Hammer Horrors: Frankenstein Created Woman

First Hammer Horrors review of the season! Woot Woot! Any who, we're kicking things off with "Frankenstein Created Woman"....Yes, seriously, that IS the title XD.


The Premise: Good ol Doctor Frankenstein is back in action baby, once again played by the ever awesome Peter Cushing, only this time he's moved on from stitching together dead body parts and transplanting brains, oh no, he's after YOUR SOOOOUUULLLLLLL! >8D

Okay, all silliness aside, Frankenstein has discovered a means by which to capture & contain the soul after death (via these maser looking doohickeys that generate a forcefield that nothing can penetrate or escape from), his theory being that while the body dies and rots away, the soul is indeed immortal and can be transferred into a new body & go on living. Yes, first he learned how to revive the dead, now he believes he's found a way to CONQUER death entirely...Ooooo, this can only lead to shenanigans! While the Doc muses over his latest discovery, one of his assistants, a young man named Hans, gets into a fight with three privileged assholes who were picking on his disfigured girlfriend Christine. He wins of course (mad scientist's lab assistant vs bunch of prissy rich kids? yeah, i think you can imagine how the fight turned out >;3), but the creeps later frame him for murder & he in turn is sentenced to death by guillotine (the irony being his own father had met a similar end for the same crime when he was young, so everyone thinks evil is in his blood...Dicks >_<). To make matters worse, Christine, commits suicide soon after and drowns herself, finding little left to live for without the man she loves. The Doc and his other assistant, a befuddled doctor named Hertz, waste little time in recovering both bodies, transferring Hans' soul into Christine's body, which they also take the liberty of doing away with all her disfigurements as well. All seems fine at first, the revived Christine appears well but has little memory of her past life, BUT, its not too long before everyone responsible for the deaths of Hans and Christine begin to be picked off one by one...Take three guesses as to who's behind that >;3...As for the rest of the story...GO WATCH THE MOVIE! >8D

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

Pros: The acting in this movie is superb, everyone is fun and believable in their roles and convince you that they live in the period in which they appear (the elite assholes are elite assholes, Hans is the town's blacksheep along with the Doc, etc etc), even when Doc Frankenstein is building soul snatching mechanisms in his AWESOME alchemist style evil laboratory. Seriously, I love how Hammer Frankenstein labs always look so "retro science" so to speak, like the workplace of an alchemist or wizard or something, it looks advanced for its time but crude by our standards, giving it alot of personality and atmosphere. I really liked the relationship between Doc Frankenstein and Doc Hertz, you can tell Hertz has alot of respect and admiration for Frankenstein, but at the same time is barely able to comprehend alot of the crazy shit he cooks up, he does a great job of driving home just how far ahead of his time Frankenstein really is and how his scientific breakthroughs can come off as downright sorcery to the commonfolk of the time. Hertz is also essential to the Doc since he's a skilled surgeon with his hands, whereas Frankenstein's hands have apparently been damaged at some point and can no longer perform the kind of precision needed for his work. Frankenstein is the brains, Hertz is the hands on expert...I'm tempted to call them the Sherlock & Watson of mad scientists lol.

Peter Cushing of course is awesome as ever, HE IS Baron Von Frankenstein, no doubt about it, and I love how he makes his big entrance at the beginning of the film, not gonna spoil it because its GREAT, go see it for yourselves! Cushing's Frankenstein is definitely an anti-hero of sorts this time, he's not out to kill anyone but he's also blinded by his zeal for his work, brilliant but arrogant. I also enjoy seeing him act patient but obviously exasperated, ya get the idea he has a love/hate sort of feeling when it comes to explaining things to others, on the one hand he loves talking about his work, on the other hand he hates dealing with people dumber than him (unless he's putting someone in their place, like the rich brats or the angry villagers). Hans and Christine are both likable and sympathetic characters, so ya really feel for them and the tragedy they have to go through in this story...And it makes the downfalls of the jerks responsible for their fates that much more satisfying (seriously, the actors REALLY sold themselves well as totally irredeemable douche-bags, you RELISH whenever something bad happens to them). Oh, and when "Christine" goes on her Punisher style rampage...CREEPY!  O_O 

