Frankenhooker

1990
Dir. Frank Henenlotter

When his fiancée Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) is decapitated in a freak remote control lawnmower accident (!), medical student Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz from Street Trash) sets out to build her a new body made up of Manhattan prostitutes and zap her back into life... These broads are tough cookies though, and the only way Jeffrey can get his hands on a dead one is by using his latest invention, Supercrack: a lethal cocktail of drugs designed to make the user explode. Yup. You read that right. Explode.

In case that synopsis leaves you in any doubt, Frankenhooker (very loosely inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel) is a sleazy, trash-fest of splashy splatter effects, ludicrous body-horror, gratuitous nudity and cartoonish violence. In other words, it’s a damn good time. Prior to Frankenhooker, Henenlotter was responsible for such cheap and cheerful grot-fests as Basket Case 1 and 2, and Brain Damage; scuzzy, low-budget exploitation flicks boasting freakish, strangely sympathetic characters engaging in all manner of seedy doings on the fringes of society. High on subversive imagination and morbid wit, his work may be exploitative trash, but its great exploitative trash; and certainly more provocative and entertaining than the majority of films currently in your local multiplex.

The New York backdrop of Frankenhooker is as sleazy and gritty as you’d expect, and Henenlotter has fun with the carnival of colourful characters that populate it; hookers, drag queens, pimps, junkies and all manner of bizarre deadbeats. The bulk of the film basically acts as an elaborate set up, in which Jeffrey hatches his perverse plan - while treating his fiancée’s severed head to candlelit dinners and fine wine no less - and his attempts to obtain the body parts he needs to rebuild her. Cue lots of exploding prostitutes and scenes featuring gory body parts flying through the air. When she’s finally resurrected, the sight of the stitched together, bikini-clad Elizabeth staggering through Times Square is a memorable one. Blurting things like “Want a date?” and “Got any money?” in a thick New York accent, she proceeds to pick up a few clients, with morbidly hilarious results, as Jeffrey rushes frantically to find her and take her back to his lab.



Were it not for the fact that its all so ludicrous and over the top, Frankenhooker could be seen as a misogynistic piece of grindhouse that views women as no more than the sum of their separate body parts. Henenlotter’s darkly twisted humour, impish enthusiasm and sly social commentary shine through though, and Frankenhooker emerges as a tongue-in-cheek, freakishly trashy retelling of Mary Shelley’s cautionary classic. Henenlotter’s style is quite similar to the likes of Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and comparisons with the likes of Re-Animator and Society are inevitable; particularly in the last scenes when the severed body parts Jeffrey has been storing in a vat of his life preserving elixir begin to merge and take on grisly lives of their own. Despite the low budget, the special effects, as elaborate and ridiculous as they are, still look great.

Frankenhooker (cert. 18) was released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video on 2nd January 2012. Special Features include: brand new high definition transfer of the film (1080p); UK exclusive audio commentary with director Frank Henenlotter and star James Lorinz; UK exclusive introduction to the film by actor James Lorinz; “Your Date’s On A Plate: The Making Of Frankenhooker” – UK exclusive documentary featuring director Frank Henenlotter, star James Lorinz and special effects artist Gabe Bartalos; a personal UK exclusive tour of the Gabe Bartalos effects lab in Los Angeles, California; “A Salad That Was Once Named Elizabeth: Patty Mullen Remembers Frankenhooker”; “A Stitch In Time: The Make-Up Effects Of Frankenhooker”; Turning Tricks: Jennifer Delora Remembers Frankenhooker”; original theatrical trailer; reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphries; double-sided fold-out artwork poster; exclusive collectors’ booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by Calum Waddell.

Popular posts from this blog

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

Image
Dir. Andy de Emmony After placing his senile wife in a care home, retired astronomer James Parkin (John Hurt) heads for the coast to revisit their ‘old haunts’, including the now out-of-season hotel they honeymooned in. By day he is stalked along the windswept beaches by a spectral figure dressed in white, and by night he is terrorised by strange sounds and someone, or something, attempting to enter his room… In the 2000s BBC4 attempted to reignite the old Ghost Story at Christmas tradition by adapting MR James’s A View from a Hill (2005) and Number 13 (2006). This series was seemingly short lived though, as their next outing wasn’t until 2010, and an unusual reinterpretation of James’s classic chiller Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad . While de Emmony’s direction captures the atmosphere and tone of James very well, this film differs significantly from other adaptations, including Jonathan Miller’s supremely unsettling 1968 take . Neil Cross’s screenplay only incorpo...
Read more

Halloween: Resurrection

Image
2002 Dir. Rick Rosenthal Four years after mistakenly killing a man she thought to be her brother (really, Dimension Films? Really ?), long-suffering Laurie Strode is eventually hunted down by her not really dead actual brother, crazier-than-bat-shit Michael Myers, and murderlised. Making his way back home to Haddonfield, Myers discovers the crew of an online reality show has taken over his house (!) to broadcast a Halloween special featuring a group of dumb-fuck teenagers dared to spend the night in the house of ill-repute. Naturally he goes on yet another killing spree. And it's all caught on camera and broadcast online for other dumb-fuck teenagers to watch. Yes, all of this actually really happens. It really fucking happens. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later did not warrant a sequel. It was intended not only as a twentieth anniversary celebration of John Carpenter's classic chiller , but as a way to draw the series to a close, with its original heroine finally co...
Read more

Caveat (2020)

Image
Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls... Written and directed by Damian McCarthy,  Caveat  is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from c...
Read more