Concerning random things from across the bad movie universe. Please note that this blog is in no way associated with any other websites or blogs with similar titles, names, or themes.
In real terms, anyone attempting to sum up the life and career of Spanish film-maker Jess Franco (born Jesús Franco Manera, 1930-2013) in anything shorter than a multi-volume biography is doomed to failure.
It's not just the overwhelming size of his body of work that makes him so difficult to categorize--199 films as director--but the eccentricity of his methods and the idiosyncratic nature of the man himself. His extremely personal films either absorb the viewer into a completely unique world, or alienate them forever. But love him or hate him, you can't mistake a Jess Franco film for anyone else's.
On the surface, Franco's films appear to be little more than grindhouse trash, repeating the same elements; sexy nightclub acts, beautiful and often naked women (like Soledad Miranda, and, following her untimely death in a car accident, rampant exhibitionist Lina Romay), mad scientists, Howard Vernon, secret agents, BDSM, the supernatural, dreamlike narratives, furious pacing, more Howard Vernon, and endless zooms. Oh, the zooms! If you've never seen a Jess Franco film, you need to be forewarned; producer Harry Alan Towers (with whom Franco made 9 films) called him, "a jazz musician who discovered the zoom lens". Franco did use to be a jazz musician, and often mistook the zoom lever for the slid on a cornet.
Franco's favourite actor, Howard Vernon at
Franco's favourite location, Xanadu, in Countess Perverse.
Yet, despite the ostensibly throw-away nature of his films (many completed in under a month), Franco's death back in April, just over a year after his muse and partner Romay succumbed to lung cancer aged just 57, is, genuinely, a great loss to cinema.
Lina Romay, in here most iconic role, in Franco's
Female Vampire.
Serious, I had a really had time finding a picture of her wearing even this much.
Half the people reading this will likely scoff at that last statement, but cult film and horror aficionados will probably nod in agreement. One thing is undeniable; we will not see his like again. And while Takashi Miike might meet his output, and Quentin Tarantino occasionally imitates him as a means of affectionate homage, no one will ever equal him.
It is his uniqueness that makes his work important, and as such, his films are in need of re-evaluating.
Thinking about Franco's films as the cinematic equivalent of jazz is, perhaps, the best way to approach them. Take, for example, She Killed in Ecstasy (completed 1970, released 1971), Franco's first production for German producer Artur Brauner--the screenplay (which explores themes way ahead of its time, such as the morals of embryonic research) was just 8 pages long; Brauner and Franco sketched the budget out on a napkin over lunch; Franco had already made so many films that year, he had to use one of his numerous pseudonyms (Frank Hollmann) to avoid the wrath of the unions; Manfred Hubler and Sigi Schwab contributed to the groovy score--is it any wonder the whole thing feels less like a film than an acid trip? The same team's follow up, and one of Franco's more well-known films, Vampyros Lesbos (1971), was produced in much the same way, this time utilising stunning Istanbul locations. In both, Soledad Miranda, plays a mysterious angel of death; in the case of She Killed in Ecstasy, using her sexuality to lure those she holds responsible for her husband's suicide to their deaths; in Vampyros Lesbos, she may represent sexuality itself, in that the entire film can be read as taking place in the head of a young estate agent, Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Stromberg) struggling to come to terms with her own Sapphic desires, awakened whilst observing an erotic nightclub act; though the films is basically a lesbian retelling of Dracula, with Westinghouse replacing Jonathan Harker. It's also interesting to note that the actress cast in the female Renfield roll, Agra, a woman eternally lost in her obsession with the vampire countess, is played by Heidrun Kussin, who bears a striking resemblance to Stromberg and may even represent another facet of Westinghouse's personality; the uncontrollable, sexual id, imprisoned and oppressed by conservative males. The male characters, are all either untrustworthy (in the case of Dennis Price's Dr. Seward, who acts like a vampire hunter but really wants the secret of immortality for himself), or useless and weak (in the case of Westinghouse's male lover, played by the terminally blank Andrés Monales), and the film's ending is left open; the vampire is killed by Westinghouse using a phallic shard of wood to the eye, but Westinghouse's mental condition still lies in a state of confusion over her own feelings, an ambiguity underlined by the fact she is lead away by her dull boyfriend (who represents hetronormative values) and her therapist, Dr. Steiner (Paul Muller), who had previously advised her, after listening to her recount one of her sexual fantasies to "find a lover... a better lover."
"Hello. I'm your better lover. Obviously."
Female sexuality may be one of foundations of exploitation cinema--after all, boobs put bums on seats--but Franco's films, despite still being exploitative, do at least posit that women possess their own sexuality, rather than an artifice imposed upon them by hetronormative (i.e. male-orientated) social "norms". His unconscious narrative style has even produced films comparable to those of David Lynch; Venus in Furs (1969) is not, as the title might suggest an adaptation of Von Sacher Masoch's novella (the film was re-titled by the distributor) but a non-linear tale of a jazz musician (James Daren) haunted by the mysterious Wanda (Maria Rohm), a woman he saw die in a brutal S&M session. Is she really dead? Is he going mad with guilt? Who is killing off her killers? These are not questions the film answers conventionally.
And the moral of the story is, Never Get Kinky With Kinski!
Even the trashiest films produced during Franco's most hyperactive periods hold one or two effective moments. Who can forget the breathtakingly beautiful opening to Female Vampire (1973), in which Lina Romay, naked apart from pvc boots, belt and cape emerges from the mist-shrouded forests of Madeira?
And you can't help but admire a man who managed to trick Christopher Lee into doing an erotic thriller not once, but twice (they filmed the dirty stuff for both The Bloody Judge and Eugenie... the Story of Her Journey into Perversion, both 1970, behind his back). Not only that, but Franco was so charming, Lee was perfectly willing to work with him again, maintaining, "he's a lot better a director than he's given credit for."
"The BBFC shall hear of this!"
Lee's admiration for Franco might have had something to do with the fact that Lee was disappointed with the direction in which Hammer Films had taken their Dracula sequels, and Franco had given him the opportunity to play the Count as Stoker had described him in Count Dracula (1970), a film that, despite its low budget, wins out over many of Hammer's entries by eschewing studio-bound interiors for real locations, and staying closer to the spirit (though not the letter) of the novel.
Franco had shown himself capable of out-Hammering Hammer before, with his first foray into horror, The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962), a torture porn variant on Eyes Without a Face (1960). The film had been directly inspired by Hammer's own Brides of Dracula (1960), which Franco had taken a couple of producers to see in order to prove to them that horror and quality were not incompatible. Orloff stars another Franco regular, Howard Vernon and displays more medical gore than Hammer ever dared to show in the '60s. He later remade Orloff as the big budget Faceless (1988).
See. I told it was called Faceless.