Hans is haunted by his past, remembering his father as a sweet, funny man who loved him and told him stories rather than the degenerate killer everyone else remembers him as, & we never really get confirmation for whether he really was a killer, but I think he was, our first impression of him was that he was a drunken lowlife/hardened criminal, doesn't show much redeeming qualities until his infant son shows up and he begs the priest and executioners to send him away so he won't have to bare witness to his death. Hans is a good guy at heart, but harbors ALOT of repressed rage, especially towards anyone who mistreats Christine, the only person who can calm him down when these moods strike him. Hans is treated like shit for his family's past and his association with Frankenstein, & Christine is mistreated by others for her looks and kept apart from the man she loves despite the fact he's the only one who treats her like a human being...Well yes, there is her father, but he also initially doesn't care much for Hans & tries to keep them apart, though does lighten up a bit after Hans goes "Road House" on the jerks who were abusing her >;3

Oh, btw, the actress who played Christine, Susan Denberg (who is quite good in this film, switching from disfigured bar waitress to glamorous killer effectively), also played Magda Kovacs from the Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women," a rather infamous episode alas but you can't deny Denberg looked good in that blue outfit, even if the episode itself was pretty bad 24.media.tumblr.com/601d9d214b…

Cons: This movie is WEIRD, even by the standards of a film franchise about a mad scientist who creates monsters out of cadavers. The "monster" of the film is a beautiful young woman rather than a mismatched monstrosity, and that may turn some people off...Or make you even more eager to pick up the blu ray XD. Sorry to disappoint, but ALL the online images you may have seen of Christine half naked in the Doc's lab do not appear in the movie, likely just promotional material for the flick....Hammer, you dirty rotten crafty bastards! XD

www.yourfaceisa.com/wp-content…

1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEeS1jIQ_hc…

2.bp.blogspot.com/-0K32qKtaWNA…

Any way, like I explained before, Christine's body ends up becoming the vessel for Hans' soul, so basically the Doc has performed the first metaphysical sex change operation, or at least that WOULD be the case if not for the fact that Christine communicates with Hans & even speaks in his voice at times. The only explanations I can think of for this phenomenon is that either the "monster" suffers from a split personality like Pamela Vorhees, Hans' soul having difficulty distinguishing its memories from those within the mind of Christine, OR, both Christine's and Hans' soul continue to dwell within the same body and can encourage and influence each other's actions in this fashion (this second option makes the most sense to me, but to each their own). Like I said, VERY strange and unorthodox movie, but it plays its unusual premise straight and that's what saves it, and the scenes of Hans egging on Christine's murder sprees are pretty eerie...Though sadly, one thing I can't forgive is the lack of blood in this movie.

Well okay, there IS blood and gore, but not as much as you'd expect from a Hammer Frankenstein flick since whenever Christine is about to kill someone, it cuts away and shows someone chopping wood or something instead (might work for some people, but not so much for me). I also wish we had seen Christine kill the police chief as well, because while he wasn't one of the three elite bastards, he did come off as being more eager to see Hans' executed than he was to see justice done, his whole case hinged mostly on Hans' being the son of a murderer & feeding words to the rich brats, that guy deserved a visit from Christine lol. There's also a REALLY bad shot of what is clearly a mannequin's head rather than a severed head, worst effect in the movie.

P.S. how many Hammer Frankenstein films use the name HANS?! Seriously, James Rolfe from Angry Video Game Nerd is totally right, I mean, I like the Hans from this movie and all but DAMN, could Hammer really not come up with a name other than Hans for the poor guy? XD

Verdict: NOT the best of the Frankenstein movies by a long shot but I still enjoyed it, engaging characters that make ya care about what's going on and bizarre but unique story, though I'm glad I watched it sooner rather than saving it for Halloween night. I recommend it to Hammer fans and cult film fans more so than the average horror film viewer, but give it a chance and it might surprise you (though definitely watch the earlier Hammer Frankenstein films first so ya get a better feel for the Baron, will make ya appreciate the movie more). After her operation, Christine reminds me of the Bride of Frankenstein only without the silly Marge Simpson hair and green skin...& has her boyfriend's voice in her head XD. I think if anyone was gonna revisit the Bride of Frankenstein concept, crossing the Universal and Hammer designs might make for a good combination :3...Just leave out the disembodied boyfriends o_O