DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

Director: Al Adamson

Writers: William Pugsley, Samuel M. Sherman

Producers: Al Adamson, Samuel M. Sherman, John Van Horne

Cast: J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr., Regina Carrol, Anthony Eisley, Anne Morrell, Greydon Clark, Zandor Vorkov (Roger Engel), John Bloom, Jim Davis, Russ Tamblyn, Maria Lease, Angelo Rossitto, Shelly Weiss, Forrest J. Ackerman, William Bonner

Las Vegas entertainer Judith Fontaine (Regina Carrol) heads to Venice, California looking for her missing sister Joan (Maria Lease). She runs into hippies, bikers, and Dr. Durea, the proprietor of a spook show exhibit at the beachside carnival. Dr. Durea (J. Carrol Naish) had his brutish henchman Groton (Lon Chaney, Jr.) kill Joan and others to use their bodies for strange blood experiments. Durea is actually the last of the Frankenstein family that created a man-made monster. That monster has been exhumed and brought to Dr. Durea by Count Dracula (Zandor Vorkov). Dracula wants Durea to revive the monster and to continue his blood experimentation that will grant Dracula even greater power.

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Dracula vs. Frankenstein is the most well known of director Al Adamson’s films. This is due primarily to the famous monster duo in the title, not to any cinematic merit. It is a seriously compromised project because of its constant reinvention to try to turn the original attempt called The Blood Seekers into a commercially successful exploitation product. I have always wondered how The Blood Seekers, as originally completed, would have played. It had to be more cohesive than what Dracula vs. Frankenstein became.

The kid in me can still get off on the offbeat elements in the film: mad science, monsters, violence, and sexy women. The whole exploitative and schlocky vibe of this thing keeps drawing me back to it. Yet with all of that tantalizing stuff jammed haphazardly into it, I also see this film as a big missed opportunity.

As producer and co-writer Samuel M. Sherman has explained in interviews and the DVD audio commentary, the Dracula and Frankenstein characters were not part of the original film. They were added in with additional rewrites and new film footage thinking it would make the movie more commercial. Knowing that production history, one can almost marvel at the audacity of trying to reconfigure an already finished film to such an extent. The original storyline may have been exploitation fodder, but all the added Dracula and Frankenstein stuff give the impression that the whole film seems like it is being improvised.

The two horror genre veterans, J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney, Jr., give their last film performances in Dracula vs. Frankenstein. One can only assume that the original The Blood Seekers film would have been a better showcase for them, if it were more coherent. Perhaps scenes were cut that gave the Naish and Chaney characters more depth or motivation. 

As it stands now, the audience is expected to accept a lot based on horror movie character tropes; Dr. Durea is a mad scientist and Groton is his simple-minded henchman. The point of Durea’s blood experimentation is vague. Groton’s need for injections that transform him into a pasty-faced killer, and then are used to also calm his spontaneous transformations, is a Jekyll-and-Hyde movie gimmick. Although I love tried-and-true movie gimmicks, I just wish there was a little better setup for these characters and their motives. 

Much of Naish’s dialogue is of that roundabout drivel that is supposed to sound lofty and intelligent in low-budget schlock. Chaney has no dialogue, as he is once again reduced to the mute menace role. Unfortunately, this was a necessity because of the throat cancer that he was suffering from at the time.

Regina Carrol is a voluptuous attraction in many Al Adamson films, as she was also his wife. Her cleavage always steals the scene. The routine we see her perform in her first scene, as Judith Fontaine, was part of Regina’s act when she actually did perform in Las Vegas.

Anthony Eisley as Mike is just about the most atypical hero in any horror movie. He comes across like a slick establishment type that decided to stop parting his hair and throw on some love beads over his turtleneck pullover and live on the beach. He seems like a nice enough guy until he makes his free love move on Judith. I can’t say I blame him, but that “We don’t want to get involved, do we? Just be good friends” line before he starts tongue wrestling with her always struck me as wonderfully sleazy. Lounge lizard or hippie wannabe, it’s still all about the old in-and-out.

