss the 1960's, Fisher, and Hammer Films.

Peter Cushing returns as Baron Frankenstein in the fourth and possibly strongest of Hammers Frankenstein movies. Directed by Terence Fisher, it sees Susan Denberg killing herself after seeing her lover unjustly framed for murder and guillotined. She is resurrected by the Baron and his assistant (played by Thorley Walters), with her lover's soul in her, and sets off to avenge his death. Hammer went for something different here, the focus being on the metaphysical dimensions of Frankenstein's work as opposed to the physical, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body. Critics seemed to hate it, but it has an army of fans including Martin Scorsese, who picked the movie as part of a 1987 National Film Theatre season of his favourite films. Released the same year as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Summer of Love, this movie has some very far out notions upon which its plot hangs, yet it never descends into campiness or melodrama, and is just a great Peter Cushing Frankenstein film.

As I watch more Hammer films, it strikes me just how sad so many of them are.

Innocents and lost souls find themselves in a similar place in the afterlife, and it never ends happily for them there either. Here you have Susan Denberg, born with a facial disfigurement, taunted by the local toffs, who then sees her boyfriend executed. And that's just the start of her problems before an inevitable downbeat ending.

Hammer horror films, these days, are usually remembered mostly for Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and also quite often for their campness. But they're almost always quite serious-minded horror tales that rarely have the get-out of a joke or a comedy character. They're also surprisingly aware in terms of societal issues. I can just imagine the three upper-class blokes who taunt Denberg here being members of the Bullingdon Club or something.

Certainly one of the better or even best Hammer films that I've seen.

Attempting to continue his experiments, the Baron finds that the opportunity to transfer the soul of a young man into a recently-deceased young woman instead sets her out to avenge the group who framed him for death and causing him to try to stop her.

Overall this one was quite decent if slightly flawed. Among the finer points here are the rather fun experiments being conducted for there's plenty of time here working in the lab to complete matters fully throughout here. The opening attempts to bring him back to life from being in the freezer is quite nice by setting up the later work here with the soul that comprises the middle here where he begins going through the different resources possible for his contraptions here to bring that along even further along with the actual transference procedure where they bring about the change-over here of having the two changing his soul into their equipment and then into the girl for another really enjoyable sequence. The later scenes here of them getting her through the recovery process which includes the walking around learning to how to walk and the gratification of the changes made to her appearance due to the change as well as the return to the guillotine which brings about the shock of the opening death of the father there which is all quite fun here. The revenge part here is even better with the person talking in voices and switching into the other voice here to signify the changes as the tense stalking in the pub and out into the countryside as she goes after the last one on the picnic in the woods here so there's a rather fine series of kills in here. These here give this one enough to like overall that it holds off the few flaws within. The main issue here is that there's so little actual horror in here that it can feel very dull at times with the film really holding back how quickly paced this really could've been as a lot of what happens isn't too scary. The majority of time here isn't all that scary here with the continued ramifications of his father's past connecting with his own future from all the townspeople, their budding romance and another instance where the villagers are indeed afraid of the Baron through his reputation but aren't capable of doing anything about it here which in itself is yet another big flaw here as all of these here found throughout the first half just don't make this into much of a horror film. These here are just so bland that, though they do serve as the cause of the revenge later on, it just drags on for quite a while here taking it's time with the overloading these points that becomes very bland overall, and is one of the biggest issues here. Once again, the distrustful natives isn't too original being here, while the other big flaw here is the really abrupt ending which is such a sadden stop that it's hard to believe nothing more involved wasn't used here as it seems to be mere seconds after the revenge is taken that there's the chase and then the ending which for once could've used some stretching out here to really take advantage of what's going on. Otherwise, this one is a lot of fun.

Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence and the aftermath of a sexual encounter.

Susan Denberg was a Playboy Playmate in 1966, and had four screen appearances, before she went back to Europe. She becomes Dr. Frankenstein's latest subject.

Each of these films seem to get more and more elaborate as Dr. Frankenstein stretches the bounds of science. Of course, one has to believe in the existence of a soul to follow his logic, but that is his definition of life.

After her boyfriend Hans (Robert Morris) is unjustly executed for a murder committed by three spoiled rich kids, Christina (Denberg) takes her own life. But, Frankenstein works his magic and puts Hans soul into Christina and the horror begins as they take their revenge.