The Evil of Frankenstein

Six years after “The Revenge of Frankenstein” (1958), “Hammer” produces the least successful and least convincing chapter of the entire series. A new agreement reached with historic rival Universal Pictures became a millstone weighing down the entire film, much to the detriment of both its spirit and its content.

On the plot level, the film feels like something of a remake of “Son of Frankenstein” (1939) – the doctor returning to his birthplace, the enraged crowd, etc. – but its most irritating aspect is the total disregard for the first two films of the series, and more generally, for Hammer’s overall take on the “Modern Prometheus” myth.

From a visual standpoint, the film has a woefully anachronistic look and feel: the laboratory’s depiction is straight out of a typical “mad doctor movie” from the 1930s, and the creature’s appearance seems deliberately designed to evoke the Boris Karloff classics. Further, the scientist’s core personality undergoes a drastic upheaval as the screenplay by Anthony Hinds (credited as “John Elder”) eliminates the baron’s negative traits while exaggerating the theme – only hinted at in “The Revenge of Frankenstein” – of an unappreciated genius deplorably misunderstood by the rest of the world.

Expunged of any and all Mephistophelian and egotistical nuances, this Victor 2.0 is reduced to the role of a persecuted man (“Why can’t they ever leave me alone?“), a development that detracts from the emotional complexity developed in Fisher’s films, casting the multi-faceted and contradictory nature that lent uncommon depth to Victor’s character aside in one fell swoop.

Polemically stated, the very decision to turn the baron into a sort of staunch behaviorist (before the term was invented) serves as an indication of the scarce respect that the screenwriter must have accorded the psychological dimension: “It is my wish to disprove the old theories concerning the evolution of life and the origin of the life force, and to restate them simply in terms of biophysical chemistry as chemical action and reaction controlled by the external impulses” (basically, a sort of reductionism that restricts itself to solely examining the observable).

Nothing to complain about cast-wise. Cushing’s acting style is first-rate as always, Peter Woodthorpe does a respectable job in the role of the coarse, blackmailing hypnotist, and the supporting cast isn’t too shabby either. This film’s problems lie deeper, at the very core. Fortunately, Terence Fisher’s upcoming return in “Frankenstein Created Woman” (1967) will work wonders towards getting the series back on track.