Russ Tamblyn emits that don’t-give-a-damn vibe as Rico, the lead troublemaker in a trio of bikers. This character was almost a reprise of his biker character Anchor from an earlier Adamson/Sherman production Satan’s Sadists (1969). Unfortunately, his Rico role was edited down from The Blood Seekers version of the film to make room for the new Dracula/Frankenstein footage. With seemingly no effort and little screen time, Tamblyn’s Rico still manages to be despicable, especially when menacing the lovely hippie Samantha (Anne Morrell).

Then we have the two title characters that keep us from ever being able to appreciate the pure cinematic splendor that could have been The Blood Seekers. Zandor Vorkov’s Dracula has been roundly condemned as the worst Dracula in movie history. With his often inane rambling dialogue that always has a spooky echo, his plastic joke shop fangs, and pasty white make-up that becomes so heavy in the final scenes that he looks like a mime, Vorkov’s Dracula probably makes the film’s most lasting impression for all the wrong reasons. The Frankenstein monster is little more than a prop in this movie. The design of the face is pretty interesting and, with 7’4” John Bloom in the role, this monster has impressive height. But the monster is shoehorned into the movie along with Dracula, and they only interact with three of the main characters; that is the three actors (Naish, Carrol, and Eisley) that would return from The Blood Seekers to shoot additional scenes.

With the budget limitations, the rewriting, the reshooting, and the re-editing, it was impossible that Dracula vs. Frankenstein would turn into a good film. An appreciation of schlock is necessary to derive any enjoyment out of it. I also derive an added interest by knowing its history of reconfiguration. It takes real nerve to graft seemingly unrelated pieces of narrative together into a film in the hopes of improving it. Everything about Dracula vs. Frankenstein has a slapdash feel to it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t look forward to watching it again.

FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Writer: Victor Miller

Producer: Sean S. Cunningham

Cast: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Peter Brouwer, Rex Everhart, Ronn Carroll, Ron Millkie, Walt Gorney, Willie Adams, Debra S. Hayes, Dorothy Kobs, Salle Anne Golden, Mary Rocco, Ken L. Parker, Ari Lehman

In 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, two camp counselors are murdered. More tragedies follow in the next several years, so the summer camp is closed. Many years later, Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) has decided to reopen his family’s camp. A group of young adults, who will be working as camp counselors for the summer, are arriving there to help get the camp ready. Someone else has also arrived at Camp Crystal Lake to commit more murders on Friday the 13th.

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John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) was the massive horror hit that made just about everyone realize that a low budget film without major stars could be well made and provide a fantastic return on the investment. Of course, that encouraged a lot of independent filmmakers to hop on the bloody bandwagon to create the slasher film craze in the early '80s, and it was Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th that showed them all how it was done.

The horror genre never used to get much respect from the critics, yet Halloween roused more than a few from their knee-jerk dismissive mindset to approve of its craft. Carpenter was a director that knew the language of the film medium so well that he could tell his simple story very effectively.

Those same critics were chomping at the bit to tear Friday the 13th to pieces. It has been dismissed and damned by many as a rip-off, artless, crude, and even misogynistic. While director Sean S. Cunningham and writer Victor Miller frankly admit that they set out to rip-off Carpenter’s film, they only swiped its intent: to tell a scary story about a killer picking off young victims one-by-one. That template is so simple that it allows for enough variety so that each new slasher film need not be just more of the same. Friday the 13th certainly was not just another Halloween.

The chief differences Friday the 13th has from its Halloween inspiration are its setting, its killer, and its technique. The summer camp setting is a brilliant way to isolate the cast to be easy prey for the killer, and, best of all, it is an environment that the viewer can easily settle into. It is a mundane setting that everyone in the audience can relate to, even if they all have not gone to summer camp. When the audience feels in tune with the setting, the horror of the situation is bound to register more deeply. The killer in this film is much different than the unfathomable menace of Michael Myers in Halloween. In fact, most slasher films to follow would deal with their killers much more in the manner of Friday the 13th. The difference in technique many would attribute to a desire to be more blunt in getting to the payoffs. In horror movie terms, that often means more kills and more gore. Without a doubt, much of the success of Friday the 13th was the result of Tom Savini’s nasty special effects make-up expertise. Gore was certainly an increasingly important gimmick to get a lot of asses into the seats at the theaters. This was another difference from Halloween that most other slasher films would adopt.

