Frankenstein vs. the Mummy

Was drawn into seeing 'Frankenstein vs. The Mummy' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing if not creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

From the title, one would understandably think that 'Frankenstein vs. The Mummy' would be an affectionate homage to the Universal and Hammer House of Horror films, have a lot of fondness for them mostly and there are a lot of classics. That cannot be said for 'Frankenstein vs. The Mummy' and an affectionate homage or a well-made and well-put-together film it is not. As has been said already, the title is very misleading, the two monsters are mostly apart and their one "battle", or one scene together, is far too brief and neither creepy or exciting. It's actually treated rather indifferently.

It's not an appealing film to look at. The limitations in budget shows throughout in almost every area, it all looks drab and hastily put together in particularly the editing and effects look like they were constructed on the small remains of the small budget having been neglected. The two monsters, especially the lumbering Frankenstein monster, are not that creepy and their scenes individually are not suspenseful or that atmospheric at all.

None of the rest of the characters engage or endear, with the lead character frustratingly characterised as a complete idiot. The acting is weak at best, with Max Rhyser and Ashton Leigh lacking charisma, Boomer Tibbs reduced to pantomime and Brandon deSpain and Constantin Tripes failing to bring menace to the titular characters. Stefanie Merola comes off least badly, at least having some allure and spots of charm.

The script is a cheesy, awkward and limp mess and the story takes too long to get going and never properly comes to life. Suspense and creepiness are nowhere in sight and some of it is insultingly ridiculous.

Only one other thing, the other being Merola's allure, redeems the film from an irredeemable film to a very bad one and that is the make-up. It looked as though a lot of effort went into it, looking like most of the budget was dedicated to it in fact, and provides some eeriness. Sad that it deserved a much better film.

All in all, very bad with a misleading title. 2/10 Bethany Cox

"That Bella chick gets shiny vampires and hunky werewolves, and I get a couple of reanimated corpses? What is up with that." The lead actress, by the way, is the only thing worth watching in this film. She's easy on the eyes.

The film starts with the university with the most lax research rules, ever. While Doctor Victor F. is on one side of the campus reanimating corpses and paying the janitor for body parts, his whacky Egyptologist girlfriend brings back a cursed mummy from Egypt. after 140 minutes of plodding dialog, gory special effects and more contrivances than you can shake a test tube at, we get the fight between the two titular monsters.

I give the actor credit for trying. The special effects artists also did a good job given what must have been a low budget. The direction and writing are the problems here.

If we were reviewing college movies, I would give this a solid 5, and B for the movie making class.

But since this is a real movie, it's just barf. To be fair, I took one look at the terrible post production, flat acting, and fast forwarded right through it at 20x. I caught maybe one action scene. They get an extra point for decent makeup.

Some of the issues might be fixed by a re-edit and better post production. It needs to be really tightened up. I'm surprised no one stopped the director and asked them, what they were doing.

This is MST:3k material.

Maybe the intent was to make a modern-day equivalent of some of those Universal Monsters crossover movies from way back in the 30s and 40s, but it feels more like Damien Leone making an Asylum film, sadly. I think it's better than the handful of Asylum releases I've seen, but that doesn't mean I'd go so far as to call it good.

Also, anyone who feels Terrifier 2 is too long will have whatever the opposite of a field day is with Frankenstein vs. The Mummy. Some of those Universal movies were 60 to 70 minutes long, and this one should've taken inspiration from that aspect of them.

At least the Mummy looked kind of cool. We could use a good gory/modern-day full-horror take on the Mummy one of these days.

Perfectly acceptable throwback of a picture with more traditional Universal inspired monsters. The film has a good script, good acting for the most part, and does wonders in the set design, makeup and gore effects for a low budget feature.

Damien Leone shows he's capable as a director, though the film could have benefitted from some tighter editing. It's too long at almost 2 hours, and could have been a topnotch, better paced movie at 90 minutes. Also, with the budget restraints we don't get enough wide shots, which gives the film a bit of a claustrophobic feel. Still, I'm going to check out the director's other films.