| Frankenstein Unbound Released: 1990 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Monster Nuts And Bolts: Scientist Joe Buchanan travels back in time two hundred years and meets the infamous Dr. Frankenstein. His goal is not to stop Frankenstein's mad creation - but rather his plan is to play stink-finger with the nineteen-year-old author that made him famous. Summary: The story begins in the city of New Los Angeles in the year 2031. Professor Joseph Buchanan (John Hurt) is your typical middle-aged mad scientist type who has been contracted by the Pentagon to spearhead a top secret scientific think tank known as Project: Safeworld; and never a more misleading name are you likely to find. Buchanan's idea of marshalling in a "safer" world is by constructing a big fucking particle beam accelerator. Nothing major mind you…just a nuclear powered laser system similar to that which you would find on the fucking DEATH STAR! But there's a problem with the particle beam that Buchanan is a bit twitchy about. Every time they test the fucker it generates some atmospheric phenomena known as a timeslip. The timeslip is basically this big vagina-shaped cloud through which matter is instantly transported to another location within the space-time continuum. After a tough day at the lab, Joe goes home in his badass talking car. Joe's car is basically the female version of KITT from the 80's motor-head cult classic, Knight Rider. As he's getting out of his car, he notices something weird happening with the big twat cloud. He and his car get slurped up into the thing and are instantly transported to Switzerland in the year 1817. It could be worse I suppose. He could've been dumped out on the New Jersey turnpike like those poor fucks from Being John Malkovich. Despite the fact that he knows he just went through a dimensional window, Joe still doesn't realize that he is no longer in the 21st century. He drives his car around the grassy fields for a bit before deciding to wander in to town to see what's up. It soon becomes apparent that he is stuck in the past, and he has to hock his wedding ring in order to buy some clothes of the period. He goes into a Swiss pub and meets a Puerto Rican impersonating a Swiss inventor. But this isn't just ANY Puerto Rican impersonating a Swiss inventor. This is Baron Victor Von Frankenstein (Raul Julia). The two hobnob for a bit, and Frankenstein becomes interested in Buchanan's futuristic digital wristwatch. Fucking Swiss and their damn watches. Buchanan learns that Victor's younger brother William was savagely murdered and that a woman named Justine Moritz is on trial for the murder. But Buchanan is well aware of the classic Frankenstein story and knows that Justine is innocent of William's murder. Victor leaves the pub and Joe hitches a ride on the back of Victor's carriage. The carriage stops somewhere deep in the woods and Joe overhears Victor arguing with a big old bag of butt-ugly. This of course, is Victor's nameless monster. The monster grunts and groans and tells Victor that he wants him to construct for him a custom-made anatomically correct woman-monster. Joe soon leaves the scene and Victor is unaware that future man had been spying on him. So Joe begins touring around Geneva until he learns where the trial of Justine Moritz is being held. He goes down to the courthouse where he meets Mary Godwin (Bridget Fonda). Joe knows that Mary Godwin will also become more infamously known as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, the writer who will soon chronicle the exploits of the weird hairy creature he had seen in the woods not two hours ago. Joe starts putting the moves on Mary, telling her about how much he respects her writing. Mary thinks Joe is a flake - mostly because she has never published anything at this point. Buchanan also starts commenting on how he knows that Justine is innocent. After the trial, Joseph begins spying on Victor. He follows him through the forest thinking that the good doctor may be meeting up with a lover for some kind of secret rendezvous. Instead, what we see is the monster. The big ape lumbers out and grabs Joe by the throat. Victor manages to talk him out of killing Joe. The monster again whines about how he hasn't been getting any pussy. In order to keep the creature from exploding in his pants, Victor agrees to make him a bride. If he doesn't make him some frankenpussy by the time he unzips his pants, he's going to kill Victor's wife Elizabeth. Now Joe overhears all this shit, but he's tied up in this whole Justine thing. He knows that Justine is innocent and that the true culprit is the horny patchwork monster. He has Victor write a note to Elizabeth, which is intended to exonerate Justine in some way. But all the note really states is a warning for Elizabeth to avoid this kooky whack-job. Meanwhile, the monster goes into downtown Geneva to check out all the latest dance clubs. He sees a couple of kids running around and asks them who made them. As the kids begin freaking out, a cop comes along and begins blowing on this gay little whistle, which instantly irritates the monster. So the monster punches his fist