None of the differences mentioned above mean that Friday the 13th is a better film than Halloween, but it is a different film still trying to land the same audience. I think that it does so admirably well.

The most tiresome criticism I hear about slasher films, and this one especially, is that the characters are shallow and unrealistic. Just how much depth does a typical 18 to 22-year-old really have to display in one single day? 

I think that the young characters in Friday the 13th are far more realistic than the glorified and pandering representations of their target audience that more recent filmmakers put in their films. People that look like models and say everything as a snarky putdown or a contemporary catchphrase are not realistic. Those idealized characters are doing “movie stuff” that creates a comfort zone between the viewers and the victims they see onscreen.

The characters that are getting offed in Friday the 13th made an impression on their intended audience because the viewer could easily relate to them. They don’t behave in some idealized way that makes the young viewer feel hip and cool for wanting to believe they are like that, too. The reason that Friday the13th made a real impact is that it shows the young viewer that someone like them can get it without warning. And it’s gonna be nasty!

Something else that goes a long way toward making this film’s danger really matter to the viewer is the non-plot activity during the character’s interactions. Again, this creates a sense of reality and intimacy that makes the horror payoff. These young people are doing the unglamorous chores and having the fun and mishaps of a group gathered together to get the camp prepped for its reopening. When we settle into that very real environment, it makes the threat seem more personal.

 

The young cast is quite likable. Chief among them are Adrienne King and Kevin Bacon. Yes, that Kevin Bacon getting his first meaty role, though he probably wants us all to forget it. He has nothing to be ashamed of here, as he does a good job. The cast members seem real rather than just actors being given their “movie moments.” Concocting convoluted back-stories and angst for each character may seem to some like great writing, but it can keep characters from being typical and relatable. Friday the 13th does not strive for high drama but for a shared terror with its audience. A setting and a set of characters that are readily accessible to the audience make the terror seem more immediate.

Special mention goes to Betsy Palmer for her role. It was a huge departure, to say the least, for this actress. Despite her misgivings about the script, she gives it her all, and that really helps the film work in the end.

This was the first and best installment of one of the most iconic horror series in film history. I have also enjoyed the sequels even as they play fast and loose with the continuity and the timeline. I usually try to judge each film on its own merits. I can cut a flick plenty of slack if it is making a sincere effort to deliver the goods and does not get pretentious and stroke its audience’s ego. Friday the 13th is effective because its story and technique were simple and direct. In this case that presents no barriers to its audience engaging with the terror of its situations. That was all that Sean S. Cunningham and Victor Miller were aiming for, and they hit the bloody bull’s-eye.

BARON BLOOD (1972)

Director: Mario Bava

Writers: Vincente Fotre, adapted for the screen by William A. Bairn

Producer: Alfredo Leone

Cast: Joseph Cotton, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti, Alan Collins aka Luciano Pigozzi, Antonio Cantafora, Nicoletta Elmi, Rada Rasimov, Dieter Tressler, Humi Raho, Rolf Halwich, Gustavo De Nardo, Valeria Sabel, Irio Fantini 

American college student Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) goes to Austria to visit his uncle Professor Karl Hummel (Massimo Girotti) and research his roots. Peter is the descendant of the notorious seventeenth century nobleman Baron Otto Von Kleist. In his day, the terrorized locals knew the sadistic Baron as "Baron Blood." The Baron was supposed to have been destroyed by the curse of Elizabeth Holly, a woman he had put to death as a witch. Peter meets up with Eva Arnold (Elke Sommer), who is assisting on a renovation of the Baron’s castle. The two of them try using an incantation from an old Kleist family parchment to try raising the spirit of Baron Von Kleist.  The incantation seems to work, but they are unable to send the Baron back to his grave.

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Baron Blood was the first film of that Italian maestro of horror cinema Mario Bava that I had seen. I think it is one of his most accessible films to the average viewer, and it is still a favorite for this flashback fanatic. It seems that it is not as revered as many of director Bava’s other works. Some may see it as a retread of familiar images and themes from his earlier efforts, but Bava still manages real gusto with his visuals and has the terrific asset of the castle shooting location in Vienna, Austria.

