Good movie but grossly overrated

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

A young surgeon called Dr Simon Helder (Shane Briant) is sent to the insane asylum for copying the works of Baron Frankenstein. Here he discovers that the Baron, believed dead, is still very much alive and has assumed a new identity, Dr Karl Victor (Peter Cushing), and by blackmailing the asylum's corrupt director (John Stratton) he has secured the post of head doctor. From within the asylum walls, Frankenstein, Helder and Sarah (Madeleine Smith), the director's mute daughter, whom is referred to as 'The Angel' by the inmates, he continues his obsessive quest to create the perfect man. First, he revives a neanderthal inmate who was killed after he fell from a high window in an escape attempt before giving him the brain of the sensitive mathematical and musical genius Professor Durendell (Charles lloyd Pack)...Hammer's conclusion to their celebrated Frankenstein series and the last film director Terence Fisher ever made before his tragic death from cancer aged 76 in 1980. It marked a welcome return to the style of the studio's golden era of gothic horror movies. Yes, it seemed terribly dated at the time of its release in 1974 and it has an aura about it as if everybody knew that the end was in sight. It does, as many others have commented, look like one final gathering of Terence Fisher and his colleagues having a last crack at Mary Shelley's story that made them famous nearly twenty years before. Nonetheless, despite the air of sadness about the production and its clearly meagre budget, great care was evidently taken in all departments with the set design (Scott Macgregor) and the cinematography (Brian Probyn) standing out. Fisher's direction is as accomplished as ever and all elements combine to create a rich gothic atmosphere and a feeling for place and period. It is quite remarkable when one realises that MacGregor's tiny sets were all crammed on to Stage Four at Elstree Studios. Cushing, here making his last appearance as the Baron, offers another of his detailed and strong performances bringing out the character's deviousness, his cunning, resourcefulness and intelligence. As always, despite his genius and whatever good intentions he may have had underneath his ruthless pursuit of them, we can see that he was too clever for his own good and his obsession with creating the perfect man always went wrong and yet he would never give up. The climax carries a charge of genuine irony when the Baron vows to begin again before the end credits roll against the foreboding exterior of the asylum walls. We know that there would be no next time since there would not be any more Hammer Frankenstein films and, depending on what happened to the Baron, but we'll never know, we are lead to suspect that there would be no next time as far as his experiments went either. Cushing gets top notch support from Briant as Dr Helder and Madeleine Smith provides the emotional element in the story as Sarah since the monster (Dave Prowse) is in love with her and enacts a terrible vengeance on her father, the asylum's director, since he once attempted to rape her - the shock of which meant she lost her voice - before the creature is ripped to shreds by the inmates. Prowse gives an excellent performance as the monster, it has to be said, portraying him with a genuine sense of emotion and anguish in equal measure. You will be touched despite the fact that his make up was all too clearly a rubber suit.All in all, Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell is must see viewing for all fans of Hammer horror and it is remarkably accomplished too despite the low budget and the fact that by the 1970's the market for this kind of product had all but dried up. And we cannot possibly write off Cushing's last turn as the Baron nor the great Terence Fisher's last movie, can we?

As the title would suggest this is a 'Frankenstein' adventure. A young scientist determined to follow in the footsteps of his hero is arrested and sent to a lunatic asylum - as his hero had previously been too apparently. Upon getting admitted to the asylum Dr Simon Helder (Shane Bryant - Captain Kronos the Vampire Hunter) does a bit of snooping and eventually encounters Baron Victor Frankenstein going by the name Dr Carl Victor (Peter Cushing) who is working as chief medical staff within the asylum. Baron Frankenstein is presumed dead however going by the name Dr Carl Victor has allowed him to stay undetected and continue his experiments. Unfortunately an accident has reduced Dr Victors ability to operate precisely and as such he has groomed dumb/mute Sarah (Madeline "Live and Let Die" Smith), upon learning the Dr Helder is a doctor of surgery he takes the opportunity to take him on as an assistant, initially just with the regular inmates of the asylum but later begrudgingly with Dr Victors 'private' studies too. Curiosity eventually gets the better of young Dr Helder and he tricks dumb Sarah (Angel) into leaving the door to Dr Victors private lab open so that he might have a snoop around. Within the lab is version Frankenstein's monster built from inmates, as the film progresses and Dr Helder fights his conscience the monster is let out to cause mayhem and havoc within the institute. This is Hammer's last Frankenstein film (the 7th in a brilliant series) and it's a good one albeit the monster has seen better days. Terence Fisher directs this outing and you'll find all the usual Hammer House trademarks from wobbly walls to atmospheric intensity to rubber monsters. This Frankenstein film stands out as one of Hammer's finest but it also closes the arc of Frankenstein film's produced which have been brilliantly directed by Terence Fisher and starred Peter Cushing. The musical score bu James Bernard in this film is creepy and eerie much like you'd expect. Additionally Shane Bryant adds to his already growing reputation in Hammer films with a suave but potentially dangerous delivery which keep the audience bolted in for the ride. While it's undoubtedly Cushing who is driving the films narrative vehicle its Bryant who acts as navigator for the audience vocalising things that need to be said and asking questions that need to be answered. If Cushing is the drive and Bryant is the navigator then Madeline Smith is the soul and heart of the film. Madeline Smith is her usual stunning self, while she keeps her clothes on in this Hammer film (sorry) she manages to bring real emotion and feeling to film using expressions, smiles and her eyes to convey feelings. The two let downs for me in the film are a) the scale model of a asylum used in long shots - it looked too fake even for Hammer, previous Hammer films have used random locations and beautiful buildings - this film however missed out on that. Secondly, b) the Monster's appearance was a little unbelievable. It wasn't supposed to be a bronzed Adonis but it's more like a papier-mâché caveman with Tom Selleck's body hair glued to it, fortunately it doesn't detract too much from the film as the actors in the film help carry it through to it's ultimate demise. Keep an eye open for the rest of the star studded cast: David "Darth Vadar" Prowse is Frankenstein's monster John Stratton plays the creepy and slimy asylum warden Patrick "Dr Who" Troughton plays a dirty body-snatcher Bernard "M" from James Bond" Lee plays a genius/inmate All in all a great film, one for the die hard horror fans rather than the new style-over-substance audiences.