Unfortunately, his obsession with female sexuality led him to surround himself with performers willing to do almost anything on camera and thus unrestrained, his films of the mid 1970s and 1980s too often stray into porn. His over-active imagination and impatience with the production process meant that many of his films were rushed through with almost superhuman speed in order to get on to the next one; and his refusal to work within the mainstream (and, on the rare occasions he did, to play by the rules) meant that he had to work with tiny budgets provided by B-movie producers who catered to the lowest rung of the exploitation ladder. Nevertheless, Franco was content with this arrangement, but often stated that he did not like his own films. It is true that not all of his films are even passable; Dracula contra Frankenstein (1972) was made as an homage to James Whale but is closer to Ed Wood; Cannibals (1980) is an attempt to cash in on the Italian cannibal cycle of the early '80s and stars what appears to be a bunch of pasty British tourists on a package holiday to Spain in heavy make-up as the South American man-eating tribe in question; many of his women-in-prison flicks are vile, and his porn films from the late '70s and early '80s are more tedious than erotic. Still, he did enough good work to finally be awarded a lifetime achievement award at the Goya's.
Franco receiving his Goya. Lina Romay is behind him.
Still, out of 199 credits, a dozen might actually be classics in their own right. That's quite an achievement. Indeed, Orson Wells--who Franco had assisted on Chimes at Midnight (1965)--and Fritz Lang were both fans. It is time, then, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and give Jess Franco the place in history he so richly deserves.
One of the daftest pulp writers of the early 20th Century was Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan - a grown man in a loin cloth who thinks he's a monkey, the basic message being that high-society girls all desire an unwashed, crazy homeless dude who'd probably shit in his own hand and throw it at you if you looked at him funny.
Since Arthur Conan Doyle had initiated the 'Lost World' sub-genre with the publication of his 1912 novel entitled... uh... The Lost World, Burroughs also wrote a number of dinosaur epics in a similar vein, most famously his 'Caspak Trilogy' and even a series set inside the Earth, the Vernesque 'Pellucidar Series'.
Burroughs, like all early pulp writers, is terrifically entertaining. Since his work was written so quickly (pulp writers were paid by the word), it has the same, nonsensical, hallucinatory feel to it as the likes of Fantomas, Dr. Fu-Manchu, or Sexton Blake. Between the 1900s and the 1960s, Pulp magazines and cheap paperbacks generally offered up quality surrealist literature that was only accidentally surrealist. Often written at a furious place, they lack reason or logic but are steeped in daftness to an almost lyrical extent.
So, what with the film industry being huge admirers of daftness (how else would you explain Prometheus?), it was only a matter of time before they would come knocking at his door. Tarzan films were being made as far back as the silent era. And Burroughs even contributed to the screenplay of King Kong (1933) but it is a series adaptations by the producer/director team of John Dark and Kevin Connor that are of interest to us.
These adaptations, incidentally, starred hefty monkey-man, Doug McClure. And despite him being a busy and very hard working actor, I'll bet if that you know his name, two things come to mind; Troy McClure from The Simpsons and vague memories of rubber dinosaur movies you saw on a rainy, Sunday afternoon as a kid.
They were produced by British company Amicus, who always seem to have the words, 'Hammer's main rival' after them whenever they are mentioned in articles. They are most famous for their portmanteau horror films, but in the 70s, as Hammer declined to the point where they were making atrocities like Holiday on the Buses (1973), Amicus recognised that the horror business had radically changed, movies of TV sitcoms were crap and it was time to attempt a blockbuster. Amicus was run out of a shed located 'round the back of Shepperton Studios by two Americans, Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky.
The first of these productions was The Land that Time Forgot (1975), which has one of those titles that makes you assume that it's not a real film.
With a screenplay a writer no less illustrious than the great Michael Moorcock, the film tells the story of a lost U-boat crew whose submarine has been hijacked by British and American survivors of the passenger ship they torpedo at the beginning of the film. After lots of buggering about in the South Atlantic, they come across the lost continent of Caprona (named after a fictional 18th Century explorer, Caproni, who first described it). Since they have a submarine, our heroes are able to do what Caproni couldn't; follow a stream of warm water to locate an underwater tunnel and pass under the vast, rock cliffs that guard the mysterious island.
I'll give you three guesses as to what they find there.
Why can't a T-rex and a Triceratops
just learn to get on?
No men in monster suits this time; this time the hot, dino-on-dino action is portrayed by rod puppets created by Roger Dicken.
Weirdly, the whole thing actually works as a good (not great, but good) movie and staple of Sunday afternoon family entertainment. It helps that the cast take their roles absolutely seriously, though John McEnery (as the U-boat captain) was entirely re-voiced by Anton Differing, so God knows what his performance was originally like. How hart ist it to do der German akzent, Ja?
The dinosaur effects are pretty clumsy; the puppets are clearly puppets and the pterodactyls look like static models hung from a crane (which is particularly funny when one carries off a caveman) but it's all just part of the charm. The U-boat effects are more successful, despite the problems of scaling up water. They're about on par with the model work in Das Boot (1981). The film ends on a surprisingly downbeat tone, with just about everyone getting boiled alive as the submarine is overcome by an erupting volcano; only Bowen Tyler (McClure) and his love interest, Lisa (Susan Penhaligon) survive, allowing for a framing device whereby the entire film is told in flashback via a message found in a watertight container.
Naturally, this also allowed for a sequel.
The People that Time Forgot (1977) was produced by the same team but was less successful. The main attraction this time being not the dinosaurs but a young Dana Gillespie as a sweaty, big-boobed cave girl.
If cave girls perspired baby oil and
had perfectly styled hair.
Although, to be frank, the sequel is perfectly watchable. McClure is absent for most of the running time, since the plot focuses more on attempts to rescue him and some of the dinosaur set pieces, whilst looking even more fake than the first film, are entertaining enough; a mid-air dogfight between a biplane and a pterodactyl is particularly well done. Well, I say well done; I mean entertaining in its cheesiness.
This is one of those trailers that tell you
all you need to know. There, you don't
have to bother watching the film now.
Trouble is, the two movies were seriously lacking in the one thing that automatically makes a movie great. That one element that, when added to a film, not matter how dreadful, automatically makes it a masterpiece.
"I'm Peter Fucking Cushing,
Motherfucker!"
Fortunately, this was remedied by Amicus's in between project, At the Earth's Core (1976). And it's glorious.
It's basically the tale of Dr. Abner Perry and David Innes (Cushing and McClure, naturally), two intrepid but slightly incompetent Victorian explorers drilling down to the Earth's Core in their mechanical digging machine, The Iron Mole. By accident.
Alright, maybe a bit more than slightly incompetent.
On the plus side, the Earth's Core does contain Dia in the shapely form of Caroline Munroe.
An exceptionally interesting
geological feature.
Naturally, just about every bloke from every tribe is after Dia, so it's up to David to defend her honour. This causes him to get accidentally engaged to her. Fortunately, this causes him to get accidentally engaged to her!
