Blackenstein has the stigma of being thee worst interpretation of Frankenstein ever committed to film. That's not quite true. Not only is it the worst interpretation of Frankenstein I've seen, it's in the running for the most inept movie ever made. Period. And I've sat through a lot of inept crap. So Sinister Soul Cinema takes an even more sinister turn with this weeks movie. Sorry, everybody...

* * * *

...We open in the thick of it. It being some kind of scientific experiment that's bound to go awry -- or it's going to be an awful boring movie. And if I only new the irony of that statement when I began watching the film. *sigh* Anyway...Tesla-coils pop off, Jacob's-ladders spark and buzz while beakers of colored liquids boil and bubble; this type of hardware is an obvious sign that the experiment being conducted by these two as of yet unknown people is of a dubious, if not totally legal, nature -- or approved by the FDA. Then the film's editor brings his meat-cleaver down and we abruptly jump outside, where a storm is a brewing, and the credits roll. Seems we're watching Blackenstein, and just in case the viewer doesn't get it, they added (obviously later) The Black Frankenstein. 

Just how stupid do they think the audience is? And already am I checking the film's running time, seeing how much longer I have to suffer. Ack, too long.

When the magic editing meat-cleaver falls again, we jump to the airport. The soundtrack turns super-funky soulful as we watch Dr. Winifred Walker (Ivory Stone) debark her plane and wind her way to the mansion home of her old college professor, Dr. Stein (John Hart). Ringing the doorbell, Malcolm (Roosevelt Jackson), Dr. Stein's creepy assistant, let's her inside. How do we know he's creepy? Well, he's trying real hard to sound like Bobby "Boris" Picket trying to do Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre at the same time -- and failing miserably I might add. She asks to see the doctor, who, at this very moment, is in the lab we saw earlier. The electrical equipment is still raging in all it's cacophonic glory, but somehow he hears a buzzer sounding and sees a particular red light flashing over all the other noise and lights. (That's some paging system.)

Dr. Stein is happy to see his gifted former pupil and invites her to stay for supper. We move to a darkened dining room where both diners sit on opposite ends of a very large table. Stuck in a holding pattern, the camera laps the table thrice before the dialogue picks up again. (*sshht* Roger; copy that tower, we have dialogue. Over. *sshht*) Winifred has come to see him for two reasons; one, she needs a job; and two, her fiancé, Eddie Turner (Joe DeSue), was badly wounded while serving in Vietnam and has been transferred to nearby VA Hospital for care and rehab, and she wants to know if Dr. Stein can use some of his scientific breakthroughs in DNA and grafting limbs to help Eddie. When Dr. Stein asks the nature of his injuries, Winifred turns all cryptic and won't tell him. (Why?!) Regardless, Dr. Stein offers her a job as a lab assistant and is happy to help anyway he can.

On the way to the hospital, Winifred finally reveals that Eddie stepped on a landmine and lost both his arms and legs. While they check in with the administrator about Eddie's release, the patient in question is having trouble with a surly orderly (Bob Brophy). Well, surly isn't quite the right word for this guy. Let's try evil & psychotic bastard instead. (That's getting warmer...) When Eddie asks for some water, the orderly tells him to get it himself and then points out, and rubs it in, that he obviously can't. Jealous of Eddie's military service, saying he couldn't go because he was 4-F, the orderly then starts ranting that he pays taxes, and since Eddie got wounded defending the Republic, he'll have to foot his bills until he dies. (Come to think of it, evil & psychotic bastard doesn't really do this clown justice, either.)

Luckily, Winifred and Dr. Stein arrive, scaring the obnoxious orderly off. Eddie isn't exactly thrilled to see Winifred. After his traumatic injuries he tried to call their engagement off, but Winifred still loves him. She introduces Dr. Stein, winner of the Nobel Peace Price for cracking the genetic code, and resident quack. Dr. Stein offers no guarantees, but if Eddie's willing to subject himself to some radical experimentation, there's a chance he could become normal again. With nothing to lose, Eddie agrees.

