Frankenstein Unbound

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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We wrap up our Roger Corman tribute with the last film he directed, way back in 1990. It’s a smarter-than-you’d-imagine version of the Frankenstein story that incorporates a modern-day mad scientist, time travel, and Mary Shelley herself – not to mention an all-star cast, including Raul Julia, John Hurt, and Bridget Fonda.

We absolutely loved this film, and we loved even more this too-brief trip through Roger Corman’s illustrious career as a mentor of talent and producer of some of cinema’s most iconic films.

If you wanna check out more of the Corman films we’ve covered so far in the podcast, we have a YouTube playlist up of previous episodes here.

Expand to read episode transcript

Automatic Transcript

Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Episode 405, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Todd: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And here we are with the last of our Corman Tributes. I chose 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound. And the reason I chose this movie, it was the last movie that Roger Corman directed. Now, of course, we’ve been doing this tribute series because he died at the age of 98 this year, and what Corman had been doing from 1971 was just producing.

You know, he was mostly a producer. He did direct 56, 57 films. Oh yeah. So it’s pretty significant. Uh, he produced hundreds. And so at that point in 1971, I think he was just getting a little frustrated as a director. He said, directing is kind of hard producing. I can do in my sleep. And so. He really focused on that, but he came out of directing retirement to do this film.

And I believe it was at the urging of an editor in the business named, uh, Jay Cassidy, I think. I don’t know. You know, it’s actually, I had a hard time finding too much information about the background of this production. Me too. It’s like no interviews really with people about it. I couldn’t find any interviews with Roger Corman where he mentions it.

It just kind of came and went, which is a bit of a surprise considering The people in it. I mean, I know the cast is all star It’s John Hurt, Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda Jason Patrick is in there. This guy, Nick Brimble, I mean, that might not be a name you know, but you have seen him in so many things. He is a working actor to this day on television and movies, and was at the time he did this.

So yeah, there’s so many big names in this movie, and the movie has pretty good production value for a Corman film. Decent script, I think. Decent idea. The script is based on a 1973 film. Three novel, I believe, by the same name. And of course, it’s a playoff of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Uh, the alternate title for that is Prometheus

Craig: Unbound.

Well, the alternate title is or the modern Prometheus, which she borrowed from, I think her husband, it was either her husband or Byron who had. Written something called Prometheus Unbound so like a

Todd: poem, right? Yeah, I think it was her husband. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right Yeah,

Craig: get ready for nerdy lit shit I

Todd: was expecting Now before I even sat down to watch it and I had not seen it before I texted you you texted me and You said I love this movie And I think that wasn’t facetious.

I’m not sure.

Craig: No, it wasn’t. And did you love this

Todd: movie?

Craig: Yeah. And I, I, I, I texted you that like halfway through and I was like, well, I’m going to wait to send it. I’m going to wait to send it until it’s over just that I don’t regret sending it. And I hesitated to send it to you at all. Cause sometimes I don’t want to tip you off as to whether or not I liked something, but I just couldn’t hold back for a variety of reasons.

This is my favorite of the four that we watched. Oh, yeah, and I I can’t believe I can’t believe I haven’t seen it because I don’t think anybody knows about it. I mean, I was vaguely aware of its existence. The, the, the box art, I was always intrigued by, cause it’s very Frankenstein y in that it’s, you know, human pieces stitched together, but it’s tied up on the eyes, and the eyeballs, like, eyeballs of different colors are all stitched together, and it, it really pops with color, and, like, it’s cool.

Yeah, I remember seeing it on the shelves, I think. Yeah, I did. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t interested, and I never hear anybody talk about it, and I haven’t read anything that I can recall about it, and it’s really, it’s, it’s hard to find. It’s up in full on YouTube in good quality. That’s where I watched it, and the quality was great.

Todd: Yeah, like free YouTube, like just somebody uploaded it and they haven’t been ordered to take it down. And it’s been

Craig: there. I checked it’s been there for years. So yeah, hopefully it won’t get taken down because you should watch it If you haven’t seen it, it’s great

Todd: You know, of course it reminded me a lot of gothic, you know And I think I appreciated this movie a lot more having seen gothic Months ago we did gothic maybe last year.

Yeah last fall Yeah, and that movie was a real trippy film that, uh, took us to that summer in Switzerland where, uh, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley and her husband were all getting high and batting about story ideas, and that is widely known as the birthplace for the idea, this challenge to Mary Shelley, like, you write something.

You know, you write, you write a scary story.

Craig: Well, it was a contest.

Todd: Yeah, between them all. They all, they all wrote. Yeah, but I mean like, obviously like, we don’t remember anybody else’s. But that was the challenge, right?

Craig: Yeah. To write a

Todd: scary

Craig: story. Yeah. Well, one of them was the vampire with a Y, which Inspired.

Inspired Dracula, I think. Yeah. Gosh, I don’t know, go back and listen to that episode. We talk all about it. We talk about

Todd: it we gushed over that movie and we got really deep into the history as well of these people and this time. And so What was really cool is this is a time travel movie. And it takes us back to that year, what, 1817 is.

And, and so, uh, I found it immediately intriguing because it, it mixes a little bit of history with a little bit of fantasy and a little bit of time travel, and that’s always kind of a fun mix and typical Roger Corman fare, right? Little horror, a little sci fi spectacle.

Craig: But that is. And that’s certainly a part of it, but I would say that this is very atypical of the Cormen that I’ve seen.

Because the sci fi stuff is certainly important, but almost secondary to the literary and historical drama that is unfolding before you. The reason that I loved this movie was because I knew it had something to do with Frankenstein, and I knew it had something to do with the future. So I just thought, well, it’ll be Frankenstein in the future.

That’s fine. I’m down for that. That’s not what it is at all. No. It’s a time travel movie. And that starts in 2031 where this guy, his name’s Buchanan, played by John Hurt, whose name you already mentioned, famous. I know him from the film adaptation of 1984 because I showed the trailer for it in my class.

