Silent Screams: Edison's Frankenstein (1910)

Aaah, Thomas Edison. American inventor. The catalyst for the electric (and electronic) age and the man that we can thank as the root of this curious little thing we call the internet and, to many people's surprise, an early inventor of the motion picture camera! Edison invented a film camera around the same time of the Lumiere Brothers in France (and actually shot one of the first 'gore' films: a short called "The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots" in 1896 that featured a gruesome beheading... more on that later). In 1910, though, the Edison Studios (without the direct participation of TE, unfortunately) filmed this short version of Mary Shelley's classic tale. It has erroneously been called the first horror film (just wait, we will be posting that soon) but it is the first adaptation of the novel and does feature a fairly complex 'creating the monster' scene in an early attempt at special effects. The making of the monster (with chemicals and potions as opposed to collecting body parts) was created by burning a wax dummy and running the film backwards. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This film, shot entirely at the Edison Studios and released in May of 1910, was considered lost for half a decade when a nitrate print was discovered in Wisconsin in 1970.

The film was written and directed by J. Searle Dawley and stars Augustus Phillips as Dr. Frankenstein, Mary Fuller as Elizabeth and, in a wonderfully expressive performance, Charles Ogle as The Monster.

And, without further adieu, fiends... Edison's Frankenstein.

Monsters in the Closet (2021)

Even though this film’s trailer intrigued and excited me, I still had that uneasy feeling that comes with most indie films. It’s not often that these flicks succeed and I was worried my hopes would be dashed against the rocks of mediocrity. Fortunately, my psyche experienced only slight battery over the 88-minute running time.

Monsters in the Closet is about a recluse writer who suddenly dies. His estranged daughter goes to his house to do what all surviving family members do – rifle through his shit. Interrupted for only a moment by her father’s publishing house representative about getting their hands on his last work, Jasmin gets to her dad’s house to find a laptop with a recorded video, just for her.

Aside from not taking any responsibility for his aloofness and terrible parenting skills, he wants to tell her about his latest project. It’s going to be a HUGE success! You see, he found a seventeenth-century book on black magic that teaches the reader how to cast spells by writing stories about them. And once you read them aloud, the characters in each story come to life. Imagine, having a real vampire in your house!

Not sure that’s so great, but go on, Father…

What follows is her dad telling four different tales. And as you might guess, an element from each story comes to life in the house where Jasmin sits, ALONE, watching her father’s final video.

 I do love a good anthology film. And while the execution is lacking, overall I have to say I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a comedy/horror mash-up and each story is quite unique from all the others. Not saying the individual stories themselves were particularly original, but I’m glad they didn’t all blend together with shared tropes.

We’ve got zombies, a serial killer, a mad scientist, and just good, old-fashioned, isolated mania. While some of the acting is horrible, I gotta give props to John Paul Fedele and his ability to sell the idea of having sexual relations with an…assembled woman. His story was my favorite as it had me laughing the most often. And I wish I could remember the character names to shout out the actors, but the pair playing the couple who bought their first fixer-upper house in the second segment balanced hyperbole and believability so well! This was a close second place behind the mad scientist story as the humor hit home more often than not.

Something's missing. I can't quite put my finger on it...

The mixed bag of CGI did little to help. Some looked completely realistic, and others were obvious cheap computer programming. But it didn’t detract too much from the movie, making it easily forgettable.

Thankfully, the acting was better than I expected. The worst of it came in the weakest story, the third segment called “The One Percenters”. Cliché, obvious and terrible, and I’ve forgotten most of it. The performances in the main/wrap-around story were lackluster at best, awkward at worst, but not so bad as to make me want to shut it off. The good acting in the rest of the film absolutely made up for anything lacking elsewhere.

If you like to give indie films a try, despite that nagging feeling you might be setting yourself up for a long night of binge drinking, check out this one. I don’t think you’ll be sorry!

3.5 Hatchets (out of 5)

 

 

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Movie Review: I, Frankenstein (2013; Lakeshore Entertainment/Liongate)

...a hypothetical question, if I may: Given the countless examination and variations on authoress Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's immortal horror classic...the films, the books, even that imaginatively scribed by the feeble, albeit able-minded hand of Shelley, herself...what message, overall, was the original 1818 novel, called "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus" trying to explore and expound upon?? That there were certain things that man was not meant to know?? That absolute tragedy, turmoil and nightmarish horrors await, whoever dares to emulate the power of God?? That science and technology must evolve, even in the face of the status quo's fear of the unknown & unexplored, and that there will always be the daring and unconventional one, who is bravely, sometimes recklessly willing to take that step into the unknown, no matter what it takes, no matter what the stakes, as well as the results are...and no matter what consequences, nay even what punishment awaits, as the result??...