Cushing, though, is the real star here. He clearly realises the level of nonsense that he is in and does his very worst Dr. Who impersonation, and by that, I'm not referring to The Doctor from the BBC's Doctor Who, I'm referring to those god-awful 1960s Dalek movies in which Cushing played a human scientist actually called "Dr. Who". Despite the fact that he appears to be playing a doddery old git with an eating disorder, Cushing is something of a badass here, even at one point, dispatching a giant, fire breathing toad with a homemade bow and arrow in a scene that has to be seen to be believed...
Do not mess with The Cushing otherwise
The Cushing will make you fucking explode.
We also have him put up a fight against psyching pterodactyls... oh wait, no, sorry; got to get my species right; giant, man-sized "rhamphorhynchus of the middle-Jurassic period" that look nothing like rhamphorhynchus (rhamphorhynchus's? rhamphorhynchuses? rhamphorhynchi?) by spouting this line...
If this happened in real life, the rhamphor... rhampa... ramihampadink...
that big bird's head would explode.
But as much as we all love the Gentleman of Horror, you came here for dinosaurs. Rubber ones. So does At the Earth's Core deliver? Oh yes. Yes it does.
It was a legal obligation in the '70s for rubber dinosaurs to
pick up a doll with its teeth so that you'd get a shot of two little
legs kicking in its mouth.
But the real star of the show is The Iron Mole, a huge, Steampunk contraption, resembling The Mole from Thunderbirds. More Verne that Burroughs, it's a beautiful example of production design; the sort you don't see these days. Now, films tend to go completely over the top when wheeling out some Fantabulous Victorian Contrabulation. In the '50s, '60s and '70s, these things always seemed more credible--total products of science fiction, and yet, seemingly within the realms of possibility, had those wacky Victorians actually attempted to build them.
The John Dark/Kevin Conner/Doug McClure team returned for one more outing, this time backed by EMI and a much higher budget. Warlords of Atlantis (1978) was the result. Shot on location in Malta, the film boasts a much glossier look that their Amicus efforts and tells the story of a Victorian dive team happening upon the Lost Continent of Atlantis in their diving bell. Some of the monster effects, including a giant octopus, are actually pretty awesome, and the cast, including Peter Gilmore, Shane Rimmer and a pre-Cheers John Ratzenberger is more upmarket than Amicus could have afforded. Even Cyd Charisse and her legs turn up at one point, as one of the Martian rulers of Atlantis (it makes sense in context... no wait, sorry, it doesn't).
I will leave you with it's fishy and rather rubbery trailer...
Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing a short series on good old-fashioned monster movies from the pre-CGI days. Now, by "good," I mean "entertaining", not necessarily "good" in the more... uh... conventional sense. I'll also be looking at why these films, populated with puppets, plasticine stop-motion monsters and grown men in rubber suits are better (or at least more fun) than their more up-to-date counterparts. Today, we'll cop a butchers at...
The Last Dinosaur (1977)
Prepare to meet a man irresistible to women, a man of the world, a billionaire, raconteur, big-game hunter, industrialist, explorer, adventurer... every woman wants to be with him and every man wants to be him. Even his name sounds manly; Masten Thrust! Actually, if the cover of top international magazine Newswe-- uh... I mean Newsworld is to be believed, his full name is Masten Thrust Is He The World's Richest Man? Which sounds like a bloody funny name to me, so we'll call him Masten Thrust for short. No, no. It's such a manly name, we'll call him MASTEN THRUST! since it deserves capitals and an exclamation mark.
Oh yeah. He looks like this;
MASTEN THRUST!
So irresistible, he doesn't need
to give a shit.
Naturally, we are introduced to Mr. THRUST! Whilst he is in the company of a lady. Take note here; if you ever find yourself in the position of trying to impress a hot red-headed lady in a pink 70s trouser suit, take a leaf out of MASTEN THRUST!'s book of seduction techniques and show her slides of the defenceless animals you've killed on Safari. Weirdly, when the slide show is finished MASTEN THRUST! thanks some bloke named Charlie, who is off-screen. Evidently, this is why giving a lecture on hunting animals I cannot eat and whose death serves no other purpose than for sport never works for me. I need a bloke named Charlie gawping at us both from the shadows to get the girl really turned on.
Such is the mystery of MASTEN THRUST!.
Oh, and, when she compliments you on the fact that you've done everything, remind her that you haven't done her and go in for the kill. If you get bored halfway through, just walk out. Oh yeah, and toss her your scrapbook; that'll seal the deal. Go on, you know you want to. It's what MASTEN THRUST! would do.
Such is the opening of The Last Dinosaur (1977), a really weird international co-production between Rankin/Bass Productions in the US, and Tsuburaya Productions in Japan. While released theatrically in Japan and in other markets, it was cut from 106 minutes to 95 minutes in the US and went straight to TV. Obviously, this film was too good for western cinema goers.
Anyway, we jump cut to an Airfix plane (marked THRUST! INDUSTRIES, naturally) in a painted sky, dangling its way on piano wire to somewhere or another--presumably Japan because we get a shot of Mount Fuji through the window, but wherever it is, it's the most cosmopolitan place I've ever seen. Either that or the movie does a lousy job establishing a sense of place. The hot redhead (OK, according to the IMDB, her name is Thrust's Girl on Plane) is sat on her own in the plane, flicking through the scrapbook as Nancy Wilson belts out an amazingly 70s ballard out over the main titles.
A ballard that includes such lyrics as, "His time has past/They are no more/He is the Laaaast/DIN-O-SAUR!" Followed by lots of bow-chika-wa-wa's, etc.
Anyway, once they arrive, THRUST! dumps Thrust's Girl on Plane, saying his farewells with a plane ticket back to Portland and a solid gold bullet. Mr. THRUST! then proceeds with all haste to a division of THRUST! Industries, whilst important, international businessman music plays, telling us that Mr. THRUST! is an important, international business man.
THRUST! Industries--where they do... um... stuff?
Once at the office/lab/industrial complex/whatever-the-hell-this-building-is-supposed-to-be, THRUST! meets intrepid reporter Francesca "Frankie" Banks (Joan Van Ark), whom he immediately assumes is a prostitute (it was the 70s, after all). Before she can correct him, THRUST buggers off upstairs to the lab, where he is met warmly by Clichéd Japanese Scientist (you know, thick-rimmed glasses, comb-over, briefly concerned with doing something or other in the name of science). OK, so his name is Dr. Kowamoto (Tetsu Nakamura) but the lab coat tells you all you need to know. Dr. Kowamoto introduces MASTEN THRUST! to Chuck Wade (Steven Keats), who is supposed to be brilliant young genius, but looks like a gap toothed yokel who sees dinosaurs. Unsurprisingly, he claims to have seen a dinosaur.
So they all hurry away to an exposition conference, which takes the form of a press conference, where reporters ask each other, "is he really the world's richest man?"
Boy, does this press conference go on, but in a nutshell, MASTEN THRUST! has been drilling for oil using, for no god-damn reason whatsoever, 5-man underground burrowing machines that look like the Mole from Thunderbirds. Chuck is, unbelievably, a geologist and the only survivor of an accidental excursion by one of these drilling machines into a hidden volcanic valley. Everyone else was eaten by a dinosaur.