But he’s been around doing stuff forever. The

Todd: most basic horror fan, he’s the guy who gets the chestburster in Alien. Yes,

Craig: of course,

Todd: of course, but so many other things he’s been just a very respectable British actor. I think

Craig: it’s also, it’s also structured like Frankenstein and that it starts in the present for the characters and then it flashes back.

So, and it’s the exact same thing as in the, in Frankenstein, this guy is just walking through winter tundra and he starts telling his story. It’s like, I’ll start from when the time slips. We’re just beginning. And I was like, What?

Yeah, and I was already sold because it was already opening just like Frankenstein and I’m like is this gonna be a good adaptation and As it turns out it is Before getting into too much of the detail of the plot what I was so impressed by Was I desperately want to read this novel now? Yeah, I can only imagine that the novel might be even smarter than the movie and I think the movie is smart It’s just such a clever concept to say let’s take a piece of literature that we already have that Everybody’s familiar with and we can also place that in the historical context of which it was written because that’s also interesting So we’ll kind of combine those two things and then we’ll have a time traveler from 2031 come back And be immersed in it.

Yeah. But we’re going to completely and totally respect the source material. This is one of the most faithful adaptations of Frankenstein. I was just giddy going through it like everything about the plot and characters of the story pretty much until the very, very end is straight out of the book. And as you already mentioned, you know, all the stuff that’s going on with Byron and Mary Shelley and, and Percy Shelley, all of that is very true to history.

So I just think that’s such a smart thing. To be able to take something, take a foundation that’s already there, insert something in it and make something new. I’ve never read the book or seen the movie, so I’m only kind of speculating. But when I was watching this, I was thinking, I wonder if this is kind of like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, where it is, it is Pride and Prejudice.

There just also happened to be zombies. Laughter

Todd: Well, what I liked about it is, well, first of all, the conceit is that Mary Shelley is writing about her neighbor. So, the Frankenstein story is happening in parallel. With Shelley and her friends and their day to day drama that revolves around that, and so she’s inspired by those events to write her book, which hasn’t been written yet.

But, what I really liked about it was that John Hurt is himself a mad scientist. Right. And so, In sort of being sent back to be witness to Frankenstein that he’s totally familiar with because you know, he’s from 2031, he sees himself reflected back and so that is a major theme. I think of the movie as well, that I don’t think is really.

Treated as deeply as it could be treated, quite frankly. I thought it was

Craig: pretty

Todd: evident. I mean it was evident, but I felt like John Hurt as Buchanan was a little aloof. He pretty much operated in the past as though he was invincible. And didn’t also seem worried about Manipulating the past because he gets deeply involved with the characters.

He shows Mary Shelley a copy of her own book, you know, that she hasn’t even written yet. And so I guess we’re to believe that because he’s able to do this. I mean, this is all time travel stuff, right? Like these paradoxes and whatnot. The movie is not concerned

Craig: with paradoxes. It’s not. There are a lot of things that the movie is not concerned with.

And I was just ready. to roll with that. I was ready to roll with the fact that, uh, oh gosh, there are so many things, uh, that this

Todd: guy’s just driving his, uh, futuristic

Craig: car around, like he and he and Bridget Fonda go on a s Scenic drive in the mountains and I’m like what road is he driving on right? It’s not even like an all terrain vehicle or anything.

It’s like a sports car and I It’s ridiculous and I saw it and I’m like, this is ridiculous and I’m like, yes Craig, it is ridiculous. Look at the car they are driving in. It is ridiculous. It’s, it’s fun. Just enjoy it. And that was the Cormen part of it that I loved. And I have no idea, you know, how all of the technology and the future stuff is handed in the novel.

But all of the stuff in the beginning where they’re in the future and they’re in like these labs with all these computers and stuff. Lasers

Todd: and things, yeah. It was

Craig: so cheap. In the best way.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: exactly. I I’m sure he had a budget for this movie. I’m sure he had probably a really big budget. I would guess.

I mean, here’s this legend coming out of retirement, not out of retirement necessarily, but he just hadn’t direct in 20 years.

Todd: And

Craig: he’s got all these stars to be fair, some of them earlier in their careers, but nonetheless, not all of them. Some of them established already. I can only imagine he had a budget.

And yet. Those set pieces, where it’s like, you know, a room just full of big panels of flashing lights, like bleep bloop bloop bleep bloop bloop bloop. Like, old school

Todd: computer. And they’re,

Craig: they’re wearing like, metallic space suits, and even when he goes outside of his house, and like, the kids are in these ridiculous, like, futuristic outfits.

It was so cheesy, in exactly the way that I wanted it to be. To be cheesy. Yeah, it was such a great. I wouldn’t even call it a throwback. This is his style. Yeah, it was so him

Todd: that I was so on board. I thought it provided a good parallel, counterpoint, whatever you want to call it to later in the movie where we see Frankenstein’s lab in all of its classic cheesy monster lab glory, you know, that is classic and fun and cheesy in its own way with What do you call them?

Jacob’s Ladder electrical pieces and big bubbling pots of red liquid that have smoke coming out of them for no apparent reason?

Craig: That comes almost directly from like the Karloff Frankenstein film, right? Exactly! So, I like how it’s paying homage to Both and like every when that happened, of course, that’s the climax basically When that happened and I saw that set piece and it almost looks exactly like the set piece from those old black and white It’s alive alive movies I was so stoked.

Oh, dude. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know how you want to approach this because I could just gush all day. I could gush about a lot of things.

Todd: Well, I think in retrospect to having a lot of Frankenstein movies to choose from and a lot of background and, you know, we approach this in sort of a film criticism historical context.

Like we probably see this movie. through different lens than the audience saw it in 1990. It did not do well. People thought it was kind of bad and silly. But I think that what we’re talking about is, there are these sort of silly elements, but they really work thematically. That’s an artistic choice.

Maybe it wasn’t interpreted that way back then, but I’m willing to go with that. Especially because they’re drawing these parallels. This guy, Buchanan, is a scientist who’s working on a weapon and he’s a scientist who’s working on a weapon. Again, it’s the naive scientist who thinks he’s going to save the world while really he’s doing this horrible thing.

