Ah, tonight we have another classic horror flick, The Revenge of Frankenstein. Peter Cushing stars in this one, and I'm not sure if he's done other frankenstein movies for Hammer film studios before this one was released or not, but I suspect that this is the end of this particular series of movies.
Basically, all of us know the story of Frankenstein by this point, but what you don't know is what happened after. According to this version, Dr. Frankenstein was sentenced to death by guillotine, but was saved at the last moment by a couple of thugs who joined his employ while he was in prison. I'm not really sure how he got them to do his dirty work, but I suspect large sums of gold and promises of immortality were involved. In any case, the world believes that Dr Frankenstein is dead...
Meanwhile, in nearby germany, a Dr. Stein sets up a medical practice, and begins harvesting useless limbs and body parts from the poor people who come to see him. Despite practically amputating every limb he can find, he is apparently so popular that the medical council of the city he's in decide to have him join their council or else... well, to be honest, they can't really do anything to stop him, but they really want him on their council. So they send a delegation of doctors to entreat him to join them one last time. He refuses. However, one of the younger doctors recognizes his face from a funeral he had attended years before, a funeral attended by none other than... BARON VICTOR VON FRANKENSTEIN!!!! :-O (sounds of thunder seem to come from nowhere)
Luckily, the young doctor doesn't want to expose Dr. Stein, oh no, what he wants is knowledge! And so they come upon a bargain, Dr Stein needs an assistant for his work, and the young Dr. will keep silent about who Dr Stein really is in exchange for learning everything that Dr. Stein knows about... The REANIMATION OF DEAD TISSUE!!!! :-o (thunder crashes again, longer and louder this time)
One of the men who saved Dr Fra.. err, "Dr. Stein" from the guillotine is actually a cripple, and in exchange for saving him, he wants a new body. So, Dr. Stein assembles a body from spare parts he keeps laying around his lab, and VOILA! A new frankenstein's monster is born!!!! :-o (more thunder, but I think that's the end of my flatulence for now)
No no no, that's not it at all. See, what happened with the first monster was merely some brain damage. Moving a brain into a new body is extremely traumatic, as you'd expect, and basically, as Dr. Stein explains to his new assistant, the brain needs time to adjust to its new body before it can handle any stress. The old "frankenstein's monster" was merely a psychotically brain-damaged person in a body suffering from extreme pain and stress. As an example, Dr. Stein indicates a lab monkey which has developed a taste for meat, due to some severe stress that the animal experienced right after its brain transplant, one of the Doctor's early experiments.
In any case, we've got Dr Stein's henchman, Karl, adjusting to his new body rather nicely. Far from being a monster, he's a ... heh... "well-made" man about 6 feet in height who merely has a few scars that could have come from anywhere. Karl's brain is quite stable, intelligent and far from being damaged in any way. However, Karl has a crush on a certain lab assistant that has recently joined Dr Stein's employ... FRAU BLEUCHER! (horse whinnies from nowhere)
No no no, what the hell, where did that come from? Her name isn't Frau Bleucher (horse whinnies) at all (looks around to see where the horse noises are coming from, sees nothing, looks confused). Karl escapes from his quiet little room with her help, and rather than face a life of medical curiousity as the first human brain transplant, he decides to destroy his old body and begin a new life with the young lady. However, he is set upon by a beastly landlord who watches out for Dr. Stein's interests, and of course doesn't recognize Karl in his new body. Karl, a rather effeminite man to begin with, is certainly not used to trying to defend himself, and is beaten senseless by the stodgy old landlord. Unfortunately, the damage to Karl's brain and the stress of the beating have triggered an effect much like what happened with the monkey, and Karl kills the landlord, then begins a short-lived but murderous feeding frenzy!!! :-o
Okay, actually he only really kills one poor girl and doesn't actually feed on her, but still... Karl then heads to the house of his lady love, where he runs into Dr. Stein, who is searching high and low for Karl in an effort to try and help him. Karl, his brain fevered, in agony and apparently dying, shouts out Dr. Stein's real name in the midst of a formal party... BARON VICTOR VON FRANKENSTEIN!!!!!! :-o
Well, I won't give away the ending, but it was a pretty decent movie. I'd seen the beginning several times but had never managed to get to the end. Crackle.com came through for me again, but I don't know how long I can keep this up. Their collection of horror movies is nowhere near as extensive as my own. I look forward to friday night's TCM horror-fest-a-thon thingy to hopefully fill some gaps. My only hope is I can still maintain something of a life while trying to be home every day long enough to find a movie, watch and then post about it. lol Oh, who am I kidding, like I have a life to interrupt! ;-)
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