 

Perhaps the been-there-done-that reaction some have to this film is due to the influences that Bava was channeling into this. Gothic horror had been done to death by Hammer films in England for over a decade at this time, and Bava had already done his own gothic horror projects in the '60s. Bava also seems to be referencing scenes from a few other horror films such as The Leopard Man (1943), The Haunting (1963), and House of Wax (1953).

The story has both the visceral and ethereal aspects of horror that make for a very satisfying mix. This is quite important to lend a bit of dimension to what is a pretty simple story. That is not any sort of criticism, for I think that a simple story well told is often the most effective. As the story plays out in the end, it has a lingering sense of unease due to the supernatural resolution that is accidentally triggered by a potential victim, after a more deliberate attempt to stop the menace fails. The protagonists and the audience are given some knowledge of how to defeat the evil Baron, but implementing that knowledge effectively is still uncertain. Good horror of the supernatural variety has to walk a fine line between the rational and irrational. If the rules are all spelled out, that may be playing fair with the audience, but a little ambiguity goes a long way toward making the audience react at a deeper level to the supernatural. That sense of the unknown and the unfathomable is how most of us relate to the subject.

The other aspect of the story that I really like is the heavy gothic atmosphere infesting the modern day setting. Some have speculated that the Baron (and Bava?) seems to be retaliating against contemporary encroachments upon the old and traditional. It seems fitting that an early kill by the Baron is of someone trying to buy a bottle of soda from a Coke vending machine installed in the Baron’s castle. I suppose I’d also be a bit cross if, after three hundred years with a treasure chest full of gold and pearls, I still didn’t have the correct change for a Fanta Orange.

Elke Sommer is proof positive that the mini-skirt is long overdue for a comeback. Despite being a one-dimensional character, as all the characters are in this film, she is likable and really sells the horror with her terrified reactions.

As Alfred Becker, the millionaire who buys the Baron’s castle during an auction, Joseph Cotton headlines the cast and seems to be relishing every scene that he is in. He made a few other Euro-horrors around this time, and this is probably my favorite role among them. Of course, he also starred in Shadow of a Doubt (1943); the film Alfred Hitchcock considered his favorite among his own works.

Early '70s Euro-horror creepy kid perennial Nicoletta Elmi plays Peter’s little cousin Gretchen. She rather conveniently seems tuned into the spiritual vibe necessary to help our heroes deal with the Baron. She was also in Bava’s previous film A Bay of Blood (1971), aka Twitch of the Death Nerve. 

Another perennial Euro-horror creepy actor is Luciano Pigozzi, aka Alan Collins. He portrays the castle caretaker Fritz as such an obnoxious, cackling cretin that we figure he is deserving of nothing more than adding to the body count. He provides a few surprises.

Rada Rassimov plays the pivotal role of Christine, the psychic and medium that learns how the Baron can be destroyed again from the spirit of the witch that cursed him. Rassimov was also memorable in giallo king Dario Argento’s second film The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1970).

Baron Blood gives this horror hound the grisly gristle that I never tire of gnawing on. It is a favorite course of grue that can be served again and again as prepared by that gothic gourmet Mario Bava.

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1969)

Director: Gordon Hessler

Writers: Christopher Wicking, based on the novel The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon (pen name)

Producers: Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg

Cast: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alfred Marks, Michael Gothard, Marshall Jones, Uta Levka, Christopher Matthews, Judi Bloom, Judy Huxtable, Anthony Newlands, Yutte Stensgaard, Clifford Earl, Peter Sallis, Kenneth Benda, Julia Holloway, Nigel Lambert, Amen Corner (the band as themselves)

A jogger collapses in London and awakens in a hospital bed to find one of his legs has been removed with no explanation from his cold and silent nurse. There is also a series of brutal murders of young women being committed by someone draining the victims’ blood. Meanwhile in a fascist country, a cold-blooded member of its military rule is killing to ascend to a higher position of power. All three of these scenarios eventually prove to be related. 

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I don’t like to reveal spoilers when reviewing films. In this case, I hate to discuss too many story developments, because the wild and crazy ride this film takes you on is all the more satisfying for seeing how three seemingly unrelated plots connect. This eccentric approach to the story has drawn a lot of criticism or indifference over the years. The same people that can’t appreciate it are probably thinking Quentin Tarantino was a genius for doing the same thing twenty-five years later in Pulp Fiction (1994). I am not suggesting Tarantino ripped off this film in any sense. I will say that the tying together of different parallel events and characters in a screenplay was much more unusual back in 1969. I will also say that this can create a sense of unease and dislocation in the viewer that enhances the paranoid feeling that Scream and Scream Again strives for.

