The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

Plot Outline: Baron Frankenstein is rescued from the guillotine by his devoted dwarf, Fritz. He relocates to a new town and adopts the name "Dr Stein." He opens up a medical practice to help the poor and sick. But this practice is just a front for his true venture - creating a new human being. And he has a steady supply of parts from his patients in order to do it. Using the brain of Fritz, he makes the perfect specimen. But as always, things don't go according to plan and the monster exhibits deadly side-effects.

The Review: Nowhere near as good as the original, this one starts off ingeniously. At the end of The Curse of Frankenstein, the good Baron is escorted to the guillotine. But it turns out that the executioner and his assistant were both in cahoots with Frankenstein and that meant bad news for the priest who took Frankenstein's place in the grave. It's an inspired way to avoid the ending of the original - if only the rest of the film had shown as much inspiration. Instead this is a poor remake version of The Curse of Frankenstein. There seems to be something holding the film back - where it's the lack of any real villain or the sheer "normalness" of the monster, this one doesn't take off the way it should. It's Cushing's show once again. He isn't as good in this as he was in The Curse of Frankenstein but is still the best bit about the film by a mile. He is a little more sympathetic here, probably because he doesn't actually send the monster out to kill anyone. He is more a man blinded by science as opposed to the man who would do anything to protect his creation (I still remember the little smirk he gave when the maid died in The Curse of Frankenstein. The monster this time is also very weak. Christopher Lee's monster looked like a patchwork creation of different body parts but Michael Gwynn just looks too normal. Maybe the budget didn't allow for fancy make-up because there are no stitch marks - the monster just looks like a normal man, albeit it a tall, Michael Palin look-a-like. He doesn't pose as much of a threat as Lee did and the horror edge of the film is severely hampered because of it. There are one or two good brutal moments where the patients rebel and attack Frankenstein and when the monster attacks the janitor. But these are two few and far between. Although we're treated to a lot of Cushing during the lags in action, he is still not enough to rescue this film. The ending shows as much inspiration as the beginning though and sets the way up for another sequel quite ingeniously.

Final Verdict: The Revenge of Frankenstein isn't as good a sequel as was required. It's not as dark, not as clever and certainly not as entertaining. And to be honest, Frankenstein doesn't really get his revenge - he only gets what was coming to him!

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