Tales of Frankenstein

Inspired by the original novel, a series of alternate tales and stories about the Frankenstein legend.

The Good Stor(ies): My Creation, My Beloved-A century after the original creation got loose, a deformed descendent enraged over the fallout of his family's past attempts to create a perfect pair of species in each sex. As he goes about selecting various parts from a series of locals, he soon encounters an unexpected side-effect of his work. On the whole, this is a serviceable enough effort for getting this one going. The idea of his fury over the family legacy and attempt to get his affairs in order by outdoing the work of his ancestors which leads him down the path he does is well-handled and manages to influence the second half with his attempt to build his two creations. It's a little unfortunate that this section moves away from him being responsible for sourcing the pieces as he instead collects them from accidents not of his doing but the Gothic atmosphere and template for everything still carries this one along nicely.

Crawler from the Grave-After the death of her husband, a woman receives a call from his sworn enemy asking about the location of a sacred ring that was buried with him. Driven by madness to acquire the ring, he sets out to take it for himself only for something not quite human to be on his trail. This one was a solid if slightly problematic entry. One of the biggest drawbacks is that so much of the running time is taken up with the flashback detailing the relationship between the two and how the husband died which takes up more time than necessary when it could've been told more economically. After that, the segment has a lot to like with the paranormal inclusion of the cursed item coming to spell doom to the recipient who's unfortunate to be within its path which is mixed nicely with the other storyline influences to create plenty of fun with the question of whether the hand coming back is his guilty conscious or not. It's just a tad too long for its good.

Dr. Karnstein's Creation-Moving to a quiet Transylvanian town, a doctor's descendant and his teenage assistant move into an abandoned castle and set out to recreate the doctors' work. As they start to put the creature together, the success of their mission gets interrupted by the curious locals eager to know what they're up to in the castle. For the most part, this was a pretty solid and enjoyable entry. That this one goes about simply as a recreation of the original storyline involving graverobbing and constructing a monster for their nefarious purposes is about the only downfall here with the setup taken directly from the original story into a new location. Beyond that, the scenes of them stealing corpses in the graveyard and the eventual construction of the creature are full of old-school Gothic splendor much like the later scenes involving the resolution of the missing piece of the puzzle that's needed for the experiment. Combined with the frantic action in the finale, this has a lot to like overall.

The Bad Stor(ies): Madhouse of Death-Breaking down on a country road, a man trying to get out of the storm stumbles upon a strange mansion in the hillside where he finds the occupants inviting him inside almost too quickly. When it becomes clear about their intentions, he tries to get away before being transplanted into the body of a pet ape. This was a wholly problematic segment overall. The main problem is the running narration over the segment which tries to invoke the feeling of a film-noir but just comes off annoying with the unfunny jokes and observations that are supposed to get us on his side. Rather, they become cringe-worthy and just ruins the pacing which makes it obvious that he's an idiot which is the complete antithesis of his appeal to the brain-swapping doctor in the first place. Combined with little actual surgical scenes and a tenuous grasp of what the actual mythology was about, it's lighthearted and goofy tone is all this has going for it.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.