The Never-Ending Curse of Frankenstein

Out of the four hundred or so movies about Frankenstein and his monstrous boy toy, one thing remains consistent: the plot never changes. You have an obsessive scientist with a God complex who uses non-sterile hands to sew dead body parts together to make his own worshipper, kick starts the engine with easily channeled lightning, and later is shocked when people want to fork his creation in the butt. But since no one seems to get tired of this morality play, they’ll keep making the same movie over and over.

One of the more gruesome takes is The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), a British version of Frankenstein, with a monster Lego’d™ together with easily attached parts from handy corpses, eyeballs, internal organs and a squishy brain that, while was previously a noted professor’s thinker, got a little scuffed up in a misunderstanding about Baron Von Frankenstein’s intention with said noodle.

His teacher/mentor since the outside-the-box-thinking trader of brains, Dr. Paul Krempe has moral issues with his student’s objectives. He was ready to relax in the glowing praise of his peers (and score science groupies) when he and Frankenstein brought a dead dog back from the golden pound in the sky. But the Baron has loftier goals, and needs the necessary parts to complete his blasphemous recipe.

The damaged brain is successfully transplanted and the resulting abomination, looking like he’s been partying non-stop in meat-packing plant, turns into that obnoxious guest that won’t leave.

The monster is locked up but gets loose, because that’s what monsters do. Dr. Krempe is not only good with test tubes, but with a rifle as well, returning the creature to its origins in a shallow grave. Frankenstein, well-versed in the art of bringing the dead back to life, takes one more lap around the lab, this time with even more mixed results.

The monster kills Frankenstein’s housekeeper, the very same one the mad scientist earlier knocked up and refused to marry. One door closes, another one opens. In the end the creature takes an acid bath, which does a killer job of wiping out evidence. Without corroboration to the contrary, the jury has no choice but to send Frank to the chop shop. Who the heck saw that coming?

The Curse of Frankenstein was Hammer Studios’ first film done in color. Good for them.