Themed Day p5

Spudguns!, yes a few days late but as promised...

Movie:  Frankenstein Reborn
starring: Rhett Giles, Joel Hebner
genre: Horror, Thriller, Crime
year:2005/06
format: DVD

plot:While being evaluated to see if he's sane enough to stand trial for murder, Dr. Victor Franks, tells how he managed to regenerate a dead body.

This is done in a series of flashbacks-within flashbacks. And not always successfully either. It's a low-budget/no budget production that could have taken the first 45 minutes and condensed it down to about fifteen. The idea is there, as it takes the core of the original Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and tries to bring it forward to modern times. That's also where it gets muddled.

The doctor has been arrested for multiple murders, and is telling a therapist his story. (much like how Victor tells his story to the Captain in the original novel) We then learn that Franks and his team, were trying to create a system to help accident victims, who had been paralyzed. Their most successful patient is Bryce, a young man who has volunteered to undergo their experimental procedure. He ends up having a series of microbes injected into him. They manage to work to restore the use of his legs, but unknown to him, something else has come along with it. The doctor, who has been experimenting on himself, has managed to copy parts of his own personality, and that now effects Bryce, as the "donor" samples  retained emotions/memories. Bryce begins having these visions/nightmares about killing members of the medical staff. Unable to handle them, he gets into a fight with Franks, who then kills him. Franks learns he's about to lose his company's funding, and in a panic, begins upping his experiments. Bryce then becomes the canvas for which he experiments on.

This is one of those movies that halfway makes sense, and halfway just doesn't connect at all.  Like for example, the character of Bryce, once he becomes the creature. I am not sure why, but the doctor decides he needs to take apart a perfectly functioning body and rebuild it from scratch, mutilating the face and features in the process.  He goes from being an average man, to the Castle Freak.  And then later on, when he creates his female creature, there's only one small scare on her. I didn't get the point of that?

The two are emotionally connected by the experiment, which is why the creature is able to anticipate Franks whereabouts and just arrive there. For half the story, you get the idea the creature is doing his bidding, then it turns on him.  You have to assume that in his madness, the doctor loses the bond.

I know this is a low budget/no budget film from Asylum, but my biggest complaint is the sound. I wish they had put some extra time and effort into having a smoother soundtrack, as the quality cuts in and out every few minutes.

This is shown only from the character of Victor's point of view. So it's only the drive to make the creature, the madness, and the addiction that are explored. Oddly enough, the addiction is shown in a few different ways. From his pursuit of his experiments, to the drugs and money he prizes.  That is no depth to this, it's  a gory version of a serial killer story, with no hints at all to the moral dilemmas that made the original what it is.

And I'm going to end this here.

283 Days till Hallowe'en