Scream and Scream Again is a very unique film with a mix of genres that keeps it constantly moving and unpredictable. It is first and foremost a horror film with science fiction, sociopolitical, and police procedural elements. The ultimate concerns the story raises are that we may not know who the hell is really in charge and we may not be able to do anything about it.

Most horror fans are drawn to this flick because of the three heavy-hitters of horror in the cast: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. Some of those same fans are soured because all three actors are not featured more prominently. Cushing’s role is really just a cameo and he only interacts with one other main cast member, but not with Price or Lee. Price gets the most screen time, but only shares a single scene with Lee. However, the absolutely cold and brutal Marshall Jones as Konratz interacts with all three. This character is one truly despicable badass. His idea of a chicken dinner isn’t fingerlickin’ good.

Other cast members of note are Alfred Marks as detective superintendent Bellaver and Michael Gothard as “the vampire killer.” Marks is just great as the acerbic and weary member of law enforcement trying to catch the serial murderer. I am not familiar with Marks’ other work, but his main forte is comedy, which explains how good he is with his offhand humor in his role. Gothard is just plain mean once he stops being mod and charming. He provides plenty of surprises for the cops and the audience.

Gordon Hessler’s direction keeps things edgy and energetic. The film has a pretty cold and brutal tone throughout. Hessler kept pretty busy around this time on horror assignments. This film, as well as his work on The Oblong Box (1969), should have been much more appreciated in their day. Fortunately, both films were quite successful and are becoming more appreciated in recent years. Some consider Scream and Scream Again a cult film, though almost any offbeat and fondly remembered old movie seems to earn cult status these days. The famous German director Fritz Lang was supposed to be crazy about it.

Christopher Wicking’s script is also largely responsible for the unique qualities of this movie, yet it is surprisingly faithful to the novel it is based upon, The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon (pen name). The film’s omission of an extraterrestrial basis for the plot is an improvement. This makes the origins of the menace more vague and disturbing. It doesn’t let man off the hook as being his own worst enemy when science is used to achieve power. 

THE MAD GHOUL (1943)

Director: James Hogan

Writers: Brenda Weisberg, Paul Gangelin, Hans Kraley (original story)

Producer: Ben Pivar

Cast: David Bruce, George Zucco, Evelyn Ankers, Turhan Bey, Robert Armstrong, Rose Hobart, Milburn Stone, Charles McGraw, Andrew Tombes, Addison Richards

Dr. Alfred Morris (George Zucco) has discovered an ancient technique to create a gas that will create “life in death.” What seems to interest the doctor most is that this procedure will turn someone into a mindless zombie that will do his bidding. Then using an extract made from dissected human hearts will reverse the process. He decides that the best (unsuspecting) human subject for this experiment is his college chemistry class pupil Ted Allison (David Bruce). Dr. Morris picks Ted because he is a surgeon that can skillfully remove the hearts from bodies they steal from graves or kill. But a hopeless love triangle between Ted, his fiancée Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers), and the doctor causes complications. 

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The Mad Ghoul is an almost forgotten little gem in the Universal Pictures horror crown. Since it did not spawn a series, it is easy to miss amidst the hustle and bustle of Frankenstein, Wolf Man, and Mummy flicks of the '40s. Of all the classic Universal horror films, this one has the only poor sap that is an even more pathetic fall guy than Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man. That is the reason that The Mad Ghoul has really grown on me over the years.