The Last Dinosau--oh, you get the idea. Of course, it's a T-Rex. It's never one of those little dinky ones with the hands or one of those huge turkey jobbies. It's a T-Rex.
Still, there is one thing fascinating about this press conference; MASTEN THRUST! is played by raging alcoholic Richard Boone and boy, in this scene, is he drunk. Really, really drunk. And as the film goes on. He just gets more drunk. The other fascinating thing is that when Mr. THRUST! introduces the team that will go hunting for the dinosaur (apparently to study its habits), he announces that he has hired his old friend, the best tracker in the world, Bunta (Luther Rackley). Bunta, being a Masai, is tall. I mean, really fucking tall. But the fact that he's tall does not warrant the reaction the reporters give. They don't bat an eyelid at notions of lost valleys, drilling machines or dinosaurs but show them a rather tall man? They go fucking nuts for it. It's like Kate Middleton got her tits out.
Again.
Naturally, the press association has chosen a reporter has to go on the expedition, and... actually, do I need to even explain where this is going? Do I even need to tell you that Frankie and MASTEN THRUST! will eventually hit it off trading hunting stories? And that she'll even have romantic night alone with the drunken old bastard? Well, not quite; she interrupts their tryst with he Pulitzer Prize winning slide collection (what is it with these people and their holiday snaps? ) and then she starts snogging the drunken old bastard. Like I said, he's irresistible.
Say! Ever wonder what movie inspired The Core (2003)? No, no one else has either! But now we know anyway; remember how the ridiculous, laser-powered drilling machine in that film was launched from an oil rig? Well, guess how they launch the ridiculous, laser powered drilling machine in The Last Dinosaur? In fact, once the THRUST! Polar Borer, as it is known, is dropped in the water, the scene plays pretty much shot for shot as it does in the later film (except, while The Core has crap CGI, The Last Dinosaur looks like it was filmed in a fish tank). Also, while Chuck, Dr. Kowamoto, Frankie and Bunta all wear spacesuits and helmets for the voyage, MASTEN THRUST will have none of that sissy, health and safety nonsense. He's a man's man and if he wants to dress up as Hemingway, he'll bloody well dress like Hemingway.
But finally, after a tense drilling sequence that only lacks tension, and one third of the way into the movie, the team emerge in a prehistoric land in the crater of a massive volcano (or something) and we see our first dinosaur! And it's... well, a rubber pteranodon on strings with matt lines around it, from where its been pulled from the blue screen.
No matter, as our intrepid heroes come ashore, they encounter a much more impressive beast;
It may not be the T-Rex, but at least it's two blokes in a pantomime horse arrangement. You can't go wrong with that. Also, the above clip is not the last case of complete idiocy the team displays. Straight after nearly getting killed by standing in front of a massive-fucking-angry-beast and not getting out of the way for a very long time, they make camp for the evening. Next to the lake. The lake populated by pteranodons. That swoop down and try to eat things. Things that include idiots.
The next day, they leave Dr. Kowamoto back at the camp because he has equipment to set up (Translation: so that he can get killed) and go exploring. Chuck displays his credentials as a gap-toothed yokel... sorry... brilliant scientist by muttering about the fauna, which must turn Frankie on because they suddenly and without warning develop sexual tension. T-Rex tracks are found, Frankie once again gets herself into another hilarious jam involving a giant turtle and some leeches, and a cave girl who I think we're supposed to find sexy follows them at a discrete distance. Ultimately, we don't find her sexy, because she not only has a mono-brow, but also because she adopts a strange Granddad walk (assuming your Granddad walks like an imbecile because mine certainly didn't). This, combined with her constantly frightened expression, makes her look like she's had a pants-related accident.
So finally, after nearly forty minutes and a lot of buggering around looking at tracks, discussing "spawn" and Bunta climbing a tree, the T-Rex finally makes and appearance.
It's a man in a monster suit. And it's glorious.
One of two things can happen when you're watching an old monster movie; you either think, "that looks crap" and turn it off; or your eyes widen, your mouth hangs agape and you regress to the state of a child, filled with wonderment at the magic of cinema. Naturally I fall into the latter category. Why? Well, let us examine the problem of CGI.
I have never once seen a shot using CGI that convinced me. I mean, sure, I've seen CGI that was photorealistic, but nothing that actually struck me as real. As far back as 1993, the T-Rex in Jurassic Park was impressive, as were the raptors; there were times when you genuinely couldn't tell the difference between the full-sized, animatronic replicas and their CG avatars. Interestingly, Suitmation (yeah, really, that's what it's called) was used for the raptors, but mainly for when they were hidden in the bushes. So what's the problem?
Well, CGI creations lack personality. They lack, if you'll indulge me, a soul.
When you see a puppet dinosaur, or a man in a monster suit, or a stop-motion creature, you don't just get the illusion of a living creature. A little of its creator's personality comes across as well. It's not just a special effect, it's a three-dimensional, tangible work of artistry that you can admire, in and of itself. There's something kind of endearing about a none-CGI monster; Godzilla (and I mean Godzilla, not that crap American abomination that was ret-conned into a completely different monster in the Japanese films*) may stomp cities, the Xenomorph may lay eggs down your throat and rip your crew-mates to shreds, the 1933 King Kong may wreck El-trains and carry women off to the top of the Empire State Building, but we love them because they are tactile; they are there, on-screen, for real; they have little bits of the personalities of the people who designed, sculpted and animated them. They may be monsters but they are imbued with a sense of humanity. A CGI creation, being removed from its creators by a mouse and a keyboard, has no personalty. It doesn't help that modern effects personnel working with computers aren't artists; they are technicians and thus do not understand that no matter how hard you work on visual details, you still won't imbue your creation with a soul. Interestingly, some film makers understand this and call in someone like Andy Serkis; Gollum, King Kong in the 2005 version and Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) are all imbued with life by his motion-capture performance to the extent that we forget about the CGI. It is the state-of-the-art equivalent of putting a man in make-up and a monster suit.
Getting back to The Last Dinosaur, after the T-Rex kills Dr. Kowamoto in a hilarious scene that involves a 40-foot lizard (raptor? Bird? What exactly are dinosaurs?) creeping up on a Nobel Prize winner and stamping on him without said Nobel Prize winner noticing, MASTEN THRUST! becomes less interested in documenting the beast and grows more and more obsessed with bagging it with his rifle. This is everything his close friend Dr. Kowamoto would not have wanted but, hey, he's MASTEN THRUST!. "This forty-foot monster with the brain the size of a dried pea has... sob... just destroyed a man with one of the great minds of this century," he laments.
Even the backward Chuck objects; "But Masten, you told me... you swore to all of us that we were not going to harm the dinosaur!"
"You DING-DONG!" Screams MASTEN THRUST! in response.
