The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818) was a key genre novel by Mary Shelley. It tells the story of the title scientist who builds a man using body parts taken from corpses and brings it to life. Horrified at what he has created, he shuns the monster. It flees but returns to torment his life, demanding that it build him a mate. It is the cornerstone work of the Mad Scientist theme.
The first film version was Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein (1910). The most influential one was Universal’s Frankenstein (1931) with Boris Karloff as a slow, stumbling monster, a far cry from Shelley’s articulate creation. Nevertheless this caught on with audiences and Karloff’s pitiful monster became an iconic horror figure. Universal put the monster and assorted Frankenstein descendants through various sequels, teamed them with other of their in-house monster and finally up against Abbott and Costello. Karloff’s creation has been much imitated, even turned into children’s toys.
The story was remade by UK’s Hammer Films with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) starring Peter Cushing as Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the monster. This took much more of an horrific focus and Hammer made a string of sequels where Cushing’s Baron became the continuing character.
There were numerous other Frankenstein films, ranging from modernisations, children’s films to high school and Blaxploitation versions to battles with Japanese monsters to other crossovers between the famous monsters. There were plentiful comedies, reaching a peak with Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974), a parody of the Universal films that produced a number of copies.
Beginning with several 1970s tv adaptations, there was a concerted body of films that made an effort to go back and be more faithful to the original, returning to the period setting and reintroducing an intelligent monster and many of the key elements of the book. The Frankenstein film has gradually tapered off in importance since the 1980s, although films and new adaptations are still being made
There have also been a number of works both autobiographical and fanciful that depict Mary Shelley’s life and the meeting between her, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816 where the book was conceived.
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
An outrageous gore-drenched version of the Frankenstein story that frequently ventures into bad taste. Despite his name in the title, Andy Warhol had nothing to do with the film
This comes with an insane mash-ups of ideas – modern day Frankenstein monster is thrown back in time to the Civil War (in a process that also creates multiple copies) and ends up fighting on the Northern side
A standout modern variant on the Frankenstein film where two women conspire to cross waaay over medical ethic lines to revive a child from the dead
Blacula was a big Blaxploitation hit and was quickly followed by this Blaxploitation take on the Frankenstein film. While others that followed did great things, this only seems a quickie designed to jump aboard the fad
The amusing idea of the Frankenstein story relocated to a modern high school – and with no less than later-to-be superstar Ryan Reynolds as the monster
Lushly mounted remake of Bride of Frankenstein with Sting as Frankenstein and Jennifer Beals as the Bride. More costume drama than it ever is a horror story.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s reinterpretation of The Bride of Frankenstein is the first spectacularly bad film of the 2020s. Jessie Buckley gives an absurdly unrestrained performance and the film’s tone veers all over the place
The first sequel to the 1931 Boris Karloff Frankenstein, which many prefer to the original. Director James Whale comes into his element and provides a whole other level of droll humour that the first film did not have
The third in a trilogy of satirical films from director Lindsay Anderson and star Malcolm McDowell, this takes a biting crosscut of British society as a hospital prepares for a royal visit
Twelfth of the popular British comedy series, here the Carry On team conduct a bawdy farce on the Hammer horror film that was all the in-thing at the time
A young man recuperates from a brain injury while tended by his father. As he tries to piece together what happened, we discover we are in the midst of a Frankenstein-type film
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
This and The Horror of Dracula the following year set Hammer Films on the map. A remake of Frankenstein very different to the 1931 version that comes in vibrant colour and places Peter Cushing’s ruthlessly amoral Baron at the centre of the show
Satiric hit produced by Roger Corman, a spoof of Rollerball, with David Carradine as a driver in a futuristic road race where points are won by running down pedestrians. Also featuring a young unknown Sylvester Stallone
Death Race 2000 was a hit for producer Roger Corman. It was remade minus the satire as a straight action film with Death Race; here Corman remakes the original (albeit very cheaply) and restores the satire
Larry Fessenden has become a horror director who has made some fine work that remain under the commercial radar. This is his modernised take on the Frankenstein story
