Writer/director Paul Dudbridge, who delivered Fear the Invisible Man (see Nov 2023 post), hits the Gothic summit again, with a macabre charmer that leaps seventy years from Mary Shelley's novel, with Victor Frankenstein's journal becoming an accursed prize, sought by selfish seekers.
The production is entitled Frankenstein Legacy, which was cowritten by Dunbridge with his Invisible Man collaborator, Jim Griffin, but in some ways, the movie swerves as much toward W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw," with ungrudging insinuations from Terence Fisher/Jimmy Sangster's The Revenge of Frankenstein, Fisher/Bert Batt's Frankenstein Must be Destroyed and Mel Welles/Edward di Lorenzo's Lady Frankenstein. In the end, though, the movie remains its own pleasing deviation of Shelley's Modern Prometheus.
Though we learn that Juliet (Primeval) Aubrey's Millicent Browning has procured Frankenstein's diary and keeps it stashed in her concealed laboratory, the journal is also sought by Michelle (Cockneys vs. Zombies) Ryan's zealous Lady Charlotte and her rogues. Millicent ignores the impending threat, restaging Frankenstein's experiments with her Strickfaden-steered equipment, wishing to keep her invalid husband, Philip Martin (Eye of the Needle) Brown's Robert, alive and thriving.
As Millicent toils, her children, Matt (Dracula 2013/Downton Abbey) Barber's William, a physician at a hospital for the less fortunate, and Katie (Lore) Sheridan's charming Clara, remain oblivious to her deeds, but when Robert is bludgeoned by Charlotte's henchmen, Millicent wastes no time to reconstruct him, which leads to graverobbing and an illicit arrangement with William's boss, Jonathan (The Ripper Untold) Hansler's Superintendent Brammings.
Millicent's body snatching hits the paper, with William compelled to find the culprit, teaming with a impassioned nurse, Alexandra (Primeval) Afreya's Liza, whose father (played by Sean Earl McPhearson) expired under questionable circumstances, his corpse stolen from his sick bed.
William and Liza's Holmes/Watson-bent investigation places them in uninviting annals, as the resurrected, memory-impaired Robert becomes evermore powerful in his refurbished shell, stalking the countryside before clinching a rattling climax.
Watching Robert transform from a frail man into such a frightful force is the movie's best component, and the slant allows Brown to flaunt his acting chops. That he sports an uncanny resemblance to actor Jonathan Harris gives the story a further offbeat flavor, in particular during Robert's interludes of rage and pathos. As such, Brown's portrayal is on a par with other such unlikely, stitched misfits as Michael Gwynn's Karl Immelman of Revenge of Frankenstein and Freddie Jones' Professor Richter of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.
The supporting cast benefits the story's morbid depth (with Barber echoing Hammer's Francis Matthews), as does Samu Csernak's heightened score and Keefa Chan's evocative photography, which highlights the movie's opulent sets; plus, the makeup department seals the deal with its arresting carnage, especially when Robert enters complete monsterization.
I enjoyed this one and respect its unique spin, but as much as the the reinvention deserves applause, Frankenstein Legacy never averts Shelley's admonishing foundation, where the imposing intent presses tragedy: something that Frankenstein followers are fated to appreciate.
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