Frankenstein Unbound (1990) - film review

Dr Joseph Buchanan is developing a weapon which he hopes will put an end to war.  Unfortunately, a test run with his atomic disintegration beam has some unexpected side effects, such as the creation of time rifts all over the planet.  Buchanan falls through one of these rifts and finds himself in Switzerland in 1817.  Here, at a village inn, he makes the acquaintance of a scientist named Dr Frankenstein.  The latter reveals that his younger brother has recently been murdered and that his nanny is to be hung as a witch.  Buchanan realises that the real killer is a monster created by Frankenstein and makes an attempt to save the girl charged with the murder.   At the trial, Buchanan meets a young woman named Mary Godwin, who is writing a novel based on Frankenstein...

Too mad to be taken seriously?  Roger Corman’s return to directing after a twenty year intermission at first feels like a private joke but ten minutes into this juvenile mishmash of cheap horror, sci-fi and erotica it suddenly becomes apparent that someone expected to make money out of it.   If you’re a teenager who can stomach this kind of puerile schlock Frankenstein Unbound is probably not as offensive and tedious as it would appear to a more discerning cinemagoer.  Unfortunately, if you are a more discerning cinemagoer, this film will most probably having you running for the door marked EXIT within about five minutes.

So just why is this film so awful?  It can’t be the fact that it was made  on a shoestring budget, since Corman is renowned for making an art of turning out respectable films on a low budget.  The film does look cheap, but that’s not the issue.  Neither is it the concept which, supremely dotty as it may be, is at least original and moderately amusing.  No, what kills this film is a combination of bad screenwriting, bad acting and some excruciatingly self-conscious direction on the part of Corman himself.

Perhaps we can excuse the acting because the script is so awful.  Even John Hurt, an actor who is usually beyond reproach, has difficulty saying his dialogue with anything like conviction.  A child of ten could hardly have done a worse job on the script.  If it weren’t for the film’s horror content and sexual allusions (which earned it an 18 certification in the UK), you’d swear this was intended for the children’s afternoon telly slot.  Frankenstein Unbound is the abyss of low budget horror.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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