Thus, most of the rest of the film is taken up with various cartoonish schemes to fell the not-so-last-dinosaur. At one point, they tie a boulder to the thing's tail, just to fuck with it;
In another classic moment, they build an elaborate catapult to fire a rock at the poor thing's bouncy rubber head. In slow motion.
Naturally, all this effort is wasted. Even MASTEN THRUST!'s home made bombs don't work, and Bunta gets killed when the expert tracker falls victim to the T-Rex's habit of sneaking up on people and squishing them. One suspects that the T-Rex must be sniggering to itself every time it does this but who knows what goes on in the mind of such a proud and mighty beast?
Actually, the T-Rex seems to delight in high jinx, steeling the Polar Borer at one point just to get back at the annoying individuals who keep doing vaguely annoying things to it. Whilst the T-Rex is playing football with it, this, for some reason, happens;
What was the triceratops doing lurking in a hole in the ground? Why does the T-Rex sound like Godzilla? Why do the characters keep reffering to it as the Last Dinosaur when it clearly isn't? What does a monster the brain the size of a dried pea want with a drilling machine anyway? I can only answer one of these questions; since the film was produced in collaboration with Tsuburaya Productions (the people who do the special effects for all those Japanese men-in-monster suit wrestling matches) they evidently decided to use stock sound effects of one of the most iconic and recognisable monster roars of all time, instead of using something less noticeable. Why did they do this? Well... I don't know. Think of this film as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Sort of like Inception but with dinosaurs. Or not.
The film climaxes in a bizarre non-ending where everything turns into a race against time for no reason whatsoever (batteries or something), and while Chuck and Frankie elect to escape in the Polar Borer, MASTEN THRUST!, still obsessed with hunting the dinosaur elects to stay, walking off into the sunset as the cave girl gives him a suspicious look. The god awful theme song kicks in and it is then that we realise, "Oh yes! Now I see! MASTEN THRUST!, Great White Hunter, was the Last Dinosaur all along!" Genius.
Is this film a classic? Well, that depends on what you mean by the word "classic." But, by God, it's better than a Roland Emmerich movie any day.
*The american "Godzilla" is now known in the Toho cannon as "The Zilla" and is mentioned several times as a creature that attacked New York and was mistaken for Godzilla himself. She (as Roland Emmerich and his crew called her) finally faced off against Godzilla himself in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004). It is conspicuous that "The Zilla" was the only monster in that film to be rendered in CGI and not Suitmation. In addition, it was rather half-arsed CGI, almost as if Toho were insulting the very fabric of the monster's existence itself. Godzilla destroyed it in a battle lasting less than two minutes, prompting one character to decry, "I knew that tuna-eating lizard was no good!" Roland Emmerich, of course, continues to make films. Really, really bad ones; those that aren't boring like 10,000BC (2008)or 2012 (2009) are just plain bullshit like Anonymous (2011). It's telling that his highest rated film from the last ten years on the IMDB relies on historical revisionism. One suspects that his one good movie, Stargate (1994), was just a happy accident.
While passing judgement on the trailer is purely a case of subjective opinion (and it's only a few glimpses of the film), it certainly appears to be a long way from the book, but at least it looks epic in scope (if not extremely CGI heavy).
Personally, I got sick of zombie movies a long, long time ago and don't usually watch them any more as rule. There's only so much you can do with swarming masses of the walking (or running, or, in this case, falling over themselves in a massive wave) dead, but although I have to confess finding Max Brooks's writings a little over-rated, he at least did what few people have been able to do, and that is to depict a zombie apocalypse (or near apocalypse) on a truly global scale. One of the themes of the book is the idea that the zombies wouldn't be much of a threat if it weren't for the fact that governments and corporations are too incompetent and arrogant to take effective action. Judging by the trailer, this theme has been thrown out the window, since they've gone from shambling hoards to literal waves of 28 Days Later style, people-shaped monsters who seem to clump up, en masse, like ants in super glue. This either looks awesome or ridiculous, depending on who you are and what drugs you're taking.
What is a real mystery is why there was a bidding war between Brad Pitt's Plan B entertainment and Leonardo Dicaprio's Appian Way. The book is made up of interviews and anecdotes set 20 years in thefuture and 10 years after the zombie menace has been eliminated. It's a series of flashbacks with no central character as such and no real 'through-line'. Never-the-less, J Michael Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame) was commissioned to write a screenplay that met with universal approval, Paramount set a release date for December 2012. It was to be the first of a trilogy.
Then things started to go a little bit down the toilet.
Pitt, as producer, lobbied for director Marc Forster. That's right, the Marc Forster who directed Quantum of Solace (2008). Now, Forster is actually pretty good at drama. He directed such well-received movies as Monster's Ball (2001), Finding Neverland (2004) and The Kite Runner (2007). Trouble is, most people think of him as the guy who directed one of the most badly received Bond films ever. In actual fact, Quantum of Solace went into production just as the writer's strike started and according to Daniel Craig, that's what scuppered them. World War Z started to go wrong when a ground-up rewrite was ordered; why is hard to define. Maybe it was because Straczynski's draft was leaked, maybe it needed to be honed down to make it more manageable to film, maybe it fell victim to the Hollywood practice of rewriting everything to death. Ultimately, the draft they shot with was penned by Matthew Michael Carnahan. Regardless, after spending time with his family between films, Pitt arrived to find that, three weeks before production, Forster hadn't even made basic decisions, such as what the zombies should look like, or how they should move. Forster only seems to work well when he goes into production with the screenplay locked. In addition, he was forced to work with a crew he was unfamiliar with.
It was reported that Cinematographer Robert Richardson asked to leave the production several times and was frustrated by the lack of order.
The production was massive, but 2nd Unit Director Simon Crane was, apparently, given only a fraction of the time he asked for 2nd Unit photography (something like 20 days as opposed to the 60 he'd requested).
Then there was the notorious incident about customs officials in Budapest seizing 85 prop weapons imported into Hungary for the section of the film to be shot there; local laws dictated the weapons had to be decommissioned. They were, in fact, still live. In other words, they were gun-guns, not prop guns. Fortunately, no charges were brought, but only because the authorities could not discern who was liable. It is said that Pitt was furious.
The budget shot up from $125 million to a reported $175 million and when the first rough cut was assembled, it was realised only the first 52 minutes of the film worked. Re-shoots were needed. 3-7 weeks of them. The release date was put back to June 2013, making it only one of several major films this year to be delayed (other's being 47 Ronin and G.I. Joe: Retaliation).
At least we'll get to see Tom Cruise and Werner Herzog battle it out in World War Z's original release slot, since Jack Reacher (2012) will open in its place.
Contrary to reports, co-creator of TV's Lost, Damon Lindelof was not hired to write a new third act but was asked to view the film and give 'notes'. Many have despaired over his connection to the film, due to them perceiving him as the man who 'ruined' Prometheus (2012), but the actual writing was carried out by Drew Goddard, the man behind Cabin in the Woods (2012). He is named as a writer on the IMDB but since the IMDB is an unsourced, user-edited site (much like Wikipedia but with not notability), we can ignore this.
