This is the first effort I have checked out from cult figure Henenlotter (though I owned another 2) and, on the strength of which, I acquired a couple more; for the record, I opted to watch it now as part of a belated mini-Frankenstein marathon to complement my recent James Whale retrospective. The film's disarming marriage of black humor and gory effects is comparable to the style of Stuart Gordon (of whose work I am familiar with seven movies) – although, to be fair to him, Henenlotter came first. It is obviously an updated version of the 'man-made monster' myth (though the director says, in the accompanying Audio Commentary, that he was actually inspired by the minor cult THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE [1962]), infused with a quirky touch and a good deal of naïve charm (particularly the two lead performances).
The plot concerns a young man with a penchant for science whose girlfriend dies horribly mangled in a freak garden accident (during a birthday party no less). A very funny bit here has his mother – played by Louise Lasser, the ex-Mrs. Woody Allen – cluelessly offering help by asking if he wants a sandwich right as he has finished spouting off a diatribe of existentialist angst! Thereafter, he contrives to revive the girl...only he requires a fresh body; to this end, he scours the city streets by night (also landing in a bar presided over by burly Shirley Stoler of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS [1969] and SEVEN BEAUTIES [1975] fame) in search of a prostitute or, rather, prostitutes since he now intends giving his girl the perfect figure. Organizing a party in order to choose the specimens (which he nonchalantly ticks with a permanent marker as they parade by him half-undressed!), the girls overdose on his specially-prepared "Supercrack" narcotic – which causes them to explode and mess the place up (hilariously, when their macho pimp smells a rat and goes up to the hero's room, he is knocked out by the flying head of one of the hookers on opening the door)!
Interestingly, this is the first Frankenstein movie I have come across where the probability of diverse complexions within the monster's body is addressed – so that parts of it are pale-white and others are dark-toned, or even black! However, one thing that baffled me was why, if he kept the original girl's head (and, one assumes, brain), did the creature then revert to exclusively adopting the prostitutes' lingo! That said, the scenes where she goes to look for clients herself, lumbering around in her over-sized boots and twitching her face (I assume, to show that she was still getting used to it but, again, this is the one the girl always had!) and then have them literally combust under her are quite amusing. The climax has the pimp beheading the hero for having destroyed his fount of income, after which he is himself killed by the remaining body parts of his own girls – which are suddenly freed from storage and rise again grotesquely misshapen as if something out of John Carpenter's THE THING (1982)! The coda, then, sees the heroine (somewhat predictably but none the worse for that) re-animate her boyfriend/creator by following his own meticulous experiment notes!
P.S. Given that BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) is my all-time favorite horror film and that I would soon follow this viewing with that of Alain Jessua's FRANKENSTEIN 90 (1984), it was quite amusing for me to hear the creation sequence here underscored by music highly redolent of Franz Waxman's celebrated one for the former and that Henenlotter had initially intended calling his own concoction – shot, we are told, back-to-back with BASKET CASE 2! – like the latter (of which, presumably, he was unaware)!
The plot concerns a young man with a penchant for science whose girlfriend dies horribly mangled in a freak garden accident (during a birthday party no less). A very funny bit here has his mother – played by Louise Lasser, the ex-Mrs. Woody Allen – cluelessly offering help by asking if he wants a sandwich right as he has finished spouting off a diatribe of existentialist angst! Thereafter, he contrives to revive the girl...only he requires a fresh body; to this end, he scours the city streets by night (also landing in a bar presided over by burly Shirley Stoler of THE HONEYMOON KILLERS [1969] and SEVEN BEAUTIES [1975] fame) in search of a prostitute or, rather, prostitutes since he now intends giving his girl the perfect figure. Organizing a party in order to choose the specimens (which he nonchalantly ticks with a permanent marker as they parade by him half-undressed!), the girls overdose on his specially-prepared "Supercrack" narcotic – which causes them to explode and mess the place up (hilariously, when their macho pimp smells a rat and goes up to the hero's room, he is knocked out by the flying head of one of the hookers on opening the door)!
Interestingly, this is the first Frankenstein movie I have come across where the probability of diverse complexions within the monster's body is addressed – so that parts of it are pale-white and others are dark-toned, or even black! However, one thing that baffled me was why, if he kept the original girl's head (and, one assumes, brain), did the creature then revert to exclusively adopting the prostitutes' lingo! That said, the scenes where she goes to look for clients herself, lumbering around in her over-sized boots and twitching her face (I assume, to show that she was still getting used to it but, again, this is the one the girl always had!) and then have them literally combust under her are quite amusing. The climax has the pimp beheading the hero for having destroyed his fount of income, after which he is himself killed by the remaining body parts of his own girls – which are suddenly freed from storage and rise again grotesquely misshapen as if something out of John Carpenter's THE THING (1982)! The coda, then, sees the heroine (somewhat predictably but none the worse for that) re-animate her boyfriend/creator by following his own meticulous experiment notes!
P.S. Given that BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) is my all-time favorite horror film and that I would soon follow this viewing with that of Alain Jessua's FRANKENSTEIN 90 (1984), it was quite amusing for me to hear the creation sequence here underscored by music highly redolent of Franz Waxman's celebrated one for the former and that Henenlotter had initially intended calling his own concoction – shot, we are told, back-to-back with BASKET CASE 2! – like the latter (of which, presumably, he was unaware)!