He thinks he’s going to create this weapon that’s going to be so powerful. It’s going to end all wars and since he’s been testing it suddenly time rifts have been opening up and bad things have been going on and A time rift indeed opens up right there in front of him, and that’s what sucks him in his car.

Thank God He had his car else. I don’t know how he would have gotten around.

Craig: Yeah, Bruce Campbell style, right?

Todd: Yeah into 1817. And like I said, like, when I say he’s kind of aloof, like, once he kind of realizes where he is and what’s going on, he does have a sort of detached interest in it all. But then he starts to get involved.

I guess that a part of the novel, now, I have to admit, I have not read the novel. I’m sure you have. You have you talked about it? I taught

Craig: it last fall for the first time. That’s why we did Gothic.

Todd: A big part of the novel, apparently a part of the novel that’s not in most of the film adaptations is this trial of a woman for the murder of Victor Frankenstein’s younger brother.

And so John heard, sees what’s going on and knows this woman’s innocent. He knows that there must have been a monster involved because he’s read the book. Right, he’s read the book

Craig: And all of this is so true. Like the character names are true The only thing that’s not true is that mary shelley herself was not in the gallery Like right as you as you already said the movie posits that she’s writing this story as it unfolds now how she knows And maybe she doesn’t, I don’t know, maybe she would figure it out later, but how she knows that there’s a monster, and it wasn’t really Justine, Justine is the girl who’s on trial, who’s played by Roger Corman’s daughter.

And, I mean, it’s a tiny part, but it’s, it’s entirely true to the book. This girl was a, a very, very dear, dear family friend. And she did not kill the younger brother, Frankenstein did, excuse me. I’ll probably make that mistake again. The monster did because Frankenstein made him, brought him to life. And then it was like, ah, you’re hideous.

Get out. And like, did nothing to help him or aid him or anything or assist him. And he’s had to go off and live in the world and be terribly mistreated because he’s ugly and disgusting. And then he just comes back to Frankenstein to beg and look, I know I’m an abomination, whatever. Just make me. A companion, and I’ll leave you alone, and you’ll never hear from me again.

And then it’s all about Frankenstein’s moral dilemma, like, does he make another one or whatever, but the monster’s leverage is that he can keep coming after Frankenstein’s family, and that’s what he does. I think he kills the dad first, maybe, and then he kills the little brother, and Justine gets blamed for it, and does get hung.

In the book, just like she does in the movie. You get my drift. Yeah. It’s very close. So he’s,

Todd: so he’s a,

Craig: he’s an outside observer as a reader. But now, in this world, he’s experiencing this narrative that he already

Todd: is familiar with. And it’s so funny because he goes to this trial. He sits down right next to Mary Shelley, strikes up a conversation and makes acquaintance with her.

Forgive me, Miss

Clip: Godwin. The young girl

Todd: over there, is she the one on

Clip: trial? Yes, she’s accused of killing William Frankenstein, who was six. She lacks the physical strength necessary to commit the crime as described, so of course she’s accused of witchcraft. No. It is a travesty.

Yes, but excellent material for a book, I suppose.

Todd: And then, during the hanging, which is a pretty cool scene, you know, it’s this old fashioned classic medieval style hanging in the middle of the town square with loads of people. He runs up and grabs an axe from somebody and whacks someone in the stomach and runs up on the stage and pulls the noose off from her head and, and is like, she, she must go free.

She must go free. And I’m like, is this going to work? Of course it doesn’t. They just pull the trap and he falls down under the stage and then he gets beat up and she gets hung anyway, which I thought was actually kind of funny. How anticlimactic that ended up being this movie is filled with a bit of dark humor.

Then just events continue to unfold, despite the fact that he’s in the midst of them and he’s interfering with them.

Craig: Well, at this point he knows because he’s read Frankenstein that Mary Shelley knows what’s going on. So he needs to go find her. Well, while she’s having this Bacchanalian weekend, you know, this sex and drug fueled weekend with her boyfriend and Lord Byron, which is super sexy.

And that other movie that we watched. Yeah. That one out for more details. So he goes there and interrupts and he meets Lord Byron first. And Lord Byron is played by Jason Patrick, who this is 1990. So this has to be just a few years after lost boys, right?

Todd: Yeah. I think it was just two, three or four

Craig: years after young and stunningly gorgeous and plays Byron so well.

I have no idea what. He was going for in 1990, but from a 2020 lens, he seems very kind of sexually fluid. Like, like you can’t really get a read on him, like, but he’s mysterious and super hot with his piercing blue eyes. There’s him. And then Mary Shelley, she was Mary Godwin at this point. She and Shelly weren’t married yet, but she’s played by Bridget Fonda, who.

This has to be an early role for her. She has to be a baby in this, right? This is

Todd: like a year or two before, uh, single white female, I think.

Craig: Oh, okay. Okay.

Todd: Yeah. Because

Craig: she’s young and gorgeous. She’s great. I mean, she doesn’t have a lot to do. Actually, I’m not going to criticize it because I really don’t have any criticisms of this movie, but I feel like her portrayal of Mary Shelley could have been more dynamic because.

At 19 years old, she was such an intellectual, and such a, you know, an artist, and she’s just kind of a demure, kind of, uh Yeah,

Todd: she

Craig: just kind

Todd: of comes across as a demure, introspective, like, she’s just sitting and processing everything around her, but not saying too much, and then what she does say is very poetic.

In a lot of cases. It

Craig: is, but what I will say about her, and all of her work that I’ve seen, she is so expressive in her form. face. Like her face just tells a whole story. And God, I’m such a, I’m such a huge fan of hers. But anyway, so the, I don’t know, where did we leave off? Oh, he has to go find her. So he goes there and he’s introduced to them.

And he’s also introduced to Percy Shelley, who is played by David Hutchings. Is that his name?

Todd: Uh, Michael Hutchins. Yeah, uh, NXS.

Craig: The lead singer of NXS, and I had to look him up, and I was, I read, Oh, he was the lead singer of NXS, and I was like, I remember NXS, they were really cool. And then I read more about him, and his story is so sad.