By the time re-shoots began in September, and for reasons that remain unknown, Pitt and Forster were no longer talking to each other but for contractual reasons, and DGA rules, Forster had to be kept on. Wild rumours regarding the actual process of the re-shoots were abound; it was said (by some of the more gossip-based film magazines) that Pitt was consulting with George Clooney and that Drew Goddard was more involved than the studio was willing to admit. The Clooney rumour seems like a load of balls and Goddard has downplayed his involvement, saying he did a small amount of work as a favour and didn't contribute enough to even get credited (credits in Hollywood are dictated by the unions, in the case of screenwriters, it's arbitrated by the Writer's Guild of America).
Despite the troubled production and lack of resemblance to the book, the film may still be a hit. Other films, such as Fitzcarraldo (1981) and Apocalypse Now (1979) went on to be sizable hits after being plagued with massive production problems. Others, such as John Carter (2012), Cutthroat Island (1995) and Heaven's Gate (1981) flopped mercilessly. It's worth noting that both Fitcarraldo and Apocalypse Now were massive super-productions shot in the jungles of third world countries; they had to deal with sever environmental factors and wars (seriously), rather than a lack of a good script or indecision.
In the film industry, things get tough and go wrong all the time. It is only when the world at large gets to hear about it that we start to smack our lips at the idea of an overblown multi-million dollar production crashing and burning, or get angsty about a movie we've been looking forward to for years turning out to be a piece of wank-splat.
In the end, World War Z may turn out to be a massive flop or a massive hit. The biggest disappointment at the end of all this is if it just turned out to be bland.
And, regardless of it's troubled history, we must keep in mind Werner Herzog's maxim; 'all that matters at the end of the day is what you see on the screen'.
How does one describe Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein (aka Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, 1974)? And what does it have to do with Andy Warhol? To give the answer to the second question first; not much. Warhol himself is quoted as saying that his role was just 'to go to the parties'.
The answer to the first question is... complicated.
Maybe we should start with the director; Paul Morrissey (and not, as some prints would have us believe Antonio Margheriti, but more on that later).
At first glance, politically conservative, Catholic Morrissey seemed like an odd partner for notorious New York-based Pop artist Warhol. Indeed, while Warhol was busy holding drug-fuelled salons (though Warhol himself was apparently something of a teetotaller) and the occasional orgy at his 'Factory', Morrissey was working his ass off making underground films produced by Warhol and marketed on the strength of his name. Ironically, most of Morrisey's output was highly moralistic and his outlook on life was the very antithesis of Warhol's (although Warhol himself was raised a Catholic). It is unfortunate that, even today, most of the films Morrissey directed during this period are often attributed to Warhol but let us set the record straight; the Factory's most famous cinematic outputs, Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), and Heat (1972) were entirely the work of Morrissey and, indeed, he has reiterated many times that he alone developed his cinematic style and Warhol merely signed the cheques.
Anyway, in 1974, Italian producer Carlo Ponti was looking for a director suited to make a 3D horror film. Upon asking Roman Polanski (who had briefly considered making What (1972) using the process), Polanski passed but suggested, much to everyone's surprise, Morrissey.
Upon receiving his commission, Morrissey turned up at Cincitta Studios in Rome with a two-page outline for what would become Flesh for Frankenstein, and Joe Dallesandro, his favourite actor, who had portrayed sympathetic hustlers and low-life's in his previous productions.
Joe Dallesandro: Twink
However, the first actor actually to be cast was the great Udo Kier, whom Morrissey had met once on a plane. He had immediately been struck be Kier's Teutonic other worldliness and decided that he would be perfect as Baron Frankenstein.
Udo Kier: Pretty Boy
The rest of the cast was filled out with Belgium born actress and New York socialite Monique "sure I have a sex life. What girl with my equipment wouldn't?" van Vooren as Katrin, the Baron's sister and um... wife...
Monique van Vooren: MILF
...Serbian artist and arthouse actor Srdjan Zelenovic...
Srdjan Zelenovic: Confused
...and, as the Baron's crazed assistant Otto, Arno Juerging, who was apparently pushed into acting by his mother, who apparently turned up at the Warhol Factory one day and ordered them to use her son. As German mothers can be quite persuasive, they did.
Arno Juerging: Making Mom proud
Getting her big break, in the role of the Female Creation, or, as dear Udo puts it "mein Feee-male Zam-beee", was spectacularly beautiful Italian model and actress, Dalila Di Lazzaro.
Dalila Di Lazzaro: Nice workmanship, Herr Baron
Now, the thing about Flesh for Frankenstein is that it is not only the most outrageous Frankenstein movie ever made, being a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and A Serbian Film (2010), but also a rather astute satire on class values, eugenics and human sexuality. That's right; a movie most famous for a scene were Udo Kier literally fucks a not-quite-dead woman in her gall bladder through a huge, gaping stomach wound actually has some brains behind it.
Of course, I could go in to an in-depth analysis about the moralistic position of Aryan "Serbian ideals" in relation to their genetic and racial background, which the film so deftly and critically analyses and satirises a full 20 years before the outbreak of Bosnian War, or I could do what everyone else does when discussing this film and make fun of the silly accents.
Fuck it. Accents it is.
So, the film opens on two creepy children skulking through an equally creepy section of the castle. We can tell they're creepy children because they proceed to dissect a doll and decapitate it with a guillotine. We can tell we're in a creepy part of the castle because it's filled with cobwebs, a really big spider (in 3D!) and a guillotine. Why anyone would have a guillotine lying around in their basement or garage is beyond me. Doesn't matter anyway since this is Castle Frankenstein we're talking about here, and the place is probably filled with shit that'd make Dr. Harold Shipman blush.
Seriously, these kids need counselling
Anyway, after a bizarrely protracted scene of Baroness Katrin riding with the children through the woods in a cart pulled by a ridiculously dinky pony (where she stops to berate Dalesandro's character, Nicholas the Stable Boy for "korryink Orn" mit ein... sorry, with a young shepherd girl, whom Katrin describes as "zuch twash"), we get to meet Frankenstein himself and his assistant, Otto, who discuss their plans in the Baron's study. It's a very nice study, I might add, because Gustav Klimt did the decor. The Baron dreams of finding "der purfekt narzoom" because apparently, the Serbian race is descended from "der glowry ov der ancient Gveeks" and they have the world's finest noses. Or something.
Later, at dinner, we discover that the Baron and Katrin are not only husband and wife but brother and sister as well. Nice. Also, Katrin is a catty bitch. Their children continue to be creepy and silently refuse to "eat zom zoop". Katrin has removed them from school because the other kids have been telling stories about her and because her creepy children are apparently too beautiful to mix with the riff-raff. This means that they will be spending even more time in this unhealthy environment.
