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.
