Post by tav7623 on Oct 24, 2010 12:33:20 GMT -5
"I've harmed no body, just robbed a few graves"- Baron Frankenstein
Or so Baron Frankenstein claims to the priest who has come to bear witness before the Baron's execution in the opening scenes of Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein the studio's attempt at remaking/making altered versions of Universal Studios Monsters. The Curse of Frankenstein was made on an approx $600,000 dollar budget, was released on June 25th, 1957 and went on to gross approx $7 million dollars in the US alone. Curse was written by future Hammer legendary screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, directed by Hammer's legendary director Terence Fischer, and stars Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, and Christopher Lee as The Monster. The plot of Curse centers on Baron Frankenstein (Cushing) now in jail confessing to a priest about the events leading up to his incarceration in the prison and how he and his mentor Paul (Urquhart) came to create a creature (Lee) made out of human body parts stolen from local graves, how the creature came was to blame for the murders he was accused of commiting.
Pros: good cinematography, acting, editing, set design, and some decent special effects
Cons: script isn't all that it's cracked up to because it alters a key characters personality to one that clashes with the characters previous well known personality
Overall I give The Curse of Frankenstein a 5.5 out of 10 for decent special effects, good cinematography, acting, editing, and set design. While these things would generally be good enough to garner at least a 7 I feel that the script,which isn't as good as it could have been despite at least attempting to take a risk by altering Baron Frankenstein's core personality from a man with noble goals who ends up going too far to a man so determined to cheat death that he will do anything (even murder) he can to succeed. It is this alteration which ultimately undermines the character's sympathetic plea throughout the prison scenes and makes him even more villainous (he cheats on his girlfriend/fiance, who is also his cousin with a maid who he has the creature kill when she tries to blackmail him into marrying her, he plots and follows through with the murder of a good friend just so that he can steal the man's brain) than he was previously depicted in the Universal Frankenstein movies. Sadly this personality would eventually be carried over to the rest of Hammer's Frankenstein sequels of which there are I believe five. I would recommend this movie if you are a fan of the Hammer Horrors or if you are interested in revisiting classic horror movies. Though be warned if you are a fan of the book and are looking for a more faithful adaptation than the Universal version than don't watch this movie because it takes things even further from the source material than the Universal version. Also if you are hoping for a bloodier/gorier take on the Frankenstein tale then you will be slightly disappointed because this movie has some blood but mostly already on clothing (you don't see the blood actually spilling/dripping) and the gore is relegated to jarred human body parts.
I hope you enjoyed the review I will be back tomorrow with the Day 7 review of the Frances Ford Coppola directer Bram Stoker's Dracula.