That evening, the Frankenstein's groundsman, Sacha (Zelenovic) is digging a deep hole when Nicholas wanders by. It turns out that the two are friends. It also turns out that while everyone else speaks with an exotic Eastern European accent, Nicholas, despite claiming that Sacha and he have been friends for years, talks like a male prostitute from The Bronx. It actually takes a while for this to sink in, since it's so out of place we don't quite believe what we're hearing. It's also played so, so completely straight that it is only at this point we realise that we are not, in fact, watching a bad horror movie but a very camp comedy.
Sacha dreams of giving up working on the land and becoming a monk. "Arr ya really soyerious? About wannin' ta ba-come a Monk?" asks Delasandro. "Ja. Ja. I am. I wanna liff a cloy-streed life", is the reply. So Nicholas pursuades Sacha to visit "the gyurls in town".
In the morning, Katrina and the children are out having a picnic when they happen upon Nicholas yet again involved in sexy shenanigans. Seemingly annoyed, Katrina decides she wants to see Nicholas the next morning at the castle.
Meanwhile, in the laboratory (or should I say "lavatory" -some critics have even speculated that this was a deliberate mispronunciation; all the characters make it sound this way, regardless of accent. Certainly, the laboratory, with its slightly stained white tiles, resembles and gentleman's convenience. The "experiments" he performs in there certainly belong in the gutter), Frankenstein and Otto are busy cutting up their victims, removing organs and "pweparink" them. I think they mean "preparing" them, except that "pweparink" these delicate organs seems to involve holding them up to the camera (in 3D!) and sticking them is jars before carelessly mixing them up like yesterday's stew. This is all done while Frankenstein and Otto try to out-do each other in what appears to be a competition to see who has the fakest German accent. Considering both actors are German, this competion seems a little redundant to me. Anyway, with their perfect female creation nearing completion, they still need to find a head for the male with which to mate her. He must not only have "der purfekt narzoom" but also be a bit of a stud. This prompts the following exchange;
So off they go to stake out the local bordello, where, of course, Sacha and Nicholas are busy enjoying the girls. Well, at least Nicholas is (two of them, in fact). Sacha isn't really interested. In fact, he complete ignores the girl attempting to arouse his manly ardour and spends an unhealthy amount of time staring at Dallesandro's ass. It's certainly a very nice ass, but Sacha seems to be interested in more than its aesthetics. A lizard drops onto the bed (in 3D!) and prompts the prostitutes to scream and run outside. Frankenstein and Otto see this and, while Nicholas deals with the pest, Sacha goes to retrieve the girls. Of course, this comedy of errors leads Frankenstein to believe Sacha "must be veeerrrrry powerfoooll". The Baron also gets the hots for Sacha's "purfeckt narzoom".
Later that night, Sacha and a very drunk Nicholas make their way home, whereupon Otto twats Nicholas round the bonce with a club and Frankenstein removes Sacha's head with a huge pair of comedy garden shears (in 3D!).
For Frankenstein, it's Christmas; "Itz jooost vhat I vanted! It'z maknificent! I knooooo ve vould fint it! Otto! Look at eeet! Finally ve fint der right head mit der purfekt narzoom! Fur mein male zambeeee!"
While Nicholas wakes up to find his best friend hideously murdered in a bloodbath of carnage, Frankenstein and Otto proceed to transplant the head onto the body of their "male zambeeee". Wagner's stirring overture from Tannhauser swells as the Baron eleaborates on his ambitions in a proto-Nazi rant that may well qualify Udo Keir an award for Most Bonkers German Scientist Ever to Grace the Screen (even though, in the movie, he's supposed to be Serbian); "Zoon here in Zerbia und in mein lavatory, perfection vill bekomme ein weality! Yez, yez! Dat's right! Der twoo embodyment of Zerbian youth vill fint expwession! Mein vork ist der kontinuation ov der unfinished business hoff man on Earth! A fuuurrrzzzzeeeer refinement! But dis time I must corz der life! Dis ist der thresh-holt, Otto, ov der cweation dat vill weplace der vorn aus twash dat now poopoolates und wepoopoolates dat planet! Der loyalty vill be doo me only! I vill be der object ov der Ally-G-ience!"
Nicholas arrives at the castle as arranged and is shown to Katrin's bedroom. At first, he declares his intention to leave, on the grounds that he's a bit put out by the murder of Sacha. Then, this happens;
Dallesandro's ass (in 3D!)
So while Katrin and Nicholas get better aquainted, the camera tastefully pans away to reveal that the creepy children are reinforcing our impression of creepiness by spying on their mother (who is also their aunt, when you think about it) and her New Yorker lothario from behind a mirror.
Things go from perverse to completely-beyond-the-fucking-pale when we see what the Baron and Otto are upto in the laboratory. In a rather long and graphic sequence, Frankenstein operates on his Female Creation. At first all this seems fairly standard for a Frankenstein movie, although it is kind of creepy when the good doctor says "I go in to her digestive partz!". Turns out, he's not kidding.
In painful close-up we watch as each stitch is slowly snipped away and the huge scar on the Female Creation's torso is pulled open. Oh, and while all this is going on, it turns out she's semi conscious. Also, the Baron gets a bit, shall we say, hot under the collar...
"Spleen... kidneys... GALL BLADDER!" Even Otto looks a little freaked out when he pulls out her liver and starts fondling it. All the while, romantic piano music plays and the Baron gets more and more... ahem... excited.
Back in her bedroom, Katrina compliments Nicholas on his "remarkable" love making skills and hires him to be the family's new buttler. "By der vay", she says, "ve haff in der castle der most modern available plumbing facilities. Und I vont you to use dem. Every single day". Blimey, this dame has a way with pillow talk. I wonder what the Baron up to?
Oh! Holy Mother of Fuck!
Yep, the Baron got a little carried away. Any other surgeon would get struck off for that. Oh and, he's not plugged himself in anywhere normal, oh no. Welcome to the concept of torso fucking. "Zoon I vill kiff you life! You'll like zat!". Otto tries to cop a butchers at this but Baron is not impressed; "You filzy tink! Vhy are you lookink at me? Turn arount!". Otto leaves the two lovebirds alone and Frankenstein gets romantic; "My male zambeee ist almost cweated! I only need der bloot! Maybe tonight! Zoon you vill giff me der right chiltren! Der chiltren I vont!" Otto, at this point, is polish his scalpel.
And how does the Baron justify spilling his seed into a barely concious woman's chest cavity? With this little gem of wit and widom;
I can only hope he showered afterwards.
Actually, this line was supposed to be the other way around (with life and death reversed). But Udo Keir gave the wrong reading and Paul Morrissey decided to leave it be, since, he realised, it didn't make sense however he said it. Bare in mind that they were actually making this stuff up as they went along, with Morrissey dictating the days pages to a secretary on the drive to the studio every morning. No wonder it's a little anarchic. No one had time to realise what they were doing. Oh, and this scene is what got the movie put on the Video Nasties list. It wasn't released in its uncut form in the UK until 2006. If you've seen the film, you'll know how rediculous that is.