Did you read about any of that?

Todd: No, I did not. He died young, I know that.

Craig: You know, NXS was a big hit for a second, and then, you know, the later stuff that came out just in a couple of years wasn’t really doing well. And so he wanted to move into film, and the first movie he did was NXS. Aimed at a teenage audience, but unfortunately got an R rating.

So it didn’t do well at all. And then this was his second thing. And he thought it was going to be like his big breakout, but he’s only in it for like a minute. And then when, when, when nothing was happening, he took his own life. So young and so talented. And I remember his music. I mean, that was a big part of the soundtrack of the

Todd: late eighties.

It’s true. Nineties. Yeah.

Craig: Anyway, but so he goes there. I don’t even know. Basically, he talks to them and nothing comes of it because he’s like, he’s like, you know that Justine isn’t guilty. And she’s like, yeah, I know, but I don’t need proof. So

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: so he leaves right?

Todd: Mm hmm. Yeah, is this the point cuz I didn’t I’m sorry I didn’t take any notes on this Is this the point where he meets up with Shelly and they have their little drive or is that a little later?

Craig: That well, I mean, I think it’s a little bit later What we haven’t mentioned yet is that he’s also run into Victor Frank. Yes.

Todd: Yes several times, too Played by Raul Julia in the classic Victor Frankenstein mold. Dark, tortured, aggressive, mad scientist, man.

Craig: I love Raul Julia. I love Raul Julia. Another guy who died to a presence.

Yeah. He died of a terrible stomach cancer. Immediately after filming Street Fighter? Yeah. I want to say. I think that was his last movie. I always think of him as Gomez Adams. And I think that he was an amazing Gomez Adams. But he just has this amazing charisma. He reminds me a lot of Tim Curry.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: He almost even kind Tim Curry could have done this.

Tim Curry could have done this role too. But Raul Julia is Great in it. I mean he’s arrogant and and

Todd: Well, he has that dark sexiness about him too, you know, tim curry. Yeah, it wouldn’t really have brought mystery. Yeah Yeah, that kind of classic classic Sexy leading. I

Craig: don’t remember how everything goes down, but it’s right.

I guess it’s right after shelly Excuse me, mary. Shelly says she can’t do anything. He goes back and tries to interrupt justine’s hanging is unsuccessful unsuccessful and then At some point, he follows Frankenstein to, like, a creek. And the monster is there.

Todd: Yeah. Cause he

Craig: sees the monster too.

Todd: We should

Craig: talk about the monster.

Todd: I love this monster. Actually, I did too. I thought that the makeup design was great. Obviously everyone is challenged when they do a Frankenstein story to make it as Little like the universal monster design is possible because that’s copyrighted and you can get in trouble. So, no more flatheads, no bolts coming out of the side of the neck.

You gotta be careful with your stitching and how boxy he is or whatnot. But, obviously, Frankenstein’s monster is stitched together with parts of corpses. And some movies go really all out with that. This movie, I felt, almost took a more medical take on it. The monster’s a little off because he’s I think it’s like he’s almost been bulked up with some additional stuff.

You see his neck is about as wide as his head is. It’s really, really thick. And where we would have these, you know, we have these big arteries in our neck. His are like tubes. Two or four big prominent arterial tubes that are under his skin, you know, but make up the bulk of his neck coming into his head.

And then his face is almost as though a face has been stretched over. You know, an underlying skeleton. It feels like it’s got a little more stuff in it than your average human head. It’s just a little wider. And of course it does because it’s got to accommodate whatever electrical stuff he’s got in there.

Instead of having these bolts coming out of its neck, he has these flat metal protruding contact points from his forehead and, and it just gives it a real good look and then overall, he’s just big, huge, he’s nasty looking, the eyes are are great too because they’re just like the poster. It’s, it’s an eye that where each eye has been stitched up with other eyes.

So the pupils of several different colors and he, he just makes them look creepy. I don’t know how practical that is. I don’t know why Frankenstein would need to stitch up like five different eyes to make one, but at least it gives a good look, right? Yeah, it looks great. So it’s very unique. And it looked great, and it doesn’t look like a guy in a suit, you know?

It looks like a monstrous Frankenstein like I want to see. And he’s big, and he’s bulky, and he’s strong, and he’s played by Nick Brimble, like I said before, who has been in a lot of movies. He was Little John in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. You remember that movie? The Kevin Costner one. I remember the movie, I don’t remember him, no.

Yeah, he has such a role in that. But this guy, this guy’s been acting forever. He’s got 145 credits. He’s in a movie, TV series right now called Grantchester. And he’s one of these people who’s done two to three to four movies a year, you know, ever since he started. And I think

Craig: he does a

Todd: great job in this role.

Craig: Well, I liked the look of it because you look at it, And it’s obviously Frankenstein, but it’s a different take on Frankenstein. The general idea is there, it’s all the parts put together, but especially the stretched back face just makes it different enough. Now, I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that it looks amazing.

Like, it’s amazing. It’s all clearly very prosthetic and even his face is pretty plastic looking. He definitely has articulation in his eyes and in his mouth, but you know, all that stuff with the stretched face is obviously prosthetic. What else would it be? But I mean, it doesn’t look amazing, but that’s, again, I find that charming.

I want it to show in. It seems a little bit well because that’s quorum in to me and you had mentioned earlier and I’m sorry to ramble But you had mentioned earlier that it didn’t do really it’s like It didn’t make a lot of money. I can completely understand how this would not Resonate with a general audience, right?

Because they don’t know what they’re getting into. And that’s not to be snobby and that’s not to condescend to anybody. It’s just, I don’t know how to put it like you and I, and anybody else who would be into Corman or whatever. would know what his style was. So we w it wouldn’t be a surprise to us. If it looks cheap, we understand why that is.

