| Product: |
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (DVD) |
| Date: |
24.02.08 (76 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Peter Cushing and all the usual Hammer hallmarks
Disadvantages: Ends a little abruptly
A review of the Warner DVD.
This is classic Hammer, from 1969. It has a much darker, nastier feel to it than most of their horror movies, perhaps because by 1969 horror films *had* to be nasty. But it's still somehow an archetypal Hammer horror.
Baron Frankenstein is trying to perfect brain transplants. Learning of a pioneer in the field who is incurably insane, he decides to break him out of the asylum and cure him. Blackmailing his pretty young landlady and her doctor fiancé into helping, things don't quite go to plan. But the Baron will let nothing stand in his way.
This was Hammer's fifth Frankenstein film. Unlike their Dracula series, the quality of their Frankensteins remained high, for the most part. Although there's some continuity between them, you won't need to have seen any of the others in order to understand this one. All you need to know is that Frankenstein is a mad scientist with an interest in animating cadavers.
Frankenstein is played by Peter Cushing, Hammer's greatest asset. He has a certain, dandyish charm about him, but he's at his best when he's ruthlessly pursuing his goals. He's dangerously obsessed and completely amoral. The casual ease with which he bends others to his will is unpleasant, and he's a lot nastier here than in most of the other Frankenstein films. Cushing also gives an energetic physical performance, getting into two fist fights (sadly his health would desert him within a few years; he was rarely this virile in subsequent films). Apart from a very obvious hairpiece he is perfect.
The rest of the cast... well, it's a Hammer film. So expect bland juvenile leads and older character actors hamming it up. Veronica Carlson and Simon Ward are the callow-faced couple blackmailed by Cushing, and they do more or less what's needed of them without making a great impact. They're both pretty enough to serve their purpose. Older actors include Thorley Walters as a truly annoying police inspector. And look out for Windsor Davies in a small role, and some top notch 'mad' acting from an asylum inmate.
The standout in the supporting cast is Freddie Jones as the monster (or what passes as a monster in this film). He gives a great little performance, far more pathetic than scary, although I don't want to give anything away. Apart from Pennies from Heaven, I've never seen him do anything better than this.
It's very much a typical Hammer film in many respects. Functional direction from Terence Fisher, lurid colours, a nice laboratory set with lots of bubbling flasks, and splashes of blood. The music is as over-wrought as ever. But in other respects this is a much nastier film than Hammer usually made. The gore and surgery scenes seem to be a bit more explicit than usual. There's a very nice scene where a burst water main disturbs a corpse in a garden, making Frankenstein seem far more like a run-of-the-mill serial killer than usual. And there's even a (very polite) rape scene, although this is completely out of character. It was included at the insistence of the co-producers. The actors were reportedly unhappy about doing it, which seems to show in what we see on screen.
Above all, the main character here is a nasty piece of work. In previous Hammer films Frankenstein was at least notionally working for the good of mankind, even if he was misguided and ruthless. Here he is an abomination. The real horror in the film isn't the business with cadavers and surgical saws, it's the way he casually destroys the lives of the people he's forced himself upon. He can switch from charm to cold eyed ruthlessness in a second. This feels closer to something like Witchfinder General than it does to The Devil Rides Out.
It's not perfect, of course. It's about ten minutes too long. One important plot strand just stops without any kind of resolution, and the ending is far too sudden (this is often the case with Hammer's films, but here we're left uncertain as to the fate of one of the main characters, which is downright sloppy). It also contains one of the clunkiest exposition scenes I've ever seen - there are few things that try the patience more than characters telling each other things they already know for the benefit of the audience.
The DVD has wonderful picture quality. There's a trailer included, which is interesting enough I guess. It can be got for about £7 on amazon. It's an 18 certificate, which seems a little harsh. If you enjoy a Hammer horror, you really have to see this one.
Summary: A classy Hammer horror
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