TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1977)

Studio:       Fox Lorber
Director:    Calvin Floyd
Writer:       Yvonne Floyd, Calvin Floyd
Producer:  Calvin Floyd
Stars:     Leon Vitali, Per Oscarsson, Nicholas Clay, Stacey Dorning, Jan Ohlsson, Olof Bergstrom, Mathias Henriksson, Archie O’Sullivan, Harry Brogan

Review Score:

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Summary:

Victor Frankenstein’s search for the secret of life leads to the creation of a monster that consumes his life and family.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Victor Frankenstein stumbles alone through the frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle until he is rescued and brought aboard a ship commanded by Captain Walton. Victor eventually recovers and begins recounting his story after Walton mentions having seen a giant traveling on the ice aboard a sled pulled by dogs.

Years earlier, Victor leaves behind his family, his fiancée Elizabeth, and his friend Henry Clerval in Geneva, Switzerland to pursue his interests in science and alchemy at the university in Ingolstadt, Germany. Studying under Professor Waldheim, Victor experiments on animals in an effort to discover the secret of life, but eventually moves on to clandestinely using dead human bodies in his research.

After rebuilding a cadaver, Victor uses a kite to harness the electricity from a lightning storm and bring his creation to life. Astonished when he actually succeeds, Victor becomes horrified by his monster.

The monster disappears. Victor tells no one of his creation and returns home to Geneva with Henry to recover while on holiday. The monster follows its creator and kills Victor’s younger brother William.

Victor confronts the monster after discovering that it murdered William and learns that his creation has vowed to destroy him. The monster explains that he desired a friend to comfort his loneliness, but rage drove him to kill William upon realizing that the boy was repulsed by his ugly appearance. It also satisfied the monster to make Victor suffer.

The monster recounts experiences from his journey to Geneva, including the discovery of Victor’s notes, encountering a blind man and his family, and running afoul of frightened villagers. He then demands that Victor create a female companion for him under threat of murdering the entire Frankenstein family. Victor relents after the monster promise to live in isolation.

Henry sees Victor off when he leaves to continue his experiments on a remote island. Upon discovering that the monster followed him and killed two local villagers, Victor ultimately decides to abort his work, thus angering the monster.

Victor returns home just as the monster makes good on his threat by throwing Henry off a cliff. Despite his desire to postpone their wedding due to fear of the monster’s retaliation, Victor and Elizabeth are married. That night, the monster sneaks into the Frankenstein home and strangles Elizabeth.

Victor’s father does not believe Victor’s tale of creating a monster that murdered his wife. On his own, Victor begins a relentless pursuit of the monster that ultimately leads him to the Arctic.

Victor thus concludes his story for Captain Walton. Based on Victor’s warning about blind determination, Walton decides not to continue his dangerous journey to the North Pole, but the ship becomes disabled and the monster strikes. The crew abandons ship, leaving Victor alone to have a heart attack upon confronting his creation. Walton returns to the cabin and tries attacking the monster after hearing his words, but the monster escapes across the snow outside.

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Review:

Frankenstein films have their work cut out for them when it comes to raising a bolted neck and towering tall as noteworthy against a glut of competition.  Achieving such status only grows more difficult with time’s passage as outstanding reasons to remember unremarkable, underwhelming, or otherwise unexceptional entries dwindle in the face of fresher takes and popularly acclaimed versions.  That is the challenge dogging the 1977 Swedish-Irish production “Terror of Frankenstein,” a film whose most distinguishing characteristic, sincere faithfulness to Mary Shelley’s text, is also what maintains its largely ignored contemporary status.

Standouts in the manmade monster subgenre can be described succinctly, usually by simply identifying the men behind the monster, e.g. the black and white classic with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive, the Hammer reboot featuring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, or the 1990s adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh and Robert De Niro.  Others are easily identified by some other meaningful mention, e.g. the last project helmed by Roger Corman in the director’s chair (“Frankenstein Unbound”), the “found footage” flick that takes place in the snow (“The Frankenstein Theory” - review here), or even “that Aaron Eckhart one” most people panned (“I, Frankenstein” - review here).

How is “Terror of Frankenstein” best singled out in summary?  Without recognizable stars, flashy effects, significant setpieces, or anything else constituting a definitively unique hook, “safe” is perhaps the most fitting adjective.  After all, Leonard Maltin lauded the film as a “literate, well-made adaptation of the classic story, definitely worth a look for horror buffs” and “the most faithful of all film versions of the novel.”

True as Maltin’s past praise may be, the promise of reverentially treating the source novel is not enticement enough to inspire horror fans or random Netflix surfers to put effort into giving the movie a go.  While that might not be fair to an earnest effort production that is indeed well-made, it is an unfortunate reality that age has dulled any edge “Terror of Frankenstein” might have to separate it as a leader of the congested pack.

Once titled “Victor Frankenstein,” the movie makes good on its original moniker by focusing chiefly on the character of the creator.  Of interest to Frankenstein enthusiasts is Kubrick cohort Leon Vitali’s performance as a Victor Frankenstein more classically tragic than Colin Clive’s arrogant madman persona.  Astonishment washes over Vitali’s face upon confronting the horror that his macabre experiment actually succeeds, as though never expecting it would and now mentally burdened by myriad consequences in a split instant.  It is a far cry from Clive’s victorious “I know what it feels like to be God” ego stroke, making Vitali’s Frankenstein a more humble figure.

This version of Frankenstein’s Monster is also more articulate than the one Karloff popularized.  “Terror of Frankenstein” is a movie of few words, lingering overlong on moments of quiet observation and silent experimenting, but its monster speaks with frequent eloquence.  While Frankenstein’s creation is still meant to be repulsive, the makeup on actor Per Oscarsson is minimal, making the monster more human at the expense of belief that virtually everyone finds him hideous.

A POV shot through the monster’s eyes while spying on the blind man’s family is novel, although the majority of the movie plays as outdated in a charmless manner.  “Terror of Frankenstein” bears the same release year as “Star Wars,” yet feels strangely tied to a filmmaking era predating 1977, and not because it is a 19th-century period piece.

Various sequences of trotting about with top hats and tipped canes offer too relaxed of a pace, despite the film being such a condensed 90-minute retelling of the familiar tale.  And director Calvin Floyd curiously times story beats in ways that impact how well the audience can relate to events depicted.

From the time of the creature’s creation to the monster’s monologue about loneliness, only some 10 minutes of screen time elapses.  Being on the side of sympathy for his ongoing despair is a tough task given such a compressed timeframe.  That lengthy span of the monster’s life is basically allotted the same amount of screen time as a montage of spying on the blind man’s family.  With the film glossing over important chapters so speedily, only to devote more minutes to countryside ambling, things like Victor’s relationship with Elizabeth and his reactions over various deaths don’t have enough space to resonate emotionally.

Undeniably one of the most faithful silver screen translations of Mary Shelley’s novel, “Terror of Frankenstein” cannot help but be understated in 21st-century eyes.  Well-intentioned and well-executed for its time, “Terror of Frankenstein” is nonetheless a non-essential entry in the modern Frankenstein pantheon, of interest chiefly to students looking to score a C+ on a book report with a Cliff’s Notes cinema shortcut, where Universal and Hammer can only promise a failing grade.

Review Score:  60

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