Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

Though it wasn't Hammer Studios' final film, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell can be considered its swan song, an intelligent, inventive, stylized reworking of the themes that had sustained the series for almost two decades. Dr. Frankenstein has buried his old identity and reigns over an insane asylum as Dr. Victor (Peter Cushing under a flamboyant blond wig in his sixth and final turn as the mad scientist) as if it were a live-parts yard for his continuing experiments. With the help of an ambitious acolyte he builds his latest creature, a hirsute apelike brute stitched together from the asylum's most promising inhabitants and turned into a sad, tortured slave. The film was shot at the end of Hammer's glory days, and the budgetary constraints can be seen in unconvincing miniatures and the rather bulky and stiff ogre suit, but the dark, claustrophobic sets create an effectively gloomy atmosphere. Director Terence Fisher effectively pulls out all stops for a marvelous sequence of the creature digging through the asylum graveyard in the middle of a flashing electrical storm, a demonic twist on the iconic gravedigging images that go all the way back to the 1931 Frankenstein. This was the last reunion for Cushing and Fisher, who together gave birth to Hammer's gothic reign with The Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula. Fisher retired after finishing the film. --Sean Axmaker Amazon.com

Yet another great Cushing entry for Hammer

This one was a little different from the prior Cushing Frankenstein entries in that the monster was a little updated and certainly a more sympathetic creature. But he could still tear up the dickens when he was displeased!

It takes place as a young Baron Frankenstein devotee, a competent and youthful-looking surgeon, is arrested by a buffoon of a constable for sorcery and is tossed into an insane asylum. And guess who's really running the nuthouse? Baron Frankenstein (Cushing)!

The Baron rescues the young doctor from a certain life of Hell and allows him to become the facility physician, giving the Baron more time to experiment with his creature. This Frankenstein monster, by the way, gets the brain of a musical and mathematical genius... but, Alas! It becomes flawed because the Neanderthal body in which the Baron has inserted it begins to dominate and degrade these fine grey cells.

One little comment about Peter Cushing, he was looking really old in this one (which he was!), and I think it substantially benefitted his fine performance in this excellent Hammer Film entry.

As usual, the sets are great and the cinematography is just tops. I really enjoyed this fine horror film. October 22, 2007

"And how is God today?"

Terence Fisher's last film for Hammer, (ever?) sees him re-united with the excellent Peter Cushing, and doing what he does best, creating a dark, alien world with lush, watery colours, and using fluid camera tracking shots to tell a simple, gory, fairy-tale.
Fisher's influence is omnipresent in today's cinema. I saw `Pan's Labyrinth' recently and had to smile at del Toro's gentle homage, his camera moving smoothly, yet malevolently through the forest trees,(on the edge of the soldiers camp) just as Fishers so often did. And am I alone in thinking that the asylum set here at FATMFH, (though making `Cell Block H's' look like `Lord of the Rings' in terms of budget) bears more than a passing resemblance to the long-shot interiors of the good-ship Nostromo, such an important factor in the success of `Alien'.
Fisher was a straight forward story-teller. The budget restrictions he worked under saw to that. No camera pyrotechnics, no ambitious Russellian flourishes for him. No million dollar special effects, no prima-donna histrionics if he wasn't allowed more weeks to finish his latest masterpiece. A team player. A proper, old school pro.
Modern directors would pay a fortune for just a pinch of FATMFH's dank, enclosed atmosphere, and many have tried to emulate it. Tim Burton being the most obvious, with varying degrees of success. (Try shaving 90% off your budget Tim, that should do it.)
Despite the fond memories and cosy reminiscences, this film is certainly not kid-friendly. There's an ugly incest sub-plot, hints at creationist engineering involving the divine Madeline Smith, and the eye-popping (fabulous, considering the budget) operation sequences, which had my long-suffering girlfriend reaching for her trusty `green cushion' (the Ess households' equivalent of the Dr Who 'sofa') in abject abhorrence.
There's a lot to amuse as well. Cushing looks as though he's having an absolute blast as the obsessed but clearly bonkers Baron F. The `God' character; mock-solemn, but really funny in a mad-haired, drunk itinerant kind of way. A brilliantly low budget courtroom scene, where a pompous-rector judge's lines have obviously just been written ten minutes before, and the scene at the end, where one of the warders shouts "There's a monster at large!" at a mob of strung-out lunatics, makes me grin like a scalpel incision every time.
Technically, its not bad either. Music, editing and the aforementioned sets are all good (just don't look TOO closely!). The only slight reservation I have is the `monster' itself. Though facially hideous, its body looks like it's made of dusty buckram or something, draped in a muddy kaftan shawl, (sorry, I've just been watching Glastonbury.) but it's a tiny niggle.
In short, a rousing and grimly entertaining epitaph to some influential and majorly talented people.
The ultimate star rating then. Not just for the movie, which I like a lot, but for all that these people achieved, meant to me, and still do.
{I took Mr. Retrostars advice and tracked down the much-more-complete German R2 dvd,(hence the late review) as the razored `DD' release is an insult.
It's miles better. Deeper colours and the German language soundtrack is easily turned to English. Its hard to review a film (or anything!!) when big chunks of it are missing, and no, those rotters at the BBFC bear no blame this time. Well worth the extra effort.} September 27, 2007

