Frankenstein '80

What a bunch of hooey! There are so many plot holes that one could write a book. I loved that there was big bottle in the refrigerator with the secret serum used to help in transplant surgeries. Then there is some of the worst acting that can be imagined. The characters deliver their lines and wait a half second for the next person to respond. Did anyone notice that the doctor's name was Frankenstein? There is lots of gratuitous sex and violence. It gets pretty bad. I guess old Dr. F. should have left one part out of the mix. The monster is quite formidable, I can give you that.

Two of the strangest parts are the police and the the hero. The police are a bunch of idiots who are more concerned that they can't smoke until the case is closed. The guy who plays the lead is spookier than the monster. He has that real 80's look and wears a funny little hat when he is out and about. This has a few moments of violence that keep one interested, but beyond that, it's just not very good.

This is yet another of a strange series of films that attempted to combine Frankenstein's monster and eroticism (because, of course, nothing is more sexy than a monstrous amalgamation of reanimated dead tissue). Naturally, this cycle of films was mostly Italian with some German and American co-productions here and there (and Spaniard Jess Franco making his typically insane contribution with "The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein"). The best of these films was probably "Flesh for Frankenstein" with honorable mention going to "Lady Frankenstein". This is probably the worst--or at least the most offensive--film of the cycle.

Dr. Frankenstein has stolen a formula from another doctor that prevents the rejection of transplanted organs. For reasons that eluded me in the English language soundtrack, he uses it to create a reanimated monster he calls "Mosaic". "Mosaic" is the horniest Frankenstein monster ever. All he does is bone women--sometimes literally: he brains his first victim, a female butcher, with a giant bone then has his way with her lifeless body. This movie is more ridiculous than offensive though. Like when the monster steals money from the doctor to buy a prostitute, who he ends up raping and strangling anyway.

The movie has a couple washed up American and English actors (Jon Richardson and Gordon Mitchell). The monster is a played by a Greek wrestler with scarry goop plastered on his face (which strangely doesn't seem to alarm any of the women he encounters). The women all have nice bodies, but are otherwise bordering on unattractive. The only recognizable face is Dalila DiLazzaro, an Italian beauty who actually got to play the bride of Frankenstein the very next year in "Flesh for Frankenstein", and went on to appear in "Night Train Murders", "The Pyjama Girl Case", and Dario Argento's "Phenomenon", all of which are infinitely better movies than this one. This is only for die-hard Frankenstein sex fans I'm afraid.

Trashy, sleazy, campy, exploitative and – of course – extremely pointless Italian version of the classic Frankenstein story. It's a variation on the traditional Mary Shelley tale, with some deranged additional ideas and awkward erotic undertones. The Italians tried to achieve this sort of concept before already with "Lady Frankenstein" and admittedly that was a much better and more memorable film than this cheap and amateurish attempt at making a motion picture. But still, that doesn't mean this piece of junk isn't good entertainment. The plot actually isn't too bad. Dr. Schwarz (which, I'm sure, is German slang for Dr. Penis) just invented a breakthrough serum that prevents donor organs from getting rejected by the patient's body after a transplant. This happens to be exactly what his vicious colleague Dr. Frankenstein needs in order to fix up his pet monster Mosaic. The serum disappears from Dr. Schwarz' laboratory and corpses start to pile up as Mosaic goes out on nightly strolls. The local police commissioner forbids his men to smoke until the case is solved (!) and another guy – a reporter who assigns himself private investigator – search for the serum to save his dying sister. "Frankenstein 80" is a hilariously amusing film, but probably not like its creators intended it. Ferdinando De Leone (although I suspect it was actually Fernando Di Leo; a prominent name in the Italian horror industry) and director Mario Mancini penned down a truly ludicrous script with the most one-dimensional character imaginable, absurd plot twists and the utmost imbecilic dialogs ever. Technically speaking, this is a laughably inept production as well. More than three quarters of the film is poorly lit, the make-up effects clearly cost less than a dollar and the editing appeared to have been done with a blending machine. The pacing is unspeakably uneven! The entire story is pretty much told after an hour already, but then still comes a lot of tedious filler-footage, like an overlong and dull striptease act, a full formula one race and even the complete development of a romance. The monster stumbles around until he literally passes his due date, which is interesting but not very thrilling.

I can only wonder what Mary Shelley would have made of Frankenstein '80, one of the trashier movies to appropriate her classic literary creation for its own ends. Directed by Mario Mancini, this cheesy, sleazy piece of Italian schlock sees Dr. Otto Frankenstein (Gordon Mitchell) stealing a special serum that prevents organ transplant rejection, using it in the creation of a patchwork monster called Mosaic (Xiro Papas), who proceeds to not just kill beautiful women, but rape them too (in an early scene, we see Frankenstein preparing a nice set of gonads for his creature—how thoughtful of him).

With a rampant and very randy monster, there's certainly no shortage of sex and violence in this tasteless and often rather camp horror, but as delightfully deviant as it all sounds, Frankenstein '80 actually manages to be a rather dreary affair for much of the time, thanks to uneven pacing, lifeless performances, a weak script that dwells far too much on the investigative activities of a reporter called Karl (John Richardson), and a lack of decent gore: a lot of the killings are frustratingly bloodless, the surgical scenes are shot from a low angle so as to conceal the fact that Mitchell is pulling the organs from a tray hidden behind the body, and in one particularly inept scene, in which a victim has his head bashed against a wall, the ruptured bag' that provides the squirt of blood can clearly be seen attached to the actor's forehead. Only a brief shot of a severed head in a fridge genuinely delivers the grisly goods.

Thankfully, there is quite a bit of welcome nudity from a bevy of busty women to help alleviate some of the tedium, including a lengthy strip-tease routine that does nothing to advance the plot; but even with all of the bare female flesh on display, Frankenstein '80 is a tough watch, the last half an hour of obvious padding leading up to the monster's inevitable demise being particularly dull.

Sometimes you need a film like this: plenty of gore, some boobs, no pretensions whatsoever, stupid ending. Frankenstien '80 (why the '80?) sets out to entertain your brain stem and nothing else, and succeeds admirably. Those seeking a more cerebral film or even a film with any redeeming qualities whatsoever should probably avoid this one.

It's amazing how much time you save in your Frankenstien movie if the monster in question is already up and rampaging when the film starts. There's no scrambling about for body parts here. When the film starts, the monster's out getting his own body parts! That's a nice pro-active approach, you've got to admit, but his creator, Gordon 'Frankenstien' Mitchell, doesn't really agree with this activity. His method is much better – he steals body parts from corpses in his morgue at the hospital, and takes them to his secret laboratory, hidden behind a book shelf in the morgue. Also, he's just stolen a serum from a surgeon that might stop his monster rejecting all those body parts.

Gordon's in a bit of trouble, mind. That serum was intended for the sister of a nosey reporter who was lined up for a heart transplant, and now she's dead, the cops are all over the place, and the reporter is on his trail! Add to that the unintended results of a knacker transplant on the monster (a knacker transplant! Brilliant!) and you've got a good set up for a horny guy who looks like a zombified Mussolini to go on a guts and boobs fest. You've got the monster trying it on with some hookers, the monster trying it on with a stripper, and the monster trying it on with his creator's daughter. Stupid? Awww yeah. Great? You bet!

Featuring gut fondling, heads in fridges, a strip tease act, Gordon Mitchell's face and a rather unwholesome tone about the film that you only find in Italian cinema. Love that abrupt ending too!