through the cop's chest and rips out his fucking heart. Nasty. Professor Buchanan meanwhile goes to the island inhabited by that rich jobless bum, Lord Byron. Byron's best buddy Percy Shelly sees Buchanan's timeslip cloud and begins sputtering some poetic crap about it. Fucking poets. Drive me up a fucking wall. Joe finds Mary Godwin and asks her to help him out with Justine's trial. I don't know what good he thought this would do. But as expected, Mary is pretty much useless. So Joe decides to go down to the gallows himself and stop the hanging. I don't know why he's so bent out of shape about all of this. By his own standards of timekeeping, this chick has been dead for over two hundred years. A group of pitchfork toting drunks prevents him from sabotaging the event and Justine is hung regardless. They hoist Buchanan up onto their shoulders and dump him in the river. Minutes later, Mary shows up and Joe shows her his cool futuristic Knight Rider car. These 19th century chicks were suckers when it came to cool cars. Joe puts the moves on her and they go back to her place to fuck. Yep, that's right. Joe Buchanan shags the author of Frankenstein! How cool is that? Across town, Victor's wife Elizabeth takes a buggy out to find him. The monster leaps out into the middle of the road, and Liz is thrown from the carriage. The monster stabs his fingers into her chest and pulls her ribcage apart. He leaves her body there for Victor to find. After Joe gets done having his knob polished by Lady Frankenstein, he meets up again with Vic to track down Elizabeth. Another group of pitchfork swinging drunks finds Joe standing over Elizabeth's body while Victor goes chasing off through the woods after the monster. They think Joe is responsible for Elizabeth's murder and are getting ready to do some excruciatingly uncomfortable things to him. But the monster leaps in to save him and tears through the villagers ripping arms and heads off. It's too bad this happened two centuries ago. This guy would have kicked ass on WWE! After the villagers have been dismembered, Joe, Vic and the monster take Elizabeth's remains back to Victor's laboratory for a little knit-one/pearl-two. As Victor works feverishly to bring his wife back to life, Joe goes out to his car and asks it if the timeslip effect can be reversed. The car tells him that it can't, but that doesn't stop Joe from trying. He has the monster carry some copper cable to the top of the castle and then run it back down again connecting it to the car. He then hooks some of his equipment up to Victor's stuff in the laboratory. Victor meanwhile succeeds in bringing his old lady back to life. Joe Buchanan diverts the flow of electricity from Frankenstein's machines and manages to open up the timeslip. There is a big flash of light and all three of them are transported way into the future. In fact, they are pushed so far into the future that they wind up several decades after Buchanan's natural timeline. The castle is in ruins and there is snow all over the place. Victor has had enough of the monster mash and pulls out a gun intending to shoot him. But the Bride intervenes and grabs the barrel and points it at her own chest just as Victor fire. The dumbass monster blames Victor (of course) and snaps him in half like a pretzel. So now, the monster is on the run. Buchanan chases after him and eventually they come to Joe's old laboratory. The place is buried underground and everything is a mess. The two chase each other around until Joe baits the monster into walking down the path of his old particle-beam grid. He claps his hands together and concentrates on his "happy thoughts". Green laser beams begin firing out of nowhere penetrating the monster. In a moment, which can only be described as pure genius, the rips off his own arm and begins chasing Buchanan with it. Buchanan runs up an escape hatch just as the particle beams finish the critter off. As he wanders off into the snow, he can hear the monster's voice echoing from beyond, "You think you have killed me. But I am unbound." The only reason he says this I imagine, is so the title of the movie would make a little more sense to us viewers. Acting / Dialogue: What the fuck happened to John Hurt? Isn't this the guy who made his marks on classics like I, Claudius and the Elephant Man? When did he resort to doing b-grade horror? I think his career began to dovetail some time around 1987 when he lampooned himself in Mel Brooks' Space Balls playing Kane, his character from Alien. Ever since then, his roles comprise mostly of cheesy cameos and voice-overs. John Hurt does a pretty decent job in Frankenstein Unbound, but even a man of his talent begins to suffer a bit as the dialogue becomes more and more trite as the film progresses. Midway through the film, John Hurt appears to be very uncomfortable in the role, and you can almost hear him saying, "What the fuck am I doing?" as he is rattling off his lines. Truthfully, I think he read the script and learned that his character gets to have a love scene with Bridget Fonda and that's the real reason he agreed to sign on for this. If that's the case then…rock on Johnny! At