Todd: I don’t know. You understand what I’m saying. I know what you’re saying. I mean, also, I think just the movie itself, it’s Of course it’s a horror movie, but it’s not straight out. There’s so much drama. There’s so much historical kind of stuff in it. Like you said, it’s like Pride and prejudice with zombies in a way, you know, and, and so the movie doesn’t dwell on it’s not just Frankenstein’s monster hulking around and killing people and everybody running away from it.

And so when you get into a movie like modern day, Frankenstein, Frankenstein, Unbound, whatever, you’re probably as a general audience expecting to see something a little more on those lines. When it’s Mary Shelley and Buchanan taking a drive, having sex. I think they have sex, right?

Craig: Pretty sure. It’s implied.

That’s, that’s another thing that I can’t believe about this movie. Well, I guess I can. It’s rated R, but aside from some gore effects, which I don’t know, do you think this would get an R today? I mean, the gore effects are pretty graphic, but it’s not like they look real. It’d be PG 13. It looks like movie magic.

Yeah. It’s, I,

Todd: I. It’s not dwelled upon. I wouldn’t, I honestly don’t understand why this is rated R. I think it’s a 1990s R. It’s gotta be.

Craig: I was, I was really thinking, like, when I got halfway through and I was so into it, I was like, can I show this to my kids? Oh yeah, your high school kids. Yeah. Yeah. And I looked and I’m like, it’s rated R, and then I went to the I never, ever do this.

This may actually be the very first time I’ve done it. I went to that, like, parents guide. Oh yeah. IMDB. Yeah. Where, where it breaks everything down. And there’s nothing. There’s like, no swearing. There’s certainly not any effort. Words. Nudity. There’s no nudity. At all.

Todd: So weird for a Corman movie actually.

Craig: There’s implied sex and by implied it’s like they kiss and then it cuts away and then it cuts back to the morning and she has her top off under a blanket like, okay, it’s

Todd: not,

Craig: it’s not like that’s scandalous at all. And yes, there are some gory effects, but I’m thinking about, I’m like, this is nothing that my 17 year old kids haven’t seen.

This is. Tame compared to the things that they have seen. I think I could show it, and I think that I might. Well,

Todd: there you go. I mean, why not? Again, I just think that the crowd going to see this was probably looking for a action packed Frankenstein movie and was a little jarred by the long segments of what I thought was very interesting and very fun literary sort of drama.

Craig: Stoker’s Dracula come out?

Todd: The Coppola movie. It’s got to have been around the same time. Cause I imagine this came out as a response to it.

Craig: That’s what I’m thinking too. And if people went looking

Todd: for that, I could see why they would be disappointed. Okay. Oddly enough, as was kind of common with Corbin stuff, Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out two years after this.

So this predates Dracula by two years. This isn’t the first time this has happened with Corbin. Have you, you know, Carnosaur, right? Yep. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but you know of it. Yes. Do you know that Carnasaur predates Jurassic Park. That was in, well, they were in production about the same time.

And I think Carnasaur came out first. So yeah, this is another case where almost like, uh, it seems like maybe they had a little bit of the pulse of where things were going just before they made it big with a bigger budget movie. Sure. Sure. The drama circus, Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. What other movies like that all came out around this time?

These updates of the classic monsters.

Craig: That’s, oh gosh, I don’t know, I don’t, I didn’t watch the trailer. I don’t know how this movie was advertised. Maybe people were just going in and I don’t know what people were expecting. Who knows?

Todd: But unlike Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Dragia has a lot of salacious stuff in it.

You know, it, it starts off, it’s super atmospheric. It’s got sex. It’s got nudity. It’s got hints of vampires and then vampires and monsters and creatures. Throughout, even though. You know, it has pretensions to be this literary kind of movie. It really is a spectacle. This movie is not, it has its moments, but it’s nothing like that.

Craig: This movie is a spectacle in a different kind of way. That’s what I mean. I don’t know. It’s it’s, but it is, I mean, it’s bigger than most of the stuff that he does now to be fair, like the 1870s. sets, they look like sets. I mean, if you told me right now that army of darkness was filmed on those same sets, I wouldn’t be surprised.

That’s kind of what it looks like. And the costumes don’t look like this is not going to be nominated for any awards for costuming. Yeah. Shelly’s dress is kind of sad, simple.

Todd: Maybe it’s historically accurate though. I don’t know. The

Craig: townspeople, it almost feels like. They almost feel medieval. They don’t feel 1817, do they?

That’s absolutely true. I was just gonna say, I mean, they just got their costumes off the back lot. I don’t want to say a lot of care wasn’t put into it, because I know that that’s not true. I know that Corman was very concerned about what things looked like in frame, and he wanted them to look interesting and good.

So I don’t want to say that no care was put into it, that just

Todd: It just has a cheapness to it, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean.

Craig: So After the kid is killed and Justine is hung, then Buchanan tries to reason with Frankenstein and be like, You just have to tell the truth, you have to tell the truth, and Franken’s like, Frankenstein’s like, Okay, here, I’ll give you this sealed letter.

Deliver it to my wife and he delivers it to the wife and he thought it was gonna be like go to the magistrate and Tell them Justine is innocent, but it’s not it’s just telling her to get out of there So in other words, he’s not gonna do the right thing But the monster has already threatened to kill Elizabeth if Frankenstein Elizabeth is Frankenstein’s If frankenstein does not make a mate for him And I think at this point frankenstein has said i’m not going to do it now He waffles back and forth in the book at some point.

He tells the monster he’s gonna do it And then he says he’s not gonna do it and then it doesn’t happen the same way Elizabeth is killed in her room in the novel, but in this The monster chases elizabeth through the forest and again, I couldn’t find I couldn’t find a lot about this but she’s you know in a Horses and carriage and he’s chasing behind and it’s a it’s kind of an action piece.

Yeah, and it looks good

Todd: I really enjoyed it. I like the way the monster was moving like when he was running after it He had this very odd kind of stilted gait, but But fast, it was very menacing and he gets up and gets up and he gets up and then you can see he’s grabbed onto the back and then when she turns around, he’s gone and he’s there in the front, you know, and just stops the horses Superman style with his hands and rips her chest open.