hammer wasn't really great at this time

I mean in the late fifties and through the sixties Hammer Productions were great Like Brides of Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera and The Gorgon but this wasnt one of them This was really Weird Its the usally Hammer Frankenstein Story:
Man Meets Frankenstein, Becomes Frankenstein's Helper, Creates a Monster and then destroyes it. This was not a great Hammer Movie
although the music and sets were good I Would Reccomend stopping at "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed" March 6, 2006

Hammer's last Frankenstein a little rough around the egdes

"Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell" was Hammer's seventh and last film in their highly acclaimed Frankenstein series. While certainly not of a caliber as their earlier films, this movie is still quite enjoyable for a number of reasons, first and foremost being the return of Peter Cushing to the role after being replaced by the pallid and dull Ralph Bates for "Horror of Frankenstein". Cushing made this role his a long time ago, and he is always a joy to watch, glibly manipulating everyone around him, in this case the entire staff of an insane asylum, until everyone is working for him! Terence Fisher was back for one last go as director, and while this film falls a little short in some areas (notably the incredibly cheap-looking rubber suit of the neanderthal man-monster), Fisher's masterful handling of his actors never lets it get dull. It is a fitting conclusion to a wonderful series of films. One can only lament that Hammer's Dracula films never even approached this kind of continuity or satisfaction! March 6, 2006

The Frankenstein saga concludes

The last of the Peter Cushing Frankenstein movies opens appropriately enough with a grave robbery. The delivery of the corpse, however, is not going to Frankenstein but rather to Simon Helder, a doctor who wants to follow in Frankenstein's footsteps. He is not very successful and in fact winds up arrested and sent to an asylum for the criminally insane.

Fortunately for Helder, Frankenstein is also in this asylum. He was committed there years earlier, but with the asylum director's cooperation, has faked his death and now serves the institution as Dr. Viktor. He is indeed the inmate running the asylum, and while not attending to patients, he is continuing his experiments. Happily for Frankenstein, his position of authority finally frees him from the meddling officials who always seem to disturb his work. Helder is soon working with him, along with the beautiful but mute Sarah.

This time, Frankenstein's subject is a "neolithic" man who is monstrous in size but homicidal. When the "monster" almost dies in an escape attempt, Frankenstein takes it upon himself to fix him up, giving him new hands, eyes and a brain. Of course, things go awry and the monster goes on a rampage. (As a note of trivia: this movie has David Prowse as the monster; he would go on to work with Cushing in Star Wars.)

The Hammer Frankenstein movies are a fun set, particularly due to Cushing. Unlike the Universal Frankenstein series, the focus is on the scientist, not the monster. Colin Clive, who is probably the most well-known Frankenstein from the Karloff movie (and despite the quality of the Hammer movies, none can top Universal's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein), played the scientist as an obsessed genius. Cushing is driven less by obsession and more by arrogance, which often drives him into a villainy that Clive's Frankenstein would never have dared.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is not a perfect movie, but it does not have some nice moments. Overall, it rates a low four stars, not bad, but not spectacular either.
February 1, 2006

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