An excruciatingly bad mad scientist film about a scientist tying to find a body to reattach his wife’s head. This treads only where Re-Animator went before. Much of this feels like it should have been played as a comedy
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
One of several Dracula vs Frankenstein crossover films that came out in the early 1970s. This version comes from cult exploitation director Jesus Franco but squanders the opportunities of a great title match
This was one several different films with the same title that came out around the same time. This painful effort comes from Spanish horror star Paul Naschy who plays his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninksy
One of the great title matches of all-time and a surprise that Universal never thought to do it. In the hands of Z-budget director Al Adamson it is a wasted opportunity nd Zandor Vorkov the worst screen Dracula ever
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp in one of their best collaborations. Burton creates this sweet oddball fable that is a take on Frankenstein where the monster becomes an alienated youth with scissors for hands
Fascinatingly original anime set in an alternate history Steampunk version of Victorian England that has developed a technology based on Frankenstein’s corpse resurrection experiments
This was the third of Hammer’s Frankenstein films. A usually overlooked entry in the series, this is made into something vivid and quite memorable by Freddie Francis’s direction
Frank Henenlotter of Basket Case fame modernises the Frankenstein film Here Frankenstein creates a body out of parts from Time Square hookers. Amusing but eventually a film where the humour is too broad
Possibly THE worst film ever made. Tony Watt throws an mash-up of exploitation elements together in an incomprehensible plot. A film that made me want to hammer a nail through my eyeball rather than keep watching
This Italian exploitation film was one of the first attempts to try modernising the Frankenstein film. Thus Frankenstein is a doctor stealing corpses from the morgue at a modern hospital
The classic version of Mary Shelley’s tale that left the indelible image of Boris Karloff as the dull monster with bolts in its neck. Director James Whale draws on German Expressionist designs to create one of the landmark classics of the genre
Boris Karloff became an icon of horror after appearing as the monster in the 1931 Frankenstein. This was the only time he played Baron Frankenstein, appearing as his modern descendant using an atomic reactor to bring his creation to life
An obscure tv movie version of Mary Shelley made by producer Dan Curtis. This suffers cheap production values but is the most faithful version of the book up to that point
Supposedly a modernised version of Frankenstein, although what a story about a woman in a coma who uses psychic powers to resurrect a slow-witted handyman to exact revenge has to do with Mary Shelley’s classic is anybody’s guess
TV mini-series that tries to conduct a rigorously faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s book and largely succeeds apart from some minor changes. On the other hand, none of the period setting or story much comes to life
This is an intriguing low-budget film that sets out to offer a modernised retelling of Mary Shelley. If nothing else, it gives the oft-told story a very different spin than usual
Guillermo Del Toro tackles his long-planned adaptation of Frankenstein. An exquisitely designed and costumed film that is a feast for the eyes where Del Toro determines to wring out new angles on an oft told tale
Supposedly a documentary about the Frankenstein story but no more than a glorified dvd extra to accompany the Danny Boyle stage production of Frankenstein. This covers the life of Mary Shelley but almost entirely sidesteps the Frankenstein cinematic legacy
A charming Coming of Age story about kids who think they have discovered the Frankenstein monster. Comes packed with numerous genre homages and quotes
Hammer’s seventh and final Frankenstein film and the last great film that the studio would make. Everyone is back on top form – Peter Cushing at his icily arrogant best and director Terence Fisher delivering a stirring show
One of the strangest of Japanese monster movies in which the heart of the Frankenstein monster is caught in the Hiroshima atomic blast and grows into a giant boy
The fourth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the most conceptually wild with Frankenstein conducting soul transplants, including transferring his assistant’s soul into a woman’s body
What is there that a new version of Frankenstein can offer? This low-budget effort strips everything down to simply a monster movie about the creature pursuing Frankenstein on his wedding night
Jerry Warren was surely a rival of Edward D. Wood Jr as a bad filmmaker although less well-known. This, which was his last film, is possibly the worst Frankenstein film ever made
One of the spate of Frankenstein films to emerge in the 2023-4 period, this conducts an ambitious period-set follow-up to the original Mary Shelley story on a low budget
A film with a bad movie reputation where a NASA android returns to Earth damaged and goes amok where it tackles alien invaders come to Earth to abduct women
