The Curse of Frankenstein

MOVIE #1,169 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.01.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! Welcome to SPOOKY MONTH 2023! an ambitious (too ambitious?) 31 32 days of (mostly) horror reviews that will cover a whopping FIFTY (50!) films (see schedule below). I’m writing this on the 28th of September so whether or not I complete this is in a timely manner is definitely up in the air (but I’m gonna try!). Every Sunday this month, we’ll be looking at a trio of films and to get us started I watched three technicolor 50s flicks from England’s Hammer Films which are widely considered the entries which cemented “Hammer Horror” as a distinctive brand of Gothic cinema, spawning countless sequels and delighting audiences the world over to this very day. And I have no idea why I picked this, other than these are movies I haven’t seen before.

For the most part, all three are pretty enjoyable though I don’t think they spawned an affinity/fire within me to go deep with the stuff, but there are countless fan accounts online who adore this and I can see why.

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All three of these pictures were directed by Terence Fisher and feature Peter Cushing (mostly as the hero) and Christopher Lee (always as the villain/creature). There are so many films based on these classic monsters that it can be hard to keep track of. The material in each case goes back to the 1800s or earlier and while some of the particular lore/stories examined here was new to me, these guys are so ubiquitous in my mind and in pop culture, that seeing them on-screen almost always leave me feeling kinda blank. At the time of their release these were considered “very gory” and while some of the makeup and bright-colored red blood is nice/fun, it still comes across mostly as cute here in 2023. Like when Cushing hacks away at the body that will eventually become the monster, they don’t show anything at all…


Lee as Frankenstein — sorry, Frankenstein’s MONSTER, for all the dorks out there — doesn’t speak a word here, but what’s also interesting is he doesn’t moan or groan like one expects ole Frank to do either. But he still manages to bring a menacing vibe in the performance. This was my favorite of the Cushing performances, though. His Victor Frankenstein is a deranged mf-er, the true villain here. Also the actor who played him as a kid gave off serious Good Doctor vibes, both in appearance and how they talked…


Like I said, I definitely had a bit fun watching these, but it’s doubtful I’ll ever become a superfan.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
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The Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour horror film, and the first of their Frankenstein series. Its worldwide success led to several sequels, and it was also followed by new versions of Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959), establishing "Hammer Horror" as a distinctive brand of Gothic cinema. It was released on May 2, 1957 .