Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

Directed by Paul Morrissey [Other horror films: Sangue per Dracula (1974), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)] & Antonio Margheriti [Other horror films: Il pianeta degli uomini spenti (1961), La vergine di Norimberga (1963), Danza macabra (1964), I lunghi capelli della morte (1964), Nude… si muore (1968), Schreie in der Nacht (1969), E Dio disse a Caino… (1970), Nella stretta morsa del ragno (1971), La morte negli occhi del gatto (1973), Killer Fish (1979), Apocalypse domani (1980), Alien degli abissi (1989)]

Flesh for Frankenstein, sometimes commonly known as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, isn’t a movie I enjoyed at all. It had some disgusting gore and sexual depravity, which is all good and well, but I personally found the acting quite horrid and the story rather meandering.

As it is, I’ve actually seen this film before. I can’t imagine under what circumstances, though – I couldn’t have been older than 14, as I barely remembered any of this. And in fact, the idea that I actually sat through this movie at that age, if accurate, is a testament to my devotion of the genre. Well, either that, or the idiocy of my youth.

Yes, that may well sound like a dig at the movie. I know it’s a film that some people do rather enjoy, and I can partially see why. The gory sequences are pretty solid, and even I will admit that the finale was overall enjoyable. Some of the dialogue is rather quotable (from “You filthy thing!” to the classic line “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder!”), and certainly the horrible acting can add to the charm, but even so, I generally found the film tedious.

Udo Kier (who I know from films such as Pray for Morning, Love Object, and Shadow of the Vampire) was just awful in this. Half the time, he literally reminded me of Tommy Wiseau, which was amusing, but probably not good. Just as good was Arno Jürging (Andy Warhol’s Dracula). Joe Dallesandro (The Gardener and Black Moon) was at least fine, and while I couldn’t stand her character, Monique van Vooren was serviceable, at least when she wasn’t sucking on someone’s arm (I’d say it makes sense in context, but I’m not sure that it does).

Certainly there are some WTF scenes, such as one where the Baron is rather involved with a corpse (after shouting at his assistant to look away, calling him a filthy thing), and that scene certainly is disturbing. It leads to the classic line about life and fucking gall bladders, so there you go. There’s certainly plenty of nudity and gore here, and while that might help in some cases, it doesn’t really impact things much here.

Don’t get me wrong – I liked seeing the gore, and it’s especially solid near the end, in which a door is slammed on a character’s hand, cutting it off (and that dismembered hand is later thrown at another character, amusingly enough). That was quality gore, as was an amusing decapitation early on in the film. The blood certainly runs free in the film, which is far from a bad thing.

The problem, though, is that much of the film, save the enjoyable finale and tense final minutes (which I rather enjoyed) feels like a soap opera. There’s a husband who has no time for his wife, who is a sex maniac, and thus seeks companionship elsewhere, such as farmhands. The farmhand in question has a friend who is considering becoming a monk, so he tries to get that friend laid in order to show him what he’ll be missing. Oh, and there are children mucking about also, but they aren’t really important until the final twenty minutes of the film.

Oh, also worth mentioning, the husband and wife are also brother and sister. I was confused at first, wondering if I was hearing that right, but it became obvious that I was indeed accurate in my hearing. Talk about a messed up family, what with some Targaryen shit going on here.

I can see why Flesh for Frankenstein would appeal to some people, but I just couldn’t get that much enjoyment out of it, save a few scenes. It’s not a movie I found utterly unredeemable, but I really didn’t care for a lot of it. I felt so much of it was tedious, and overall, it wasn’t what I’d personally call a good time.

5/10