least he's doing it for a noble cause. Raul Julia is also sadly placed in this film. He's another actor who came from a respectable pedigree only to spend the winter of his years playing Gomez Addams and M Bison from that shitty-ass Street Fighter movie. But if there is any modern actor whom I think would make an impressive Victor Frankenstein, then it is definitely Raul Julia. He does a really great job here and his strength shines as you watch him trying to skillfully mask the mania of Victor Frankenstein with an air of sobriety and class. He doesn't overact any of his scenes and he doesn't ham up the cornier moments of the film. All told, if this were a different version of the Frankenstein story, I think Raul would make an extremely kick-ass Victor Frankenstein. Bridget Fonda plays the part of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She doesn't have very much to do in this movie, but she cuts a fairly impressive British accent. She wouldn't fool anyone east of the great American pond, but her work is quality enough for a lowbrow film such as this. More than anything, the film suffers from an absence of dialogue. What we have are the rushed scribblings of a screenwriter too lazy to even peruse the cliff notes of a 19th century gothic horror-romance novel. A movie such as Frankenstein deserves rich dialogue in an effort to offset the macabre grotesqueries that come dripping off of every page of a script or novel. That's how gothic horror works. You establish the grim aesthetics of your story, but you temper it with sophisticated language so as to give us a fully formed and respectable horror story. But the dialogue in Frankenstein Unbound is so bland, that it completely robs the movie of any of the style or suspense that is typically reserved for Victorian era thrillers. Gore: The gore, while silly is still a spectacle to behold. This version of the Frankenstein monster is probably one of the more violent versions we are likely to see. It doesn't take much to get this guy to go totally bugfuck. He beats people repeatedly. He rips out one guy's still-beating heart. He punches another guy's head clean off his neck-stalk. He stabs his fingers into Elizabeth's chest and pulls her ribcage open. He snaps one guy in half. He rips another guy's arm off. Hell, he even tears his OWN arm off and begins swinging it around like a Jose Conseco signature series baseball bat. This is the kind of crazy shit that makes these sorts of movies a lot of fun. Any film where someone tears off his own extremities for lack of weapons is A-OK in my book. Guilty Pleasures: After Elizabeth becomes the Bride of Frankenstein; we can see her jugglies through the haze of gauze and bandages. But before you tap the slow-mo button on your remote, I should warn you: These are fake plastic latex titties and not the genuine article; kind of like Pamela Anderson. The Good: You put your peanut butter in my chocolate! No, wait! You put your chocolate in my peanut butter! And SOMEONE put a Jell-O pudding pop in my sleeping bag! No matter how many wacky commercial metaphors you wish to invoke, the point is the same. Sometimes you can find the zaniest shit vomiting forth from the most bizarre of combinations. So here we have a guy by the name of Roger Corman who has been watching a little too many Back To The Future and Frankenstein movies. Like most B-grade sci-fi films, Frankie Unbound gets liberally creative with the theory of time travel mechanics and we get the chance to see how a post modern man would react when facing off with the seamstress's nightmare known as the Frankenstein Monster. But what I like most about this corny little flick is that not only does Roger Corman include the mythos of Mary Shelley's novel - but he also includes Mary Shelley herself! The origin of the novel itself is quite the interesting tale. On stormy night back in 1817, nineteen-year-old romantic Mary Godwin and her fey boyfriend Percy Shelley hung out with that crazed yuppie rich kid Lord Byron at his island mansion. The two smoked a TON of dope and had a contest to see who could write the most fucked up story possible. Mary of course, won the contest hands down, and her opium-clouded brain gave us what is arguably the most infamous monster story of all time. The 1986 film "Gothic" gives us an intense retelling of that mondo-weirdo night. But I think this is the first time that the story of Mary Shelley has been included alongside that of her literary creation as well. In this movie, Mary is writing the tale from factual events. Although she never quite becomes involved with her story's characters, its pretty cool to see her expression when she discovers how popular her book will one day become. I suppose I enjoy these goofy little films because it reminds me of the stories I used to make up as a child. We've all entertained notions of what it would be like to mix incompatible genres. Surely you recall moments from your childhood when you played with your toys and fantasized about what it would be like if Chewbacca the Wookiee carried on a hot, steamy romance with Strawberry Shortcake. But despite the childish artistry of such games, there's