So, after the creey children have observed more slutty business with Nicholas the Man-whore and Katrin the Nympho, who, ironically enough, explains that she and the Baron are together for the sake of their children, "to brink zem up right"...
...Frankenstein and Otto finally stop dicking around and do what mad scientists are supposed to do, in that they wire up their creations to some daft-looking machinary, pull some switches and get some sparks flying.
Science!
Also, Frankenstein takes the oportunety to have another rant, just for good measure; "No von hast komm as klose as I in unterstantink der zeekret ov life intelligently cweated! My mistakes haff been few but I luurrrned from every von! Let ust make zurtain dat der electrodes are place pwecise as alvays! At der cvitical en-ur-gy points! Apply der electwicity!" So switches are thrown, electricity crackles and bodies shake. Success!
"I'm zo happy fur you Baron!"
"I'm fulfilled!", screams the Baron, "Boot not yet! Ve haff to vait fur der final triumph! Der bweedink! Und den, der chiltren! If der be only zome vay to wedoooce der gestation per-wii-od! How can I vait fur nine momffs from tonight 'til sie bares me der fuuuurrrrst chilt? I must! Zer's zome tinks even science konnot modify!"
Otto looks up at his master with abject adoration "Ze honour you do me to share in dis incvedible twiumph ist more than I deserved, Bawon!".
For some reason, Frankenstein decides it would be a good idea to take his creations to the table. This leads to an extremely awkward family dinner. As Nicholas serves, he recognises Sacha (or at least his head) and, naturally enough, becomes extremely suspicious. The Baron notices this and becomes suspicious himself.
No one looked forward to dinner in
the Frankenstein household
Later, Nicholas voices his suspicions to Katrin. Obviously, she's not to impressed by his nonsensical ramblings about his dead friend's head on someone else's body (the male creation being much taller than Sacha) and insists that Sacha's murder must have been some drunken nightmare.
The creepy children, meanwhile, have crept into the laboratory. They piss about for a bit, nick a disembodied hand (Lord knows why) and come across a rather impressive set of lungs kept breathing in a tank under the Baron's desk (in 3D!). When the Baron and Otto return with the creatures, the creepy children skitter off, ending up in the catacombs beneath the castle, where they are attcked by rubber bats (in 3D!). At this point, we should breifly digress into the world of tax evasion. No, bare with me. Remember I said some prints (specifically, Italian ones) bare the name Antonio Margheriti as director? Well, the disembodied lung contraption was his work, left over from one of his own films. He did, apparently do some second unit work, shooting a handful of special effects inserts. Now, Ponti had a practice of crediting Italian directors on prints released in his native Italy in order to qualify for tax breaks. These directors would receive a sum of money for the use of their name but often had minimum involvement in the films themselves. It was such a successful practice that Ponti wound up in jail, along with his wife, Sophia Loren.
Anyway, with the creatures put safely away, Frankenstein has a good old bitch to Otto; "Vhy, Otto, dey zeem zo iterested in mein vife's new servant? Der moozt be zum qvality dat attwcts dem?" Otto swears Nicholas looks familiar but the Baron is dismissive. "Vhy shouldn't he? Dey all looook der zame? Except mein Zerbian! I alvays look fur der noble idealz und artifacts of ancient zivilization! My zizter und I are verrry mooch alike! But Sie... zomehow alvays likes to keep her noooze alvays in der GUTTER!".
Actually, Katrin actually seems to prefer keeping her nose in Nicholas's armpit, giving it a good lick, complete with comedy slurping noises. Nicholas, on the other hand is rather distracted, imploring Katrin to help him to get into the lab but she is to busy indulging in musky underarm action to heed him.
With the children missing, their nanny, Olga (Liu Bosisio) comes into the laboratory looking for them. Unfortunatly, Otto corners her and chases her into one of the store rooms where he rips open her corset, presumably in attempt to emulate the Baron's wound fucking ways. This does not go very well and leads to her guts falling out (in 3D!).
Oh, well done, Otto!
Nicholas tries to find a way into the laboratory but the Baron catches him and gives him a good ticking off for wondering around where servants are not permitted.
The Baron returns to the laboratory and, like most incompetant rapist assistants, Otto decides to hide the body and pretend nothing has happened.
In the mean time, Nicholas calls upon the creepy children to help him in his quest and they show him another way into the laboratory.
While Nicholas evesdrops from the vaulting above them, The Baron and Otto attempt to get the two creatures to mate. "Kiss heem! Kiss heem! KISS HEEM!", but the male isn't too interested and can't get it up.
Nicholas goes back to Katrin and tries to tell her what her husband... brother... I loose track... anyway, he tries to tell her what he's been up to. "Oye just hyad a lyook at ya' hyusband's wyork! Da lyabratory! Da bootcha's shap!" Katrin asks how he got there. "Ya children! Day knoo da way!".
She is not best pleased.
"How dare you! How dare you vake me in der middle of der day vhen you know I haff inzomnia! Zince vhen are der lower klass alowed zuch prezumption?!"
Realising Katrin's priorities aren't in too good an order, Nicholas declares that he's not going let all this continue and resolves to stop the Baron. "How dare you kontrdikten me! Who are you? You Nosink! You low life! You zcum!"
Nicholas replies with "You byatch!" and gives her a good slap before storming out and slamming the door in true soap opera style.
"You vilth! You varmer! How dare you valk aus on me!"
Pissed off that his experiments have gone pair-shaped, Frankenstein throws a hissy fit.
While Nicholas investigates the laboratory, The Baron questions his son, who is not forthcoming, so he and Otto confront Katrin.
Katrin, being a "zex maniak", arranges to tell the Baron everything in return for a night with the male creature. Frankenstein agrees and Katrin reveals that Nicholas is in the laboratory at this very moment.
None of this ends well. I'm talking Greek Tragedy stuff, believe you me. It wouldn't be seemly to ruin the ending but we're talking piles and piles of bodies, more gallbladder fuckery (though that, in itself, goes a bit wrong) and Udo throwing a hilarious sissy fit (again) while throwing severed hands at people. Oh and, the liver on the end of a spear as to be seen to be believed. All in glorious 3D, ladies and gentlemen, glorious 3D. Ultimately, even the children get involved in this bloodbath, making me think the Baron shouldn't have left his Eli Roth collection lying around for the infants to see.
So is the movie worth checking out? Well it's certainly one of those movies that has to be seen to be believed. It's outrageous, it got itself onto the Video Nasties list, it's an witty critique of the class system and 70s morality masquerading as trash. It has silly accents. And it's the only film to feature a guy sticking his junk into a gaping stomach wound to receive a DVD release by the Criterion Collection (that is unless Ingmar Bergman went in for this sort of thing, but I highly doubt it).
Go into it accepting the film on its own terms and you'll have a ball, though just make sure you smoke a little something first. Oh, and you may need a drink and a sit down afterwards.
