The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein

MORD 39 RATING: 0 (of ****)

I have no objections to low-budgeted horror films of the foreign nature...but when they're boring beyond endurance, it's mind-numbing.

Jess Franco is one of the worst directors in the horror genre (I'll give him respect by not saying "of all time"), but this piece of garbage makes his COUNT DRACULA (1970) look like a masterpiece. I can't critique this film very well, as I literally had no idea what I was looking at. The monster is painted silver, someone gets whipped, and that's all I am sure of. Dull, dull, dull.

A sort of companion piece to this dreck was DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN. While it too was poor, it was far less plodding than this one. As of this writing, EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN is not easy to find...and that's the best thing to be said about it.

I am generally a big fan of the highly prolific exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco, yet it is undeniable that his impressive repertoire includes ingenious films as well as big time stinkers. While this "Erotic Rites Of Frankenstein" of 1972 is not one of the most awful films Franco has ever brought to screen it definitely ranges among his lesser ones. The film has its positive aspects, including a certain delightful weirdness, but it is overall a bit too messy, and often quite boring. Still, for my fellow trash fans, there are some reasons to see the film. This is the first film ever starring Lina Romay, who subsequently became a Franco-film-regular and sleaze-queen. Romay was only 18 when this film was made, and she became director Franco's wife some time later. The film's storyline is weird and very absurd, and basically typical for a Franco flick. I will not go into detail, but I'll say this much: The story revolves about an insane scientist/sorcerer named Cagliostro (regular Franco-film star Howard Vernon), who has a cult of devoted freaks in his castle, and wants to create a human 'masterrace' by crossing beautiful women with Frankenstein's monster. Or whatever. Sounds like a lot of weird fun, I know, but sadly the film gets quite tiresome at times. There are two versions of the film, one of which is a lot sleazier. They basically shot the whole film twice, with the exact same things happening, only that the women are mostly clothed in one version and mostly fully naked in the other. My DVD contains the more prudish version, with the more explicit 'alternative' scenes as a bonus feature. I strongly recommend to watch the sleazier version, of course, since the sleaze factor is arguably the most recommendable thing about the film. The female cast is lovely to look at and mostly naked (in the interesting version). Also, there are some ridiculous and amateurish, but delightfully weird outburst of violence. The cinematography and settings are also very good. Howard Vernon enjoys a certain cult status among many of my fellow exploitation fans, and rightly so, if I am considered. The guy was certainly not the most brilliant actor ever, but he fit very well in the trashy Eurohorror roles that he played. Vernon's repertoire ranges from some excellent films (such Jess Franco's very own masterpiece "Miss Muerte") to god-awful (such as Jean Rollin's dreadful "Zombie Lake") and his presence actually makes films like this one a lot more worthwhile. This film of many aka. titles (such as "La Maldición De Frankenstein") is watchable (in the explicit version) for its weirdness, but one shouldn't expect too much. Among the Franco films I've seen (and those are quite many by now) this one doesn't rank at the very bottom, but it certainly ranges in the lesser half.

Back in the early 70's there was a spate of very strange cinematic versions of the famous Frankenstein tale. There was Frankenstein '80 (1972) which was a detective story where the monster was a serial killing sex offender; there was also Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), the schlock-fest produced by Andy Warhol, featuring delirious performances from the likes of Udo Kier and Joe Dallesandro; and then there was Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974) in which the good doctor was accompanied by an evil dwarf, a Neanderthal man improbably called Lugosi and a monster named Hulk. Well, given this fashion for sexploitation/trashfests based on the famous old story it surely comes as no surprise that that king of the Eurotrash horror film himself, Jess Franco, got in on the act and delivered his own take on this most specific of ideas. And so we have The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein. Oh, one can only wonder what Mary Shelley would have made of such adaptations of her little Gothic novel.

Anyone experienced with Franco films must surely go into a new one with an element of trepidation. Old Jess certainly knocked them out fast and sometimes with hilariously little care, so you never know for sure if what you are going to get is going to be good or terrible. Well, pleasingly, this flick is one of the better ones. It's from his early 70's period when he was ludicrously prolific and naturally it has a very low budget. But this one contains lots of the very weird style that the director is perhaps most loved for. It also has a great deal of his more notorious techniques, such as copious zooms and lots of out-of-focus shots. While regular collaborator Daniel White provides one of his better scores, even if jazz does seem a little ill-fitting to a story set in the 19th century.

I'm not going to recount the story as there simply is no point but needless to say this is a surreal, sexploitation costume horror with enough genuine strangeness about it to ensure it is always interesting. The most obvious thing to do will be to simply recount some of the strange highlights of this film. Firstly, we have a strange blind, vampiric bird woman who kills Dr Frankenstein within the first five minutes; she is so bizarre a character, a whole film could easily have been based around her. She is played by Anne Libert, who played another very odd character in Franco's A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973). She appears to be the muse of a sorcerer called Cagliostro played by legendary Franco regular Howard Vernon, who once again puts in a commendably serious performance despite the essential nonsense of the storyline. Then there is the unexplained fact that the monster itself is silver. I have no idea why this is but it's brilliantly bizarre. He even gets to viciously whip a naked couple who are tied together above some spikes. This constitutes one of the sadomasochistic erotic rites of the title I think. They all begin with the white gowned undead walking through a misty moonlit forest on their way to Cagliostro's castle; once there, these strange creatures observe the rites. All of this stuff is really great and show Franco at his best. While this rather strange stuff goes on other things happen too, such as Dr Frankenstein's dead body hilariously being periodically reanimated by his daughter simply in order to get information and then there are several scenes involving Lina Romay as a gypsy girl called Esmeralda who has several one-way discussions with a very old woman, these scenes seem to have no relevance to anything else really and are in here for reasons only known to Franco. And why is Dr Seward from the novel Dracula involved in all of this? Your guess is as good as mine.