 

The true horror of it all is that naïve Ted Allison has not just been screwed over by fate. He has been screwed over by the three people he is close to: his teacher, his fiancée, and his friend. At least poor old Larry Talbot went out on a romantically dignified note, leaving the beautiful Gwen (Evelyn Ankers again!) to grieve for him and their doomed love. In this film, Ted is engaged with famed singer Isabel Lewis, a woman who does not truly love him and passes him over for her suave pianist, Eric Iverson (Turhan Bey). To heap on more insult to injury, Eric is a friend of Ted’s that Ted introduced to Isabel. No doubt, this gave Eric the opportunity to not only score with Isabel, but also to land that sweet gig being her accompanist for her performances. Ted is zombified by his college professor Dr. Morris, in part, because Dr. Morris is also in love with Isabel and thinks Ted’s zombie blackouts will make him unfit to marry her. What makes Ted’s plight even more undeservedly tragic is that Dr. Morris only imagines Isabel loves him. Once Morris finds out that she is in love with Eric, he turns Ted into Eric’s zombie assassin. Poor Ted never has a chance. 

George Zucco was the baddie in plenty of '40s fright flicks. Dr. Alfred Morris is  probably his best horror role. He is not a one-note fanatic, but a seemingly decent and sophisticated scholar who sees what he wants to see when he assumes that Isabel is in love with him. He almost gains our sympathy when he finds out later that she loves Eric. We just can’t forget that he has quite callously not only made Ted his guinea pig, but is also ruining Ted’s health to sabotage his relationship with Isabel.

Evelyn Ankers’ role as Isabel Lewis manages to be sympathetic in her concern about breaking things off with Ted. We can’t really fault her for needing to end something that doesn’t work for her. You just have to wonder how much she is to blame for things going as far as engagement with poor Ted.

Turhan Bey’s Eric Iverson is one cool customer. Always dapper in his tux and never raising his voice above a silky murmur, he just knows he’s got it made. At least he still refuses to believe that his friend Ted could be involved in the ghoul crimes that are making headlines. I guess that shows some gratitude for swiping the poor guy’s gal. 

Robert Armstrong, as Ken McClure, plays that '30s and '40s movie staple: the wise guy newspaper reporter. I like him and his banter with another reporter played by Rose Hobart. He shows some of that brash bluster he displayed as promoter Carl Denham in King Kong (1933). Unfortunately for his character, when he proclaims to an ally in a stunt to catch the Mad Ghoul, “Tomorrow we’ll be sensational!” he ends up making headlines the hard way.

The fall guy in the spotlight, Ted Allison, is well played by David Bruce. He always seems to be the all-around nice guy, yet not a complete fool. He senses something is wrong in his relationship with his fiancée, even if she can’t work up the courage to admit it. When he becomes Zucco’s zombie, his voice becomes a dry croak that conveys his physical and mental degradation. 

Universal’s monster maker Jack Pierce provides another effective make-up to aid Bruce in his performance as zombified Ted. A nice chilling moment is watching the mindless expression on Ted’s shriveled face as he is wielding his scalpel just below the film frame to perform another cardiectomy on a murdered graveyard watchman.

There is one curious development in the Ted character. He is such a nice guy that, even when he is aware that he has been screwed over by just about everyone, he still, quite civilly, releases Isabel from their engagement in such a way as to alleviate any guilt on her part. He accepts that Eric is involved with her. At this point, he is aware that he is involved in the ghoul crimes and knows Dr. Morris is chiefly responsible. He succumbs to Morris’ influence once again and is told to kill Eric and then himself. Very soon after this, Morris tries to get Ted to stop carrying out his command, as the doctor needs Ted’s immediate help for something far more urgent. In spite of the fact that zombie Ted always followed the bad doctor’s directions before, Ted still marches onward to carry out the earlier order to kill Eric. I have to believe that there is some pent up animosity still brewing inside Ted that is urging him on to wipe out the friend that got his girl.

My heart really goes out to the cadaverous cardiac klepto. I am totally on Ted’s side after that snake Dr. Morris perpetrates the most upsetting onscreen carnage displayed in any zombie film. When Ted and Isabel stop over to visit, Morris prevails upon Ted to mix the drinks. While Ted is out of the room, Morris puts the moves on Isabel, and he secretly decides that he is going to subject Ted to his “life in death” experiment. When poor old Ted returns in triumph with his tray of cocktails and the three are about to drink a toast, Morris “accidentally” spills Ted’s drink on the floor. That onscreen splatter damned near gave this amateur mixologist a coronary.

