La maldición de Frankenstein (1972)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Jesus Franco

Writers:

Jesus Franco (screenplay)
Jesus Franco (story)

Release Date:

1972 (France)

Genre:

Horror

Plot Keywords:

Death | Blood | Sex | Torture | Doctor Frankenstein

Cast

Alberto Dalbés	...	Doctor Seward (as Alberto Dalbes)
Dennis Price	...	Doctor Frankenstein (as Denis Price)
Howard Vernon	...	Cagliostro
Beatriz Savón	...	Vera Frankenstein (as Beatrice Savon)
Anne Libert	...	Melisa
Fernando Bilbao	...	Monstruo
Britt Nichols	...	Madame Orloff
Luis Barboo	...	Caronte
Daniel White	...	Tanner (as Daniel Gerome)
Doris Thomas	...	Abigail (as Doris Tom)
Lina Romay	...	Esmeralda (in version "La maldición de Frankenstein")
Jesus Franco	...	Morpho (as J. Franco)

Also Known As:

Les expériences érotiques de Frankenstein (France)
The Curse of Frankenstein
The Erotic Adventures of Frankenstein (Canada: English title) (dubbed version)
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (UK)

Runtime:

94 min | Netherlands:71 min (25 fps) (as "The Curse of Frankenstein") | Spain:81 min

Country:

Spain | France

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Spain:18 | Argentina:18

Filming Locations:

Portugal

Company:

C. Fénix Films

Movie Connections:

Edited into Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell (1999)

Jess still has a lot to teach us.

To all of you out there who think that the likes of Steven Soderbergh and David O. Russell epitomize independent film-making: go rent this film and let the scales fall from your eyes. Made during director Jess Franco's amazing early 70's period, post Harry Alan Towers and pre-porno, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is a surrealist masterpiece, poetic, perverse, comic, and mesmerizing. Shot for next to nothing on location in Portugal, the film is full of evocative, wide-angle, hand held imagery that must have appeared jaw-droppingly innovative at the time, and still astounds today. Daniel White's atonal, experimental score skillfully enhances the film's nightmarish languor, and the roles, particularly Anne Libert's blind cannibalistic Bird Woman, and Howard Vernon's strangely sexy Cagliostro, are performed with aplomb and conviction. You won't soon forget the scenes of white-shrouded undead gliding through a mist-laden forest, the strange, red-lit shots of Cagliostro's acolytes blithely staring at cruel tableaux orchestrated for their perverse amusement, or a shrieking, silver-skinned Frankenstein's monster relentlessly whipping a man and a woman tied together over a bed of spikes. Anyone who doubts Jess Franco's talent should rent this DVD, and then ponder the pettifogging morass that independent cinema has become.