In summary, this is psychotronic nonsense of the first order. But if you have a taste for the bizarre and appreciate Mr Franco's eccentricities then I think this is one that you will get a kick out of.

Dr Frankenstein : Dennis Price and his assistant Morpho : Jesús Franco, are attacked by the giant monster : Fernando Bilbao , as soon as he is brought to life. Then the monster is taken by the immortal magician Cagliostro : Howard Vernon , and his helper , the witch Melissa : Ana Libert . Cagliostro's goal is to create a new master race and turn over the World. Then Dr Stewart : Alberto Dalbes to do battle against the forces of evil and once again decides it's time to wipe them off the Earth , unfortunately his is attacked by Frankenstein monster .They have awakened .. and they are the sound of terror!

Typical Jesús Franco of the Seventies , this time revisiting Frankenstein creature . This is the follow-up to "Dracula versus Frankenstein" 1972 with similar techinician and artistic team, adding Paca Gabaldon and shot in same scenarios from Sintra , Lisboa , Portugal . Here shows up ordinary actors of the Jess Frank factory , giving lousy interpretations , such as : Howard Vernon, Dennis Price , Anne Libert , Britt Nichols , and film debut of Lina Romay , Jesús Frank's future wife and his muse.

It packs an atmospheric and passable cinematography by Raúl Artigot . Being shot on location in Barcelona, Alicante, Murcia and Sintra, Lisboa , Portugal. As well as atonal and weird musical score by Daniel White, Jesús Franco regular . The motion picture produced by Franco regular producers Arturo Marcos and Robert De Nestle who financed him several movies in the Seventies . The flick was lousily directed by Jesús Franco in his usual style . This La Maldición de Frankenstein or Erotic adventures of Frankenstein was one of a multitude of terror films directed by the hack Jesus Franco, such as : Miss Muerte or The Diabolic Dr Z , Gritos en la Noche , La Mano del Hombre Muerto, Count Dracula , Jack the Ripper , Vampyres Lesbos , Dracula versus Frankenstein , The erotic rites of Dracula , Los Demonios , Mansion of the Living Dead and Doctor Orloff Saga that includes : The Awful Dr Orloff , Secret Dr Orloff , Sinister Dr Orloff , Orloff's Invisible Monster , Faceless . Rating 4/10 . Inferior and below average horror movie . Exclusively for Jesús Frank completists .

This one's undoubtedly superior to Dracula, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN (1971) – displaying a fair evidence of style throughout (notably some Bavaesque lighting).

It utilizes a lot of the same cast as that film: Dennis Price, in fact, returns as Frankenstein but gets little to do (this is his least performance in a Franco film – especially embarrassing when his character is regenerated); Howard Vernon now turns up as Cagliostro (I had been underwhelmed by his performance when I watched the Spanish version a few years back, but he's actually quite commanding); Anne Libert gets her most impressive role as Melissa, the blind and eccentric "Bird Woman" in Cagliostro's service (though the mysterious zombie-like figures who witness the titular events from behind bars are just as grotesquely made-up); Britt Nichols is underused, but her luscious figure gets exposed this time around (and, in any case, she's perfectly cast as Cagliostro's proposed bearer of a new master race); Alberto Dalbes also returns as Dr. Seward where, again, he's the hero; ditto Fernando Bilbao as Frankenstein's monster (given a curious silver make-up here); Luis Barboo is on hand as well but, now, he plays Cagliostro's henchman rather than Frankenstein's (the latter role is taken all too briefly at the very start by Franco himself); Daniel J. White also gets more screen-time than in the previous film (where he was just an extra) as a Police Inspector.

Missing here – consequently, the film runs for a mere 70 minutes! – is the irrelevant gypsy subplot (featuring Lina Romay) filmed some time later and eventually incorporated into the Spanish variant, dubbed LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN aka THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN...though the English-language edition I watched also bears this title!! Still, the would-be erotic rites (presented clothed in Spain) are silly rather than titillating: actually, there's only one (in which the monster is made to whip the naked figures of Barboo and Frankenstein's daughter in a dungeon with a spiked floor), as the intended procreation scene involving Bilbao and Nichols is ultimately interrupted by the heroes. Cagliostro's flight at the end, then, suggests that a further instalment may have been intended – but it never transpired.

Opinions about this particular version seem to go from one extreme to the other: it's neither one of Franco's top efforts nor among his worst, hence the middle-of-the-road rating I gave it. On the other hand, everybody seems to agree that the alternate Spanish release is a lesser achievement – even so, it's not that the loss of the tacked-on footage (or, for that matter, the benefit of nudity) dramatically alters the quality of the finished product!