The movie is quiet like the not so good "Diamonds Are Forever" the last official Bond movie starring Sean Connery after a gap in the series which Bond was played by George Lazenby in OHMSS, a great movie though! Here we see good old Peter Cushing again as Baron Frankenstein for one last time although Cushing does not have half of his charm in previous movies but he still is considered the original Baron Frankenstein which gives movie a sense of originality to the audience.The movie appears to be a desperate departure from the cliché to lure audience in the fading market of mid 70s by briefly showing supposed to be gory but extremely cheesy surgery and slaughter scenes. Despite the incited curiosity, Such scenes were never shown in any of the prequels, a trend which should have been disappointing but it was not due to solid and very interesting stories. But in this very last, there was no solid screenplay and as a result, cheesy became cheesier and at some point became comic! a tragic failure for a horror movie. Now let's see what made this movie so bad... bad screenplay/story of course not the production. Production was as good as it was supposed to be.1. The monster's body came from a supposed to very strong criminally insane man. Well, what we saw was a beast straight out of "Beauty and the Beast", a creature which does not exist in reality.2. The monster was so disappointing but it leads to the second question. Why Frankenstein chose such body in first place? He always wanted to create a perfect man so why this monster? I know the answer. Frankenstein didn't want the beast but it was assumed by the producer that the audience wanted such monster.3. Apparently Baron had a hand problem so why not transplanting those supposed to be awesome hands to himself so he can do surgery again? Also as I remember, he changed his body once in the second movie so why not this time?4. Why baron wanted to transplant an insane genius's brain to his creation? to create an insane genius with the body of king kong?Terrible monster, Terrible story... it was a watchable movie just as part of the series. Do I feel that I wasted my time watching this movie?ABSOLUTELY

Warning the following contains plot spoilers'FatMfH' is probably my least favorite of the Hammer Frankenstein series. I believe it was also the last in the series. I'm not saying it's a bad film. In fact I did enjoy it. I just didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other Hammer Frankenstein films featuring Mr. Cushing. You really can't go wrong when you combine the acting of Peter Cushing with the direction of Terence Fisher. I believe this was the last feature film that Mr. Fisher directed and the last time that Peter Cushing played the Baron in the series. It had all the charm of a typical Hammer production with Mr. Fisher at the helm, wonderfully realistic characters, fine acting, and the sort of period colorful atmosphere Hammer excelled at. The film did drag slightly at times, fortunately Peter Cushing and the other lead Shane Briant more than made up for that. My major complaint about the film is the poor makeup on the monster. It looked very phony to me, sort of a cross between a costume store gorilla suit that was losing it's hair and a neanderthal man. The monsters bare chest and back looked too much like a Halloween costume and not realistic. To me it was only a few steps up from the look of the comical gorilla like aliens in 'Robot Monster'. In spite of that I still enjoyed the film. It was a scary enough looking creation not to ruin the fun. The story did manage to show just how cruel Mr. Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein really was beneath his gentleman like facade. For instance he stated he did not want to murder an insane genius in order to use the poor man's brain for his creature. Still he didn't mind setting up a situation where the disturbed man was bound to commit suicide. Frankenstein then took his brain with a clear, if sick, conscious. Also, Frankenstein was willing to sexually sacrifice his gentle female assistant, Angel, to the monster for the sake of his experiment. It was both chilling and sad to see the disturbed genius who had killed himself wake up with his consciousness inside the body of a hideous monster. The poor man was bemoaning his plight saying over and over 'why why why....'. He had wanted to die and instead was doomed to this life instead, thanks to the cruelness of Frankenstein. At one point he even dug up his old body and looked at it face-to-face. This reminded me of a similar and memorable scene from an earlier Hammer Frankenstein film.In conclusion this film is well worth seeing and was almost a fitting end to the Hammer Frankenstein series. Fans of Peter Cushing and Terence Fisher should not be disappointed.