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Frankensteins Bloody Nightmare
DVD/APPROX. 77 MINS/2005/USA UNRATED
DVD/APPROX. 77 MINS/2005/USA UNRATED
1
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This was just irritating. Every other film I’ve seen released through Unearthed has been highly entertaining, whether it was Bone Sickness,
Cannibal, the Guinea Pig series of films, whatever this ponderous, pretentious, supersaturated coloured, hand-held camera-filmed, badly ADRed
piece of nonsense had me bored by minute 7. Dialogue – you know, like interaction between characters, the thing that drives drama - was either
buried in the sound mix, hammily delivered or simply non existent – long sequences of slow panning or random images of the main character
wandering about being generally up to no good with no dialogue, voiceover or, in some cases, even soundtrack. And this from a guy who likes
silent films…
Bespectacled geek scientist Victor is somehow trying to keep his lady (Victoria) alive by slaughtering sundry pretty young things and harvesting
their body parts, via his robotised monster minion (seriously, Ted V Mikels’ Astrozombie looked more convincing). No, I didn’t think it made a great
deal of sense, either. The murder scenes are laughably poorly done (what the fuck was with the one with the boxes and scrolling numbers
superimposed over the ultra-violence?), and in a film like this, the special effects are of almost paramount importance. The use of visual effects in
this film reminded me of when Homer tried making a homepage (“Internet, eh?”) on The Simpsons – a childish collection of things he thought
looked good, but with no actual substance, and looking like rubbish. The effect would be like letting a five year old loose in an editing suite. I can
salute someone giving low budget independent film-making a go, but simply putting psychedelic colours over your washed out colour palette does
not a clever (or indeed interesting) picture make. I can understand that the director was trying to make something with a 70s feel, but trippy
visuals do not immediately accomplish that, something our director has not yet fully understood.
My issues with this film are more than just the superficial ones listed above. I’m not averse to (dare I say it) art-house films, even those with no
narrative structure, which to my mind, this is more so than an effective horror film, but I like them to say something or simply fuck off, or if they are
simply a random barrage of images to shock or confront their audience (like say, Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou), then last 16 minutes and be
done with it. The only “message” this film conveys, and it’s buried under all the nonsense, seems to be about grieving and letting go (Joe D’Amato’
s necrophiliac masterpiece Beyond the Darkness did it much better), or maybe to do with family relations – the whole “making your parents proud
of you” thing. The “performances” are rudimentary to say the least (the sequence where Victoria’s sister turns up was excruciating to watch –
Victor’s laughter was the most forced vocal work I have ever heard), the dialogue (when audible) is trite in the extreme, the camerawork seemed
to have been shot by someone who was either blind or retarded (some of the close-ups were truly mystifying), and the editing flabby (this could
have been an effective short film of maybe 20 minutes, if scissors were used effectively). The continuity is frankly appalling – watching Victor’s hair
grow and shorten at random in between shots was, by turns, amusing and annoying.
In the ‘Making of’ featurette, the director tries to justify the creation of the film, admitting that it had to be the film it is, because he’d painted
himself into a corner (lack of artistic creativity, anybody? Surely good directors have at least some idea of how their film is going to turn out –
otherwise that’d just make you a hack, wouldn’t it?), and then goes off on some sub-philosophical waffle that rapidly became as tedious and
pretentious as the film itself. I became even more annoyed when it became increasingly obvious in the Commentary track that the idiot doesn’t
even know his films – visually he references Beyond the Darkness (aka Buio Omega), on the Commentary he waxes lyrical about the scene being
homage to “Joe D’Amato’s Burial Ground” – Christ, he does it more than once! I can’t find any evidence that Beyond the Darkness was ever
retitled Burial Ground – the closest is Buried Alive. He then goes on to talk about one of the actors having been in an independent epic called
“Cremates” – I think he might be talking about Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle. If you are going to talk about something, have some knowledge
about it – otherwise you end up looking like a fuckwit. Maybe it might be of interest to someone who was interested in making a low budget film,
or if you like the film (God forbid), but again, I found it annoying – listening to someone who thinks they’re a visionary is boring at best, and when
they have less vision than Ray Charles, it’s like listening to paint dry.
At 77 minutes, this barely limps over the line into the feature film category, but any longer than that and I would have been clawing my own eyes
out. I’ve seen films by Lynch, Arrabal and Jodorowsky that made more literal sense, and were more rewarding viewing experiences in the surreal
realm. This reminded me in part of Merhige’s Begotten, or maybe even Hussain’s Subconscious Cruelty. And not just for the poor quality film stock,
either – it struck me that like those two films, this is either one you “get” or you don’t. Begotten, I think I got, the other two, not so much.
