Frankenstein vs. the Mummy

Maybe the intent was to make a modern-day equivalent of some of those Universal Monsters crossover movies from way back in the 30s and 40s, but it feels more like Damien Leone making an Asylum film, sadly. I think it's better than the handful of Asylum releases I've seen, but that doesn't mean I'd go so far as to call it good.

Also, anyone who feels Terrifier 2 is too long will have whatever the opposite of a field day is with Frankenstein vs. The Mummy. Some of those Universal movies were 60 to 70 minutes long, and this one should've taken inspiration from that aspect of them.

At least the Mummy looked kind of cool. We could use a good gory/modern-day full-horror take on the Mummy one of these days.

If we were reviewing college movies, I would give this a solid 5, and B for the movie making class.

But since this is a real movie, it's just barf. To be fair, I took one look at the terrible post production, flat acting, and fast forwarded right through it at 20x. I caught maybe one action scene. They get an extra point for decent makeup.

Some of the issues might be fixed by a re-edit and better post production. It needs to be really tightened up. I'm surprised no one stopped the director and asked them, what they were doing.

This is MST:3k material.

In New York, the professor of the medical university Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Max Rhyser) is buying body parts from the janitor Carter to build a corpse and reanimate it. The Egyptologist Naihla Khalil (Ashton Leigh), from the same university, has just returned from an expedition and brought the Mummy of Usekara (Brandon deSpain), an evil and cruel pharaoh that was cursed, leaving his soul trapped in his mummified corpse. Victor and Naihla have a crush on each other and they date. Meanwhile Professor Walton (Boomer Tibbs), who is chief of department where Naihla works, accidentally releases Usekara's soul and is possessed by him. He kills his assistant Isaac (Robert MacNaughton) and his blood awakes the Mummy. Then Walton lures his student Lenora (Stefanie Merola) and the Mummy eats her heart. Frankenstein's monster (Constantin Tripes) is reanimated and Victor is surprised with his capacity. But soon both monsters want Naihla: Frankenstein's creature to force Victor to transfer his brain to a new body and the Mummy believes she is the sorcerer that trapped his soul and wants Naihla to call off the spell. What will happen to Naihla?

"Frankenstein vs. The Mummy" is an entertaining horror movie that uses the classic Universal monsters. There are good lines, but the limited budget limits the film to few characters. The exotic beauty of Ashton Leigh is impressive and the plot is well resolved. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not available on DVD or Blu-Ray.

I stumbled upon "Frankenstein vs The Mummy" in 2019, and hadn't even heard about it up until now. Granted with a title such as this, I can't really claim to have held any hopes up particularly high for the chance of being in for a grand movie experience here. But still, the movie does have two very iconic horror characters in it, and that was more than sufficient to make me give the movie a chance.

The script and storyline in "Frankenstein vs The Mummy" was straight forward, which at least counted for something. But at the same time it was so horribly simplified that it offered nothing for the audience, it didn't require the audience to do any thinking or participation of any kind. You just shut down, sit back and watch the movie as it unfolds on the screen.

The effects in the movie were adequate and actually were on the better end of the mediocre movie special effects scale - if there is such a thing. By that I mean that there are monster movies out there with far, far worse special effects than what was present on the screen in "Frankenstein vs The Mummy". The mummy was actually quite decent to look at, whereas the Frankenstein golem was sort of not all that great, especially because his torso and arms were ordinary skin colored, whereas his face had a sick yellow hue, it just didn't look natural and looked so askew that it stole focus from everything else. That was just bad in terms of monster make-up.

Now, as for the acting, well let's just say that you will not be in for any award winning performances here. But given the concept of the movie, then you know aforehand what you are getting yourself into. Mind you, I am not saying that the actors and actresses here were bad; I am merely saying that it was adequate performances taking into consideration the script and material they had to work with.

Take heed, as the movie is branded as 'horror'. Well, it might rightfully be so by default because of the mummy and Frankenstein's golem, but the movie wasn't particularly scary. It felt more like a movie that tried to embrace multiple genres all at once but failing to do so with grace and good execution. Don't sit down to watch this movie if you expect a proper horror movie.

I sat through the entire movie, and found it to be adequate entertainment for sure. However, it is hardly a movie that will find its way back to my movie system for a second viewing, because the movie just doesn't have the contents to support multiple viewings.

Perfectly acceptable throwback of a picture with more traditional Universal inspired monsters. The film has a good script, good acting for the most part, and does wonders in the set design, makeup and gore effects for a low budget feature.

Damien Leone shows he's capable as a director, though the film could have benefitted from some tighter editing. It's too long at almost 2 hours, and could have been a topnotch, better paced movie at 90 minutes. Also, with the budget restraints we don't get enough wide shots, which gives the film a bit of a claustrophobic feel. Still, I'm going to check out the director's other films.