Review: The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1972)
(aka The Curse of Frankenstein, The Rites of Frankenstein, La maldición de Frankenstein)
Directed by: Jesús Franco
Starring: Howard Vernon, Anne Libert, Alberto Dalbés
Written by: Jesús Franco
Music by: Daniel White
Country: Spain, France
Available on: Blu-ray/DVD (Redemption/Kino Lorber)
IMDb
This is Jess Franco’s free-jazz riff on the Mary Shelley story, with significantly more silver body paint and sexy nakey bird-women. Although his version does indeed include a Dr. Frankenstein, a monster of his creation, and some laboratory hijinks, it focuses primarily on bazooka-eyed warlock Cagliostro (Howard Vernon) and his servant, the previously discussed avian-hotbabe hybrid, who gets very horny for long poetic monologues about the dark beauty of nature and feeding on random men while squawking. They’ve dispatched of Frankenstein and taken control of his monster, all metallic-skinned and sad about his master’s demise, with the intent to breed him and make a master race, as one does.
In the European horror tradition, the events that unfold here are pretty low on the continuum of shits-givings for the filmmakers. Characters float nonchalantly from scene to scene without decorum or context, stopping on occasion to talk obscurely about some things and flaunt their luxuriously dense pubic hair. There are definitely rites sometimes, but their significance isn’t explained and they’re not especially erotic. No one in this movie is interested in sex; they just happen to be doing the things they’re doing bereft of clothing. No one’s particularly interested in horror, either. Any of that icky bloody stuff is obscured by fight choreography that could best be described as “booze-soaked stumble-fucking.”
All dialog is exquisite word-salad and all action is meaningless pomp, but it’s compelling nonetheless for its sheer avant-garde histrionics. Not a minute passes without something provocative occurring, whether sensical or not. Franco’s eccentric flair is woven through this visual tapestry in the form of reckless zoom tumult, the frantic framing jumps of a camera-person tripping balls across time and space, and an abundance of red spotlights. The soundtrack is a jazzy crash of jangly bass and burping drums and the chaotic scrapes of metallurgic ambiance peppered with shrill ornithological cacophony. It’s disorienting but beguiling stuff. It’s unexpected things happening at unexpected times, often to pleasing ends.
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein isn’t the kind of thing you’d imbibe regularly, for your own sanity and sensory calibration, but it’s a singular, artfully trashy romp from one of Europe’s visionary filmmakers.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10
