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Sunday, January 07, 2007

"Frankenstein Reborn" review

Frankenstein Reborn (2005)

Directed by Leigh Slawner
Writing credits Leigh Slawner

Rhett Giles .... Victor Franks
Thomas Downey .... Robert Walton
Jeff Denton .... Hank Clerval
Joel Hebner .... Frankenstein/Bryce
Eliza Swenson .... Elizabeth Weatherly
Amanda Barton .... Dr. Emily Hertz

Frankenstein is reborn. This time the mad doctor is a lusty egomaniac. He likes the hot women to go with his cold corpses. My kind of guy.

Victor Franks is in the insane asylum. The authorities want to know if he is mentally competent to stand trial for murder. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Doc Franks is trying to bring life to dead tissue. This is how he impresses the chicks. But like all mad B-movie doctors, his insane experiment has to run amok. He has created a monster. The monster has inherited some of the doctor’s maniacal urges. The good doctor has a lot of people he needs to kill…

“Frankenstein Reborn” starts off with all guns blazing.

*SPOILER*

In the first five minutes, a sexy woman, (it turns out later to be one of the doctor’s many enemies), enters the doctor’s laboratory alone. Foolish woman. Haven’t she ever seen a horror movie before? Needless to say, she dies very badly.Very, very badly. Nice gory way to start the flick. It’s never too early to have the blood start spilling.

*END SPOILER*

After that, “Frankenstein Reborn” downshifts into a give and take between the mad doctor and his psychiatrist. We get the doc’s back-story but the horror movie gets put on pause until he gets around to the good parts of his tale. Once the doc jumpstarts his monster into the world of the undead, the movie picks up. There are a lot of good bloody scenes as the monster starts ripping and tearing his way through the Doctor’s enemies.

Overall, I was satisfied with this one. There’s plenty of blood and guts in the second half of the movie to make a B-movie fan happy. I liked the monster’s work ethic too. He pursued his prey wherever they may be. And if his victim happens to be a beautiful redhead taking a bath, well, sometimes a monster just has to get a little wet for his homicidal thrills.

One last thing, I would be remiss in my reviewing duties if I did not give praise to the lesbian sex scene. It wasn’t the hottest scene ever put to film but you gotta like a maniacal doctor who can take the time from his reanimation experiments to have his hot lab assistants get naked for him. Well, maybe you don’t have to like him but I sure appreciate it.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 mad doctors

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