Oh, my God, that was a bit gory. Actually, I could see that might, that might warrant something close to an R. I

Craig: mean, it is. I get it.

Todd: Yeah, she’s dead. She’s dead. And so that’s the thing that I think finally convinces Frankenstein he’s going to do it, because he has an interest in resurrecting Elizabeth. And that’s more his selfishness than his hope to help out Frankenstein’s monster.

And I think that tracks with the book, right?

Craig: Well, the townspeople show up and they are going to, like, lynch Buchanan for the murder of Elizabeth. Oh, that’s right. The monster, the monster goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of them. Now they know about it. I’m not confused by this. I just think it’s a little loose.

It, I guess that Frankenstein does have control over the monster because he’s the only one that can give him a mate. It just seems like the monster just killed his fiance and now it seems like the monster is Frankenstein’s. Lapdog like right do whatever he says and so he kills all these people to save Buchanan because Buchanan is from the future and he has a futuristic car and they can use the car To harness electricity.

Oh my god. It’s so back to the future, right? He’s gonna uh We missed the first one in in the very very beginning when Buchanan first gets to the ancient past He drives his car and he hides it exactly like Marty McFly. Yeah, which

Todd: which

Craig: is so funny

Todd: You Cuz it lasts all of like, uh, a minute before he takes it out and he’s just joyriding through the countryside.

Doesn’t care who sees him, doesn’t give a shit.

Craig: But

Todd: then

Craig: Back to the Future comes back here.

Todd: You wanna know what else is kinda funny, small tangent, is this movie takes place in 2031, which is always amusing to see these movies that take place in the future when now the future is either here or really, really close.

The way he’s talking to his car, back And asking his car for information and his car is kind of sentient here. In 1990, I would have watched this and been like, Oh, this is that cheesy, you know, computers are never going to be like this. And here we are with AI in 2024. That is basically exactly like this.

Is Alexa quippy? Is Siri quippy? Can be.

Craig: That’s funny.

Todd: And chat, GBT. You know, you can ask it. All these things.

Clip: Reference Mary Shelley, born Mary Wilson, CRT Godwin, Mary Shelley, born 1797, died 1851. Mistress to the poet, Lord Byron and wife to the poet Percy Shelley. She’s chiefly remembered as the author of the novel, Frankenstein Hard Copy, novel Printing a hard copy.

The subject matter is artificial intelligence. Ms. Shelley wrote the book when she was only 19 years old, while living with Byron and Shelley at the Villa Diodati, presently some 200 yards north northeast. People warn Dr. Buchanan, probability is high that they are late sleepers.

Todd: And it has this like, uh, I guess little mini printer or fax machine or something inside the car that just serves it out on a tray.

And I thought, yeah, that could be an option in a Tesla if somebody really wanted it.

Craig: I thought the car was funny because it was, it, I mean, I know, you know, the reference to, it reminded me of Kit from Knight Rider because I don’t have Alexa or Siri. I sometimes talk to Google, but that’s very simple.

Todd: So I don’t know

Craig: if Siri or Alexa quip with you, but the car quips with him.

Like they joke with each other. And I thought that was hilarious. She had several lines that I typed out in my notes that I take extensively and never referenced.

Todd: Ah, geez. Well, anyway, so yeah, his whole deal, their, their deal is somehow, I guess the car probably has some kind of futuristic, uh, energy generator of electricity.

And so, he has the monster climb up the tower, dragging these cables up with him, and attach it to the roof? So, I guess, lightning still needs to strike the cables, which are attached to his car? Or is it all a big ruse? I’m not exactly certain. I don’t know, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re I think he needs a charge.

Yeah,

Craig: I think that maybe the car can like the lightning can strike and then the car can store. I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. They all have to be hooked up together. Meanwhile. Buchanan has also, he has the prototype for his Laser. Ion laser, I don’t know what it is, for his laser in the back of the car.

And he’s also charging it up and he has it pointed at the tower.

Todd: So this is a direct parallel then, isn’t it? It’s like lightning strikes this beacon, which is gonna allow Frankenstein to bring his monster alive. At the same time, it’s gonna give Buchanan enough power to light his laser up. Ha ha ha ha! So they’re both Right, right.

They’re both doing exactly the same thing, just with, with different ends. It’s kind of clever, isn’t it?

Craig: It is clever. And then once they get everything strung up there and then they get into. Frankenstein’s lab. It really feels like those old black and white Frankenstein movies with all of the like electricity things and the things bubbling up and you know, cylindrical tanks and all kinds of crazy lights and the big storm.

And I can’t say enough how much I like Raul Julia, not just in this role, but I just think he’s fantastic, but I think that he’s fantastic in this role. He’s charming and charismatic, but I also entirely believe him as Insane. Oh yeah. Like he’s manic and crazy and power hungry and egotistical. He plays Frankenstein so well.

Clip: I wanted to give man the power to create life to free him from a cruel and fictitious God. What man ever achieved that?

Craig: You know, the Frankenstein in the book is like 19, like, he’s like a first year med student. Film adaptations should age him up. Like, he needs to have had a lifetime of thinking he’s Top dog to really, I think, have that kind of insane intensity about him.

Right. It’s great. And basically everything happens just as it does in those movies. Well, except here and it’s not Igor helping Frankenstein, it’s his monster. Now I don’t really recall, they never make the mate. In the book so this is this is really more like and i’ve never seen it but i think the clips that i’ve seen this is like bride of frankenstein the the monster is helping frankenstein make his bride and that all kinds of happens there’s some drama where there’s not enough lightning but then there is and then she finally wakes up it’s elizabeth by the way who basically looks pretty much the way she always has except he gave her enormous thumbs now why do you think that is

Todd: i don’t know.

That was odd. Did

Craig: you notice that ?

Todd: Yeah. It was an odd choice. Right? I didn’t know if like, uh, she also, did he have clamps on her thumbs too? I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know. Like she looks pretty much the same except she’s kind of stitched a little bit on her face and like around her hair it looks like maybe it’s a little burned or whatever.

But then when she wakes up here in a second, she has enormous. Thumbs.

