Log in or Sign up. Jedi Council Forums. Registered: Aug 4, Registered: Oct 11, Yes, it's Baron Frankenstein, not Count. I dunno, Merlin , the local TV station used to run every Hammer Horror film ever made in constant rotation with the AIP horror flicks "Witchfinder General" is the source of one my fave ever movie quotes. The star Vincent Price to the very young director: "I've made 87 movies; what have you done?
Slasher movies, I admit to not liking. Zaz , Apr 24, I used to think this movie was good, based on its closer adherence to the novel than other versions I'd seen, but boy was I woefully mistaken. This thing is a ham-fisted mess, with the excellent photography and high production values only serving to underscore what a failure the rest of the picture is.
I should say " most of the rest", because Quaid's performance is solid and Bergen ain't so bad either. But to quote Maude Lebowski, the script is ludicrous. All of Shelley's major beats are here: The opening at the Arctic Circle, the flash-back to Victor's studies at Ingolstadt, the creation of the Monster, the killing of William, etc.
But the presentation of these events is unrealistic, the dialogue re-worked into lurid cliches, the characters' motivations left murky. Bergen is too old to play a college student. The actress playing Elizabeth is awful. Worse, the Monster is some kind of clone copy of Frankenstein, and not at all sewn together out of corpses. This unfortunate "clone" plot point leads to a psychic link between the Monster and Victor, which finds a mild pay-off at the climax but is otherwise useless and annoying.
I could go on, but that about sums it up. Yes, for the Shelley purist, there are some elements here from the novel which are absent from the classic Universal and Hammer versions; and in that, at least, this movie is interesting. Certainly Quaid's performance, all angst and anger, makes the picture worth watching for any fan or admirer of the character. Now for the third and final "true" adaptation of Shelley's novel, the only other film that remains nominally faithful to the source material: Kenneth Branagh's version.
