(1990)
1.5
Brian J. Dillard
Mixing the gum-snapping kitsch of Valley Girl with the blood-and-breasts formula of countless slasher flicks, this horror-comedy follows Bride of Re-Animator in the quest to update James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein for the MTV generation. Whereas Bride of Re-Animator grappled, however melodramatically, with the same philosophical questions as the original Frankenstein films, Frankenhooker aims for something a little less weighty. Full of non-sequiter sight gags, inventively low-budget set pieces, broad stereotypes, and copious T & A, the film basically re-imagines The Brain That Wouldn't Die as a quickie softcore sex comedy. James Lorinz is terrific as mama's boy Jeffrey Franken, the head-drilling med-school dropout whose fantastical inventions get his girlfriend killed and then resurrected. Former centerfold Patty Mullen displays something approaching comic acuity as the titular undead nymphomaniac. Thanks to the underclothed supporting cast, she's only one of the gloriously ludicrous female stereotypes who totter around on stiletto heels and provide fuel for the carnage. Ultimately, though, it's director Frank Henenlotter's imaginative juxtaposition of gags and gore that provides Frankenhooker with its sense of fun. Henenlotter fills the film with the same colorful deadbeats who populated his even lower-budget debut, Basket Case. And although he doesn't quite surpass that film's eerily endearing sensibility, Frankenhooker remains an enjoyably rough-edged antidote the diminishing returns of straightforward slasher fare.
Frankenhooker on AllMovie
Frankenhooker (1990)