Todd: Maybe they wanted her to look monstrous, but not ugly her up too much. So they just decided to focus on the hands.

Craig: I’m going to, I’m going to choose not to put too much thought into that and just let it go. But anyway, that happens. They kind of bring her to life, but at the same time, there’s enough energy for the laser to go off.

And the laser goes off and it shoots out. At all of them, I guess, and it shoots the whole castle happens. Yeah. Yeah. Something crazy happens. And then all of a sudden they are in a wintry tundra. The mansion slash castle is kind of in ruins. But they’re all there and so

Todd: what an interesting notion, right?

Because isn’t the book the framing story that eventually Frankenstein chases his monster as far as like Antarctica or something like that

Craig: like to the North

Todd: Pole Yeah, and so that’s which you know, I don’t know how practical that is. But anyway, that’s what happens And so this nods to that but in a different way, this is like the future So I think it’s supposed to be All of this is supposed to be taking place in, like, the same location, the same physical location.

We’re just jumping around in time. So, in the future, humanity is more or less reduced to this frozen tundra. And, in the past, this was the site of Frankenstein’s lab. In 2013 This was the site of Buchanan’s lab. Whoever knows how far into the future we are. The world is a tundra wasteland, but Buchanan’s lab is still there.

But we don’t know that yet.

Craig: Well, to be fair, now, like, like, again, I don’t think the movie is concerning itself with this, because Buchanan didn’t get sucked into the time rip. From his lab. He had driven home. Oh, right. But I but I don’t even I don’t even think they care I don’t even know that his lab and home were necessarily supposed to be in the countryside of geneva Who cares whatever he got sucked into frankenstein and now

Todd: They’re in the ruins of his castle because it kind of broke apart while they’re there, but now there’s this drama where Elizabeth slash Frankenstein’s bride wakes up, looks at herself, and starts to walk towards Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s monster, and they kind of embrace.

But then Victor Frankenstein turns to her and says, come to me, Elizabeth. And so she has this whole kind of mental realization, you know, it’s all on her face. It’s all just this, this bit, what’s she going to do? And then what’s that going to do? You know, if she goes to Frank and Victor Frankenstein, then the monster’s going to be pissed, you know, so you’re wondering what’s going to happen.

And in a very, very quick scene, because Frankenstein has his gun out and he’s aiming it, think of the monster. Uh, she goes up to Victor and grabs the gun and pulls the trigger herself, forcing him to shoot her in the chest, and now she’s dead. So, that was tragic. But, expected.

Craig: Sure, sure.

Todd: Again,

Craig: I’ve never seen Bride of

Todd: Frankenstein, so I don’t know how that goes.

At that point, there’s a little bit of a battle, I think, right? Between them? Uh, the monster kills Frankenstein and he trudges off.

Craig: Oh, that’s right! He kills him. He goes up to him. I liked this. He grabs him and he picks him up by like, crotch and shoulders, I think? Yeah. And holds him up over his head, and I think, now I don’t know because it was a really quick shot, but I think that that was a whole dummy of Raul Julia.

Todd: Yeah, it must have been.

Craig: And, and like, breaks it over his knee, and then Raul Julia lays in the snow and bleeds out of his mouth and dies. He’s

Todd: dead, yeah.

Craig: And then the monster takes off. Yeah.

Todd: Now Buchanan is literally Victor Frankenstein in the novel, going through the frozen tundra after the monster to try to kill him before he Reaches somebody else and kills more people he stumbles on to a portal

Craig: It’s a hatch like like a hatch from lost like down into the underground Mm hmm Buchanan finds this and when he goes down there, it’s different It’s not like his lab before but it’s all this technology with like, you know big panels of computers and like lasers everywhere and when Buchanan goes down there An AI voice says, welcome, Dr.

Buchanan. I don’t know what the implication here is. I think

Todd: it’s that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s his old lab.

Craig: Well, maybe it’s his old lab or it’s the technology that he. Created.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Developed. So it recognizes him, but the monster is also in the room and the monster says

Clip: This world you made is better than Victor’s.

It is barren as I am barren. Lonely as I am alone.

Craig: All of a sudden the monster is like all philosophical and knows all this stuff and he’s like, This is the brain of the great city beyond, the last refuge of mankind. Oh my god, like there’s, there’s, there’s Heavy drama.

Todd: It’s

Craig: heavy drama.

Todd: And the monster just knows all this shit, all of a sudden.

Craig: And it’s all happening with like lasers and like all this Crazy stuff is going on. Buchanan like shoots the monster, but he’s not dead. And then he, the monster says, what am I that you must destroy me? There’s, just as there is in the book, they, they maintain it in the movie too. It just seems like in the book, whereas it’s a big kind of philosophical, moral, spiritual debate, like they, they touch on it here, but It doesn’t really have the same impact.

He’s like, what am I that you must destroy me? And Buchanan’s like, an abomination in the eyes of God. And the monster’s like, so what are you? And then he says, I am Frankenstein?

Todd: Yeah, I thought it was a little heavy handed. I mean, I think he just recognizes. He did the same thing, you know, like he created this monster, his monster was this laser, and, you know, it ended up destroying the world, it ended up turning against its creator, and, and now he’s responsible for all this pain, and in Frankenstein’s case, you know, sort of like the village and all that, and who knows what else the monster’s gonna do, but in Buchanan’s case, it’s just the entire world, you know, in his effort to save it, uh, he, uh, ended up destroying it.

And so I think that’s, I think that’s the parallel, that they are very strongly painting with a very dark brush here.

Craig: Yeah, eventually, I mean, there’s more fighting, like the monster, I think Buchanan shoots him, but then the monster rips off his own arm and tries to beat Buchanan with it. That was hilarious!

I thought that was hilarious.

Todd: He’s swinging his own arm around for no good reason. Anyway, that was great. He’s distr he’s trashing the place too. He’s pulling things down and whatnot. But Buchanan still has his lasers and I guess he still knows how they work somehow.

Craig: And he uses the clapper to control them. I’m not kidding, guys. The clapper.