The first film in which Universal teamed-up their in-house monsters, leading to several other monster bashes throughout the decade. For all that, this fails to make any interesting use of the title set-up
The fifth of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and the absolute pinnacle of the series. Terence Fisher is on the peak of his form and turns in a series of directorial set pieces that are quite masterful
Danny Boyle’s stage adaptation, broadcast live on movie screens, wrings up some unique changes on the classic tale. The role of Frankenstein and creation alternated between Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller
One of the early films from The Asylum, this offers a modernised retelling of Frankenstein where some interesting attempts to find modern-day equivalents for parts of the story befall one of their usual low-budgets
The greatly underrated Sean Tretta makes a Frankenstein film – a modernised one that place in a research laboratory where the monster is resurrected with expanded mental abilities
The ‘true story’ bit is contentious but this tv mini-series was the first production to take the Frankenstein story back to the way Mary Shelley told it. Lavishly produced and with a fantastic cast
A Found Footage Frankenstein film. There is little of Frankenstein and his monster here and this feels more like a Found Footage Quest for Bigfoot film in all but name
Roger Corman disappointed with his return to the director’s chair after twenty years. He adapts a Brian Aldiss novel about a time-traveller meeting both Mary Shelley and Dr Frankenstein
A series of short film interpretations of the Frankenstein story, with interpretations ranging from BDSM to kung fu and modern police procedural
One has difficulty with the notion of a Found Footage Frankenstein film, although the film does credibly justify this. That said, the film offers up a series of genuinely phantasmagoric and out of this world creations
Not a Frankenstein film but a werewolf film. Spanish actor Paul Naschy debuts his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy would return to the role nine times, as well as play most of the classic horror characters
A trashy European exploitation version of the Frankenstein story that involves Frankenstein reviving a cavemen, a perverted dwarf and plentiful nude bodies
A Z-budget effort that taps the 1950s teenage monster fad, producing a number of ridiculous dialogue howlers and a female monster that induces laughter whenever it turns up on screen
Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated expansion of his 1982 short film has a winning concept – a parody of the Universal Frankenstein films with a teenage boy resurrecting his dog
The fourth of Universal’s Frankenstein films where Lon Chaney Jr inherits the role of the monster and makes it into a stumbling brute that lacks the pathos of Boris Karloff. The plot recycles what has now become the cliches of the series
Biopic of James Whale, director of the Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Whale’s monster movies are used to echo a touching tale of friendship between the aging gay Whale (Ian McKellan) and his straight gardener (Brendan Fraser)
There is a good idea here, exploring what happened in the meeting between Lord Byron, Mary Shelley et al at the Villa Diodati in 1816. However this is hijacked by Ken Russell in lunatically over-the-top-mode
Another version of the events at the Villa Diodati in 1816 with Lord Byron, Mary Shelley et al. With the material in the script, this should have been a far more interesting film than the dull affair it is
Fascinating silent German serial undeniably influenced by the Frankenstein story about an artificial being who proves soulless, swears vengeance against his creator and becomes a dictator
The fifth and worst of Hammer’s Frankenstein films. In a play for younger audiences, Peter Cushing was dumped in favour of Ralph Bates in a retelling of the original and an unfunny comedic approach
A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula
I had little enthusiasm for this, I tend to like my classic monsters serious rather than defanged – these Hotel Transylvania films are so watered down, Dracula doesn’t even get to drink blood
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
The third of Universal’s monster bashes, a successor to the previous House of Frankenstein. These Universal crossovers felt contrived in their reasons to bring the monsters together but this works better than the others
The second of Universal’s team-ups of their in-house monsters and superior to the first of these, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Despite some imaginative moments, the script has a stitched-together improbability
An empty-headed work that seems entirely premised around the provision of CGI effects spectacle and actively resists engagement on any other level. A spectacularly ridiculous film in almost every way
Producer Herman Cohen had a huge hit with I Was a Teenage Werewolf and quick on its tail released this companion piece, an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek film concerning a Frankenstein descendant turning a teen into a monster
Infamous Z movie made as companion piece to Billy the Kid Versus Dracula in which the famous outlaw encounters Frankenstein’s granddaughter and her creations
