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    The Ghost of Frankenstein

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    “Ghost of Frankenstein” is a bad movie, but I like it. Right from the get-go you can tell the people who put the film together didn’t really know how to expand the story from the previous film, so they just made up a bunch of stuff and rolled with it. It features plenty of non-science (that’s nonsensical science if you’re unfamiliar with the term), introduces new concepts that have no business in a “Frankenstein” story and I found it to be delightfully nutty.

    At the end of the previous film, Ygor (Bela Lugosi) died at the hands of Frankenstein's Son and the Monster (this time played by Lon Chaney Jr., most famous for playing the Wolf Man) fell into a sulphur pit. When the people in the surrounding countryside decide they’re fed up with the “curse of Frankenstein” that is withering their crops and all around making their lives miserable, they blow up Castle Frankenstein... a castle that wasn’t present in the previous film. In doing so, they free the monster. Ygor, apparently having only been wounded by several gunshots travels with the monster to get help from Frankenstein’s OTHER son, a brain surgeon named Ludwig (Cedric Harwicke)

    Already you can tell that they just ret-conned a bunch of stuff from the previous pictures, and not in a way that feels like maybe we didn’t see the whole story or something was misinterpreted like in “Bride of Frankenstein”. Ygor is suddenly alive; Frankenstein now has another son (who lives in Europe, unlike the other brother who lived in America) and the Monster just is just a shovel scoops away from freedom instead of being a charred corpse. I don’t mind too much because Lugosi is entertaining in the role, but it’s pretty contrived. That’s just the tip of it. The major eyebrow-raiser is the titular “Ghost of Frankenstein”. Not a metaphor, literally the spirit of an elderly Henry Frankenstein (also played by Hardwicke, Colin Clive having passed away in 1937) appears to tell his son to continue his work. We’re literally working fantasy into the franchise now, which I feel is pretty odd, but nothing compared to what comes up in the following film...

    There’s a severe lack in consistency all around, the ghost being the least of them. Several times throughout the film the Monster is in front of regular people, and they don’t act like they’re looking at a giant who has been stitched together from choice body parts. I know the movie is in black and white, and I certainly don’t expect the creature to be green (as some posters might suggest) but look at the creature! The idea that it would be put on trial and confused for a regular person or an abnormally strong mental patient is absolutely ridiculous.

    What I like about the movie is that it’s not a “Frankenstein” movie anymore. It’s a nutty story about mad scientists going to town through and through. There’s the revelation that the Monster is powered by lightning/electricity like a robot, there’s betrayal, plans to swap out people’s brains, a house with vents that emits knock-out gas, secret rooms within secret rooms and even plans to take over the country that involve the monster. I don’t know guys. I realize this creature is strong, but anything that can be defeated with a stick of dynamite or an axe to the head I wouldn’t put all of my chips on. At several points people refer to the human brain as something that contains all of your memories and your personality... and then seem to forget this as soon as the concept of doing the surgery actually comes into play. I tell ya, if this movie was longer than 67 minutes it would be frustrating, but as is, “Ghost of Frankenstein” is so crazy you can’t predict what is going to happen next and you can tell that it was made very earnestly. It’s like a spoof of itself and it would be atrocious if it weren’t so absolutely convinced that its “science” works the way it’s supposed to.

    I struggled with what rating to give the film for some time. It’s a lot of fun to watch, which means it’s good, but this plot is laughable. Seeing Lugosi as Ygor, wickedly proclaiming to be the Monster’s friend but not meaning it... or maybe being earnest is a delight. I don’t even mind that the Monster is just a lumbering brute because that persona is perfectly at home in this story where you half expect yet another secret Frankenstein sibling to pop up. The special effects and acting are decent (and when it isn’t, it’s amusing to see people under-react to the carnage around them) If you’re a fan of the franchise, I recommend it. Put the subtitles on (or make sure the speakers are really good) so you can talk over the action, question the developments and make jokes without missing too much of what’s going on. (On DVD, December 5, 2015)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  14.12.2015 age: 26-35 2,866 reviews

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