Cannibal, the Guinea Pig series of films, whatever this ponderous, pretentious, supersaturated coloured, hand-held camera-filmed, badly ADRed
piece of nonsense had me bored by minute 7. Dialogue – you know, like interaction between characters, the thing that drives drama - was either
buried in the sound mix, hammily delivered or simply non existent – long sequences of slow panning or random images of the main character
wandering about being generally up to no good with no dialogue, voiceover or, in some cases, even soundtrack. And this from a guy who likes
silent films…
Bespectacled geek scientist Victor is somehow trying to keep his lady (Victoria) alive by slaughtering sundry pretty young things and harvesting
their body parts, via his robotised monster minion (seriously, Ted V Mikels’ Astrozombie looked more convincing). No, I didn’t think it made a great
deal of sense, either. The murder scenes are laughably poorly done (what the fuck was with the one with the boxes and scrolling numbers
superimposed over the ultra-violence?), and in a film like this, the special effects are of almost paramount importance. The use of visual effects in
this film reminded me of when Homer tried making a homepage (“Internet, eh?”) on The Simpsons – a childish collection of things he thought
looked good, but with no actual substance, and looking like rubbish. The effect would be like letting a five year old loose in an editing suite. I can
salute someone giving low budget independent film-making a go, but simply putting psychedelic colours over your washed out colour palette does
not a clever (or indeed interesting) picture make. I can understand that the director was trying to make something with a 70s feel, but trippy
visuals do not immediately accomplish that, something our director has not yet fully understood.
My issues with this film are more than just the superficial ones listed above. I’m not averse to (dare I say it) art-house films, even those with no
narrative structure, which to my mind, this is more so than an effective horror film, but I like them to say something or simply fuck off, or if they are
simply a random barrage of images to shock or confront their audience (like say, Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou), then last 16 minutes and be
done with it. The only “message” this film conveys, and it’s buried under all the nonsense, seems to be about grieving and letting go (Joe D’Amato’
s necrophiliac masterpiece Beyond the Darkness did it much better), or maybe to do with family relations – the whole “making your parents proud
of you” thing. The “performances” are rudimentary to say the least (the sequence where Victoria’s sister turns up was excruciating to watch –
Victor’s laughter was the most forced vocal work I have ever heard), the dialogue (when audible) is trite in the extreme, the camerawork seemed
to have been shot by someone who was either blind or retarded (some of the close-ups were truly mystifying), and the editing flabby (this could
have been an effective short film of maybe 20 minutes, if scissors were used effectively). The continuity is frankly appalling – watching Victor’s hair
grow and shorten at random in between shots was, by turns, amusing and annoying.
In the ‘Making of’ featurette, the director tries to justify the creation of the film, admitting that it had to be the film it is, because he’d painted
himself into a corner (lack of artistic creativity, anybody? Surely good directors have at least some idea of how their film is going to turn out –
otherwise that’d just make you a hack, wouldn’t it?), and then goes off on some sub-philosophical waffle that rapidly became as tedious and
pretentious as the film itself. I became even more annoyed when it became increasingly obvious in the Commentary track that the idiot doesn’t
even know his films – visually he references Beyond the Darkness (aka Buio Omega), on the Commentary he waxes lyrical about the scene being
homage to “Joe D’Amato’s Burial Ground” – Christ, he does it more than once! I can’t find any evidence that Beyond the Darkness was ever
retitled Burial Ground – the closest is Buried Alive. He then goes on to talk about one of the actors having been in an independent epic called
“Cremates” – I think he might be talking about Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle. If you are going to talk about something, have some knowledge
about it – otherwise you end up looking like a fuckwit. Maybe it might be of interest to someone who was interested in making a low budget film,
or if you like the film (God forbid), but again, I found it annoying – listening to someone who thinks they’re a visionary is boring at best, and when
they have less vision than Ray Charles, it’s like listening to paint dry.
At 77 minutes, this barely limps over the line into the feature film category, but any longer than that and I would have been clawing my own eyes
out. I’ve seen films by Lynch, Arrabal and Jodorowsky that made more literal sense, and were more rewarding viewing experiences in the surreal
realm. This reminded me in part of Merhige’s Begotten, or maybe even Hussain’s Subconscious Cruelty. And not just for the poor quality film stock,
either – it struck me that like those two films, this is either one you “get” or you don’t. Begotten, I think I got, the other two, not so much.
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