One of several continental Frankenstein films of the 1970s concerning Frankenstein’s daughter. This tries to imitate Hammer Films on a lesser budget and with more liberal dashings of nudity
A modernised comedy take on the Frankenstein film with a script from Diablo Cody where Kathryn Newton turns a resurrected man into the ideal boyftiend, this seems to hold much promise to it
Absolutely delightful stop-motion animated homage to the Universal Famous Monsters, which places tongue perfectly in cheek
Biopic of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. This is a women-written and directed work so the film places an interesting feminist slant on her story meaning that she wrote the book less to address themes about science and hubris than because she was in an unhappy marriage
An adaptation of Frankenstein made as companion piece to Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As director, Kenneth Branagh creates a lush production but the attempts to emulate Coppola’s sensuality go off-balance
Tarantino associate Roger Avary comes up with a modernised take on the Frankenstein story, an interestingly ambitious effort that features Wil Wheaton as a patchwork creation coming to understand his condition
The Frankenstein film, which deals with grave robbing and hideously scarred corpses, seems an unlikely choice for adult movie treatment. This is one of the offerings
This has the mildly amusing idea of taking the idea of films like Dracula vs Frankenstein et al one step further and actually pitting various classic monsters against one another in a wrestling match. Beyond its mimicry of televised wrestling though, there is almost nothing else to the film
The Asylum conduct a monster bash – a crossover between the Famous Monsters – and actually do a modest and quite enjoyable job
Rather charming effort where the Famous Monsters – Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature – are revived and pitted against a group of kids. The film has a great deal of affection for the originals and the encounters are delightful
Film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast
Rob Zombie conducts a big-screen remake of The Munsters and surprisingly enough makes his best film yet
One of several films based on the famous writer’s workshop at Villa Diodati in 1816 and the meeting with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Dr Polidori that led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein
Another horror anthology with each episode from a different directors, united around the wraparound theme of stories being told by patients in a strange psychiatric facility
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone conduct a revisionist take on the Frankenstein film. This ended up a critical favourite at most of the 2023 awards with Emma winning the show in an hilarious performance
The most violent, brutal, blood-drenched films one has seen in recent memory, a South Korean entry about a monster loose aboard a prison ship
The second of Hammer’s Frankenstein films and a fine work that finds positively ingenious ways to continue on from its predecessor. Terence Fisher and the production team are all on top form.
The No 1 cult film of all time, more a phenomenon than a film, a demented glitter rock homage to mad science cinema and 50s sf films run through with celebration of a gender-bender joie de vivre
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is THE cult film of all time. There seems nothing more indicative of how miscalculated and bland this remake is than the fact that it has been placed in the hands of the director of the High School Musicals and sundry Disney Channel fodder
One of the better of several films depicting the famous meeting between Mary Shelley and Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati that led to her writing Frankenstein. Starring a then unknown Hugh Grant as Byron
Another of the films from the Mexican wrestling superhero Santo where he and his friend Blue Demon encounter assorted Famous Monsters raised by a mad scientist
The Mexican masked wrestler superhero Santo faces Frankenstein’s daughter who wants his blood to perfect her rejuvenation serum in this entertainingly madcap outing
While this Canadian obscurity gives the appearance of being a 70s sex vampire film, it is in fact an X-rated Frankenstein spoof. While the film is not without its moment of complete dementia (mostly involving sex scenes with a gorilla), it eventually fragments into narrative incomprehensibility
Z-budget director Mark Polonia makes a cheap and ridiculous variant on the gonzo killer shark film about a Nazi mad scientist creating a Franken-shark that comes with Hitler’s brain placed into it
Bizarre musical monster bash with singer Harry Nilsson as Dracula’s son and Ringo Starr as Merlin. A film that seems to have no real clue what it is doing beyond friends having a good time. Nilsson makes surely the screen’s least threatening Dracula, while this is the worst film from the usually great Freddie Francis
The third of Universal’s Frankenstein films, the last to feature Boris Karloff as the monster and the last good entry before the sequels became formulaic. Shot with the clear influence of German Expressionism, this is filled with memorable characters and some great performances
Visually extraordinary Coming of Age story set during the Spanish Civil War in which a young girl imagines seeing the Frankenstein monster