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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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What
the hell???
That was my reaction to virtually every
frame of this godawful film, a direct-to-video
release helmed by that prolific auteur of Eurotrash
sleaze, Jess Franco. Less than complimentary terms
issued forth when, at movie's end, came the realization
that I'd utterly wasted 80 minutes of my life
watching this turd. Lust
for Frankenstein is just about the shittiest
excuse for a motion picture I've had the displeasure
to endure in many a moon.
Franco's companion and frequent leading
lady Lina Romay (Female
Vampire, Barbed
Wire Dolls) stars as Moira, middle-aged daughter
of the late Dr. Frankenstein. Dear departed Dad
(played by a long-haired guy
who looks 20 years younger than his "daughter")
appears in ghostly form on Moira's apartment balcony
one morning, cryptically urging her to study his
records. Not his scientific notebooks, mind you...
his acid-metal phonograph records. This
she does, with the spectral doc gargling nearly
indecipherable messages to her over the thumping
tunes. His wish is for Moira to return to the
Frankenstein villa and revive his last, cherished
creation. Before setting out Moira dumps her estranged
husband, a gold-digging Brit, once and for all.
(At least he can be understood; much of Romay's
dialog, spoken in English, is unintelligible due
to her thick Spanish accent.)
Arriving at the villa, Moira happens upon
her younger, widowed stepmother Abigail (Analia
Ivers) giving a blow job to one of her resident
boy toys. Abigail brings the guy to climax and
plants a welcoming kiss on her stepdaughter —
along with a mouthful of splooge. Disgusted, Moira
stomps off after announcing her intention to live
in the house. (At least that's what I think she
said.) While the decadent Abigail holds seemingly
'round-the-clock sex sessions with a variety of
visitors, Moira fires up her record player to
receive more messages from Dad. Hidden in a glass
cabinet she discovers Frankenstein's final creation:
a statuesque amazon, nude except for a pair of
gold platform sneakers, called Goddess ('80s scream
queen Michelle Bauer), who's brought to life by
a slurp of blood from Moira's breast. When the
villa's dimwitted (stoned?) gardener tries to
rape Moira, the weak but still formidable she-creature
kills him by snapping his neck. Hooking Goddess
and the dead man —
by the pecker! —
to an oscilloscope, Moira completes the reanimation.
(???) Goddess and Moira tumble into bed,
getting it on to the accompaniment of Dr. Frankenstein's
rock records.
Believe it or not, things haven't even
begun to get truly weird yet. Unaware of
Moira's experiments or the presence of Goddess
within the house,
Abigail and a man friend tempt Moira with some
cocaine, then get her into bed. The jealous Goddess
storms into the room and kills Abigail and her
companion.
Like that of the gardener, Moira dumps their bodies
in the sea. She and her father's creation continue
living in the Frankenstein house, and the occasional
victim — Moira's
husband, a lesbian stripper (Amber Newman) —
is killed there to re-energize Goddess. One day
Moira discovers Goddess hiding in the garden,
watching a shirtless man chop wood while she masturbates
by rubbing herself against a tree. (Is Franco
one weird-ass dude, or what?) There's some
more record playing and hallucinagenic appearances
by Frankenstein's ghost, as well as a dream (flashback?)
sequence involving heavily solarized footage of
two more naked chicks, brandishing knives, visiting
Moira's apartment. (Watch one of 'em almost lose
her balance while slowly entering from the balcony.)
All seems to end well for Moira as she's shown
cuddling in bed with Goddess.
I have no idea what all this was supposed
to mean, if anything.
This is a stupid, retarded movie. Septagenerian
Franco (The
Sadistic Baron Von Klaus, Blue
Rita) seems to have completely lost it. I'm
not a prude — sex
and nudity do not offend me, nor do I think your
typical porn flick (which shows more than this
film does) is immoral... They're usually just
boring, which is worse. The presence of copious
skin in Lust for Frankenstein
isn't the movie's problem. But neither is it much
help. Cheaply shot on 16mm film and videotape,
its psychedelic visuals are jazzed up with cheesy
video effects that were old hat on MTV circa 1985.
What tiny shred of plot or story there is neither
tells us anything or shows us anything worth seeing.
To make matters worse, except for Bauer (who acquits
herself well, believe it or not, even while humping
a tree), Newman and the British guy, dialog spoken
by the remaining cast is almost completely unintelligible.
And I can only wonder what Franco's motives are
in persisting to show his wife's naked body at
every conceivable opportunity. Once a sexy Eurotrash
starlet in the 1970s, Romay is well into her fifties
now. She really, really should not be taking
her clothes off in films. Not in ones I'm watching,
anyway.
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The
DVD is released by Shock-O-Rama Cinema, which specializes
in low budget shot-on-tape, direct-to-video sexploitation
flicks with horror or sci-fi themes. The packaging
makes the film look much better than it truly is,
with Amber Newman featured prominently on the keepcase
and insert art. (She's only in the movie for about
10 minutes, mostly during a routine at a strip club.)
The disc comes with both the American version
of Lust for Frankenstein (with
clarifying narration added at the beginning) and
the longer European version, which has a few minutes
of additional sex scenes. You may wish to skip the
latter, for while you get to view more of Bauer
in the buff, you'll also see a lot more of Romay
in the raw as well. (Brrrrr.) A six minute
interview with Bauer (at a 1994 horror con), boring
behind-the-scenes footage of Franco and crew making
the movie, plus trailers for other Shock-o-Rama
releases are also included. 6/19/01 |
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