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER (1965)

  

Director: Robert Gaffney

Writers: R.H.W. Dillard, George Garrett, John Rodenbeck

Producer: Robert McCarty

Cast: James Karen, Marilyn Hanold, Lou Cutell, Robert Reilly, Nancy Marshall, David Kerman, (uncredited cast members) Bruce Glover, Susan Stephens, Robert Fields, Robert Alan Browne

A small band of aliens from a dying planet fly their spaceship to Earth looking for female humans to mate with. They shoot down a NASA rocket piloted by experimental cyborg astronaut Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly). With his face charred and his robot brain damaged, the experiment runs amok in Puerto Rico. Its creator, Dr. Adam Steele (James Karen), must locate this “Frankenstein” while the US military he works with is dealing with abductions of Earth women by the aliens.

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I must be a genius. Even at the tender age of nine, I knew that I had seen one of the greatest movies of all time when I first saw Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. I have been incurably warped ever since. Perhaps that’s why I still don’t act my age. After all, why ever grow up when ogling bikini babes kidnapped by aliens, witnessing senseless slaughter by a space age Frankenstein, and waiting for a mindless and ferocious space monster to get out of its cage and cause havoc inside a claustrophobic spaceship is so much fun? If you don’t agree you obviously have no taste.

No! Really! I’m serious, dammit!

I must confess that I have watched this movie more times than any other. It’s just that good, and I’m just that anal and asinine.

There is a peculiar blend of exploitation genre tropes here that satisfy the most basic needs of this weird cinema junkie. The film’s tone of almost documentary seriousness, aided by tons of NASA and military stock footage, make the simple plot and execution seem to have a bit more gravitas. A lot of well-chosen library tracks for the music score, as well as a terrific tune by the Scottish rock band The Poets called “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be,” adds a charge to the proceedings. This is a Frankenstein film that was really stitched together and brought to life almost entirely in the editing room. It’s got a vibe all its own. I just turn off my brain and groove with it.

The film opens with a great track of music that just screams, “This is sci-fi horror!” as the title Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster appears and then the silhouette of the space monster rises up during the credits and lumbers forward to blackout the screen. It is stark, simple, and perfect. The nine-year-old genius was already on the verge of orgasm, and he hadn’t even seen the beautiful alien Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold) leering at her bikinied girl captive (Susan Stephens) yet.

Probably the best-known actor from the cast would be James Karen as Dr. Adam Steele. Horror buffs will also remember his roles in Poltergeist (1982) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985). 

Robert Reilly is pretty effective as Frank Saunders/Frankenstein. In his sole dialogue scene, he addresses a small press conference before his space flight to orbit Mars. Saunders seems like just the kind of guy we need up there.  He speaks with absolute confidence, precision, and even a touch of humor. Then he freezes up and Dr. Steele hustles him from the conference to an operating room. Now we learn that this ideal astronaut is not human as Frank’s scalp is peeled back to reveal the electronic works implanted in his brain. It’s a neat little sequence. For the rest of the film Frank is in a spacesuit and soon will be rendered mute and disfigured.

All of the characters and situations are played matter-of-fact and one-dimensional. There is a touch of tenderness and occasional irritation that Dr. Steele displays towards his assistant Karen Grant (Nancy Marshall). She feels sympathy for the lost and damaged Frank/Frankenstein. That’s all the drama there is.

Otherwise, it’s all business, except for the alien invaders. Marilyn Hanold, as Princess Marcuzan, and Lou Cutell, as her subordinate Nadir, clearly enjoy being bad. The princess is so damn mean that she smirks as she has one of her injured men taken to be killed by the caged space monster Mull. One of the few survivors of her entire planet is being wasted to set an example for the rest of the men. Is the lesson “Don’t let Frankenstein beat you up?” Nah, she’s just evil.

Why the heck they brought that space monster along on their cramped ship I will never know. I sure am glad that they did, though. It makes for a better movie title and gives the space age Frankenstein someone to tangle with later. 

The biggest question is: How the hell did they get everyone, and even a few small rooms, inside of that spaceship? It’s clearly bigger on the inside than the outside. Maybe Doctor Who helped them build it. 

Sorry. That’s my adult-self pondering the don’t-give-a-damn oversights of the filmmakers. I had it all figured out when I was a nine-year-old genius. This heap of offbeat enjoyment should be wallowed in instead of sifted through.