He uses the clapper and some like hand motions to control lasers and the lasers shoot the monster. Oh God. And then the monster’s like getting electrocuted and stuff. And he’s like, you don’t understand. You can’t kill me. I’m like, I don’t know, whatever. And then Buchanan exit, like he leaves the facility and he looks at this like big city on the horizon.

And then is it the monster like voiceover? You think you’ve killed me. But I am with you forever. I am unbound.

And then it’s a long, like a wide, like a, an aerial shot of Buchanan walking towards this post apocalyptic city that may or may not have

Todd: anybody in it. We’re not sure.

Craig: That’s the end.

Todd: Ah, yeah. I loved it.

Craig: I thought it was a blast. I enjoyed it. This is an odd movie to recommend to people, because I think that there are a lot of people who are kind of casual horror fans or maybe more modern horror fans, who I would recommend this to, and they would watch and they’d be like, What the f k?

Right. Why? Why did he recommend this? And then I feel like there are people like you and me, just as you just now introduced this movie to me, I would be so excited to introduce it to somebody like you or me who hasn’t seen it. Cause I was giddy. Top to bottom. Front to back, Giddy through the whole thing.

It’s so obviously Corman. It’s so obviously his style. However, it’s clearly a much larger budget. There are tons of people that you will recognize in it. The performances are good. The acting is good. I don’t have any complaints about the acting. It’s larger in scope than any other. Cormen film I’ve seen.

Most Cormen films I’ve seen are shot on very, like, they’re shot on sets. It is very small. It is very confined. You usually have three or four locations, if you’re lucky. This that, you know, I don’t know how it was done. I don’t know if they did it with screens or if they were actually shooting on location.

I have no idea, but it looks good. It looks much bigger and broader. I was impressed. I’m used to Corman directing cheesy, goofy films that I often enjoy. But this, he shows a little bit of gravitas.

Todd: I

Craig: feel like he shows me in this last film that he directed that he could do those movies like the other guy did.

That’s just not what he does.

Todd: Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. This movie had an 11. 5, I think, million dollar budget in 1990 dollars. I’m not sure what that translates to in 1960 dollars. It’s,

Craig: it’s low.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But, I mean, 11 million dollars, even in 1990’s, low.

Todd: And so, in a way, this really harkens back to what we did at the start of the series, The House of Usher.

You know, here was Corman presented with better actors than he usually has a bigger, bigger budget, puts together something that has a little more spectacle to it based on a literary property that everybody knows and allows it to get philosophical and a little heady as the material warrants and crafts a really fine little film.

Unlike, you know, House of Usher, which was very well received and made a ton of money. And then, of course, as we had said earlier, spawned a whole series of those PO films. This movie just didn’t. failed. At the box office, it didn’t even make a half a million dollars. And so, uh, you know, more or less just went straight to video.

Wow. And it seems like everyone’s forgotten about it, which is a shame, really, because I feel like, I mean, here we are reappraising this movie. I feel like people nowadays might reappraise this movie and see something a little more special there.

Craig: I think so too. Yeah. I think so too.

Todd: Again, it’s cheap and corny in spots.

Like the ending, again, the dialogue there is a little corny in what they’re trying to say, and I was a little heavy handed, and we talked about how the sets and things do look a little cheap and a little off the shelf at times, and that’s fine. Again, I think it serves the material well. But it was probably more a function of what they had to work with and Corman’s efficiency, but the performances are great.

The story is interesting. I was never bored. I had a lot of beautiful, pretty things to look at. You know, I liked the thematic parallels and sort of being mentally challenged there as well. You know, it wasn’t just a pure popcorn movie. I just thought all around, it was a, I mean, it was disappointing for him, you know, because it didn’t do well.

But I think Corman could be very proud of this movie as a director.

Craig: I loved it. I loved it. And I’m so glad that You chose it. I mean, I, I had said, let’s, let’s do something a little bit more modern. That was my only request. I think if I remember correctly, and you picked this one. And I was kind of glad cause I had looked at it.

I was interested, but I’m so glad now that you picked it. I’m so glad to have seen it. I just. Oh, I enjoyed it so much and I know that I know for a fact that a lot of that is because I just taught Frankenstein for the first time last year and I really enjoyed it. My students really enjoyed it So to be that close to it and i’ll be teaching it again in the fall And it just makes me even more excited to read the novel again

Todd: Well, what an interesting career.

Corman has had and there’s so many more films You can go and check out that he either directed or Or that he had a hand in producing many of which are fun. Some of which, you know, are kind of silly and maybe forgettable. Almost every single movie that he made, made money. And he was very proud of that.

He said he had very, very few. I mean, you could probably count them on one hand and this, I guess, being one of them. Movies that he made where he did at least recoup the budget. They were happy if they made money, they didn’t need to be up for Academy Awards or anything like that, or be this huge box office hit to be satisfied and move on to making the next picture.

And that’s what I really like about this guy. God, you know, there are times when I feel like I was just a couple decades late to the party. I like this ethos. It really gels with my own ethos. And as an artist, as a creator, getting along in the world, it really would have been fun to be a part of his team at some point in my life.

And I’m sad that I’ll never have that opportunity, but it’s been fun looking back on his career. And we will do so many more Corman movies. Of course we will. In the future. I’m Carnosaur now. Now that we’ve seen this, I was thinking, man, we should do Carnasaur. And I want to go back and revisit some of those Poe films as well, because, uh, love Vincent Price.

And a couple of those Poe films I remember as just being a lot of fun. Hopefully our listeners will have some suggestions as well for their favorite Corman produced movies and, uh, Who knows? Maybe we’ll do another series at some point. Alright, well thank you again for listening. Again, give us your responses.

We want to hear your feelings and thoughts about Cormint. Just, uh, write them in the comments wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Maybe on Apple Podcasts. Maybe you went directly to our website at ChainsawHorror. com You can leave us comments there as well. We try to respond to everything we receive, even on our Instagram and Twitter pages.

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We thank you for your support. The best thing you can do for us is just to refer this to another friend and get us a new listener. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.