a small voice in the back of our head that always tells us, "That's stupid! Chewbacca would NEVER fuck Strawberry Shortcake! Grow up you spineless cow!" Fortunately for us, there are people like Roger Corman who are always willing to take the most inane concepts from a pre-developed mind and turn them into something that even God could never foresee making it to the silver screen. When I see a film that combines the Frankenstein monster with time travel, what I truly see are endless possibilities. I see movies starring Bruce Willis hunting werewolves on the planet Jupiter. I see hordes of Vampires sucking the blood out of Spongebob Squarepants. I see hobbits fighting Jedi. I see cavemen fighting astronauts. I see a world where Ben Affleck never dated Jennifer Lopez. I see it all. The Bad: Did I mention already that this a time traveling Frankenstein movie? Despite the originality of such a plot, I have to admit that it is also kind of…well…dumb. I have the novel lying around my house somewhere. It was part of a bushel of books that I stole from the public library some years ago. Yeah…I know. What kind of a sick geek steals books from the library, right? Anyway…I always come across the damn thing whenever I pack up to move into a new place. In fact…moving day is the ONLY day that I even remember that I have this book. I'm never filled with the urge to actually read it. Instead, I usually stop packing up boxes of crap and sit down and reminisce about all the strange things I used to do as a kid - like library thievery. Unfortunately, Roger Corman's presentation of this novel is not filling me with an overwhelmingly desire to read it either. I can safely say, that after writing this review, I probably won't give this movie another thought until the next time I move into a new house and I am forced to box up all those books that I stole from the library when I was twelve. To its credit, the movie tries its damnedest to be cheese-free. But there's only so many silk purses that you can get from this sow's ear. I really tried to take this movie seriously. And for the most part, I succeeded. But there is one unforgivable scene that will forever drape upon this flick like a puke-colored stain of disgust. In the future when Buchanan and the monster are battling it out inside the broken down lab facility, the good doctor discovers that his particle beam lasers still work. Not only do they work, but they are activated by way of the Clapper! The fucking Clapper God damn you! Buchanan starts clapping his hands like an epileptic Peter Pan and laser upon laser begins pouring out of these machines blasting the shit out of the monster. Even in the year 2004, the Clapper is pretty much obsolete and forgotten about. I guess it makes one of those infamous retro comebacks in the year 2031. Retro fashions work for tie-dye shirts and Transformers. But I have a hard time believing that there will be a great demand for the Clapper any time soon. I also feel that Mary Godwin adapted WAY too easily at the sight of a futuristic car. Even in the present era a talking fucking Lamborghini is a pretty impressive thing. But Mary only seems mildly impressed. This is the early 19th century for fuck's sake. These people have barely stepped out of the dark ages. I don't care what kind of industrial revolution you've got going on; the average Swiss citizen is going to have a shit-hemorrhage at the sight of anything more dramatic than a double-scoop of marshmallows in their mug of hot chocolate. I'm also not completely sold on the monster. The special effects really aren't that lavish. The monster has this weave of red hair that looks faker than Demi Moore's funbags. He's also got two compact disks lodged into the sides of his head. I guess these are meant to replace the metal bolts that the monster is infamous for wearing. But at least the bolts made sense. They were electrical conductors. These other things however are just the forgotten hits of Bryan Adams and Loverboy. If they had ditched the hair and gotten rid of the CDs, then the monster would at least be acceptable. But as it stands, he just resembles one more slobbering retard - a retard who is no more impressive than the kid who stands outside of K-mart trying to sell you Easter seals or some stupid crap like that. Boy, if I had a particle beam for every time I had to fend off one of THOSE irritating little bastards, I'd be clapping like you wouldn't believe. Great Lines: "I'm a scientist! I cannot sin!" -Victor Frankenstein to Joseph "Science is your religion. I try to imagine what a man of science must live with. I think he lives with madness…the madness of possibility." -Mary Godwin speaking to Joseph "Percy and Byron preach free love. I practice it." -Mary speaking to Joseph. What a whore. "This world you made is better than Victor's. It is barren…as I am barren. Lonely…as I am alone." -The Monster to Joseph. "I am…Frankenstein!" -Joseph Buchanan speaking to the monster. It is a metaphorical comment equating his deeds to that of Victor Frankenstein's. Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads. |
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