...of course, you've heard the story before: Dedicated and obsessed scientist, going against the grain of his teachings...and yet, taking those very same teachings, far and beyond what his educators might have imagined...or would not dare to blasphemously consider...aspires to create a being, from the assembled parts of the dead, using nature's own dark forces, chemically and that wrought from the electrically charged heavens. At first, elatedly relishing his success at reanimating the pieces/parts corpse, Victor Frankenstein is quickly repulsed and disgusted at the unbearable ugliness of his soulless creation, and as such, rejects the misshapen creature, and attempts to destroy it. Driven into a forsaken life of wandering solitude, as the result of his ugliness, as well as the rejection by his 'father'...the creature, whose mental and vocal capacities develop quite rapidly, trudges through a solitary life, learning of what it means to be human...learning of how he came to be...feared by all whom he encounters...and very much desiring the luxury of companionship...someone like himself, who will not reject him. Returning to Frankenstein's home, the creature murderously coerces the doctor to repeat his experiment, in an effort to create a female companion for him; when the experiment fails, and the newly born female creature indeed shrieks at the very sight of her inhuman predecessor, the monster is once again forced into isolation, filled with rage. However, Victor Frankenstein...now in the throes of personal tragedy and emotional turmoil, as the result of the creatures' murderous effect on his life...relentlessly pursues his creation, with the intent of destroying him, once and for all...

Can Anyone Stop "Frankenstein's Army"?

MPI/Dark Sky Films Presents 
The Critically Acclaimed One-of-a-Kind Film 

FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY

Coming To Blu-Ray and DVD on September 10, 2013

"...the energy, invention and humor are bracing."
- The New York Times

Hot off the heels of it's critically acclaimed theatrical release, Richard Raaphorst's highly buzzed-about debut film, FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY comes to Blu-ray and DVD from MPI/Dark Sky Films on September 10, 2013.

"FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY is funny and original, with innovative costumes and set designs. It's sure to please horror fans," says The New York Post.

In the dying days of World War II, a battalion of Russian soldiers find themselves lost in enemy territory in eastern Germany. One soldier (Alexander Mercury, The Golden Compass) has been ordered to make a propaganda film as the squadron makes its way across the wintry landscape, and what follows is a thrilling mix of found-footage shocks and classic horror. Stumbling upon a village decimated by an unseen terror, the Russians are lured into the secret lab of deranged scientist Viktor (Hellboy's Karel Roden). Viktor has unearthed the journals of the legendary Dr. Victor Frankenstein and has used them to assemble an army of supersoldiers stitched together from the body parts of fallen Germans - a desperate Hitler's last ghastly ploy to escape defeat.

Movie Review: Monster (One 7 Movies, 1953)

If you’re in the mood to expand your Mexican horror film viewing horizons look no further than Italian cult movie distributor One 7 Movies' latest, Monster. Mexico has brought us some cool horror flicks over the years with movies like The Brainiac, Curse of the Crying Woman and the awesome awfulness of Night of the Bloody Apes. Monster is an obscurity that has slipped through my paws over the years so it's nice to finally see it on any format.

Chano Ureta's Monster is essentially a different take on Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera with a few tweaks here and there. We start off in what is essentially the Mexican answer to the Regal Beagle, where Nora, a young attractive reporter is meeting her boss to talk about the mysterious Dr. Ling. Nora really wants to interview Ling and find out just a little bit more about his "eccentricities". What she doesn't know of course is that he is a deformed/maniac/genius who's been hiding his hideous face over the years by using a scarf and various masks. The best way to describe Ling's features would be Rocky Dennis from Mask crossed with a mixture of character-actor Irwin Keyes.

Movie Review: The Frankenstein Theory (2013)

Something horror films seem to be missing lately is the slow burn. Sometimes we see brutality within the first minute. That's okay, but not when it happens in every horror movie. It's nice to see a calculated build of intensity in a movie, and The Frankenstein Theory does a great job with that. It doesn't hit you in the face with anything. It lets the story and characters breathe in a fairly realistic scenario.

We start with a documentary crew on Jonathan Venkenhein (Kris Lemche), a college professor with an interesting theory. I know what you're thinking. Yes, it's another found footage movie, but give it a chance. I haven't been impressed with many in this genre either, but this fits perfectly in the vein of Troll Hunter. Anyway, Venkenhein theorizes that the letters in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are actual letters that were used as the base for her fictitious novel. In other words, the Frankenstein monster is real, and was created in part by one of Venkenhein's ancestors. His intent is to take a documentary crew to Canada to capture the creature on film.