Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Dollar Bin Horror Review:"Blackenstein a.k.a. Black Frankenstein"(1973)

By Eric Polk-
For film buffs, critics, actors/actress, and directors, the 1970s are generally regarded as the best decade of movies. It's hard not argue this point. The litany is long and distinguished. The Godfather, Star Wars, Taxi Driver, Rocky, Dirty Harry on the mainstream side. For us horror lovers, there's The Exorcist, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria(had to throw in an Italian horror film). One of my favorite sub genres of the decade are the blaxplotation films. Like any other genre, you had the classics: Shaft, Foxy Brown(I have a major crush on Pam Grier), Super Fly. For horror fans, we had the classic Blackula. Which bring us to my review of this movie dvr'ed off of the Epix drive-in channel.

Looking to milk...errr...cash in on the success of Blackula, a few geniuses got to together and came up with a rehash of Frankenstein. Eddie Turner stepped on a land mine in Vietnam and lost all his limbs. His fiancee, Doctor Winifred Walker , thinks she's found help for him in her former teacher and colleague Doctor Stein, who has recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for "solving the DNA genetic code".In a tour of Doctor Stein's home-slash-laboratory, Doctor Walker is introduced to his other patients: a ninety-year-old woman with the appearance of a fifty-year-old woman, and a Frenchman whose lower legs have been successfully re-attached with the help of Doctor Stein's "DNA solution". Doctor Walker is startled when she sees one of the Frenchman's legs is tiger-striped, which Doctor Stein attributes to "an unknown RNA problem" which he hopes to correct during the course of treatment.

 Doctor Stein gives Eddie new replacement arms using his trademark "DNA solution", and Eddie seems to be recovering well. Malcomb confesses his attraction to Doctor Walker, who explains she intends to marry Eddie as soon as the surgeries are complete. Malcomb's acceptance of her statement has sinister overtones, and he later sabotages the "DNA solution" used during Eddie's leg surgeries. As a result, Eddie becomes a moaning, shambling monster reminiscent of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein. He is compelled to leave the house to kill, though he returns in time for his ongoing schedule of "DNA solution" injections.

Oy! Where to begin. It's cheap which I have no problem with. But just because it's cheap doesn't mean you shouldn't put effort into it. The acting is bad, the pacing is slow. I do give props for the Frankenstein makeup and gore but that's really all. Watch this if you really, really want to see a bad movie, otherwise you can safely skip.

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