The soulful soundtrack Siren cranks up her song again while Eddie is transferred to Dr. Stein's mansion. In the lab, Stein and Winifred are conducting an experiment by bombarding some poor rabbit with cosmic rays. (Live! Dammit! Live!) When the red-lighted buzzer comes to life, either Eddie has arrived or it's Commissioner Gordon and the Riddler's back in town. Eddie isn't quite sold on his chances but Winifred begs him to trust in Dr. Stein and things can be like they were before. (And I don't know about the rest of you, but Winifred is coming off as awful shallow. If she really loves Eddie would she subject him to some unknown experiments or take him as is?) Laying it out, Dr. Stein says the procedure will proceed in three stages. The first stage begins with a series of injections of Stein's Super-Secret, World Shattering DNA formula. After administering the drugs, they leave Eddie to rest and move on to the doctor's other patients. First is Eleanor (Andrea King), who is around 90 years old but, thanks to Dr. Stein, she doesn't look a day over 75. Wow. Science is amazing. However, science has it's boundaries and Eleanor needs a S-SWS DNA shot every 24-hours or she'll shrivel up like a prune. The next genetic freak -- excuse me, patient, is Bruno (Nick Bolin). He's had someone else's legs reattached to his body by laser-beam fusion. One leg looks fine but the other, to Winifred's horror, is striped like a tiger! Dr. Stein comments it's a bad reaction to a new, Super-Secret, Not Quite Yet World Shattering RNA formula. The plan is to eventually replace the DNA shots with the sturdier RNA (the hell?!) since it lasts longer than the S-SWS DNA injections, but first they have to resolve the *ahem* unpleasant de-evolving side-effects. 

I knew I should have paid more attention in science class, but, dammit, that doesn't make one lick of sense.

Phase two of Eddie's procedure commences after he's wheeled into the lab. Firing up the equipment, Dr. Stein begins to attach some new arms onto his hulking frame. (And where exactly did those arms come from, MISTER man?) Stein runs up his electrical bill for awhile and then claims the operation was a complete success. (Huu-zzah.) That night, yet another storm is brewing. (Does it really rain this much in Los Angeles?) And the household is awakened by some primal screaming. This is one of the side-effects of the SSNQYWS-RNA shot that Dr. Stein warned us about; Bruno is frothing at the mouth in a rage, and Winifred watches as as Malcolm wrestles him into a straight-jacket. Dr. Stein assures Winifred not to worry (move along nothing to see here); this kind of thing happens once in awhile with the use of the new drug. 

And how come you didn't mention these side-effects from the beginning, you quack!

So, Does Winifred cut her losses, pack up her fiancé and leave? No, she helps Dr. Stein prepare Eddie for the final stages of his restoration process. (That's love, baby!) We've also been noticing that Malcolm has been acting awful lecherous around Winifred lately. And he confirms our suspicions by admitting his infatuation and professes his love for her. Winifred let's him down easy, saying she's already engaged to Eddie. She's really quite nice about it, but Malcolm doesn't take rejection very well and sabotages Eddie's latest rounds of injections, replacing the dose of S-SWS DNA with a dose of the unstable S-SNQYWS-RNA. Then, with Eddie out of the way, Winifred will be all his. Eddie is given the bogus injections and wheeled into the lab for more surgery. As the sparks start flying, Dr. Stein and Winifred attach new legs onto -- but then something starts to go wrong; Eddie goes into convulsions until they get him sedated; but over the schizophrenic soundtrack, we hear a thumping heartbeat growing steadier and stronger.

The operation complete, Eddie is wheeled back to his room. Despite these unforeseen complications, Dr. Stein claims Eddie will be just fine.

A few days pass and Dr. Stein assures Winifred that Eddie should be able to get up and walk on his own today. They check in on him but the patient has taken a turn for the worse, saying he doesn't feel right, and Winifred is shocked to see a prominent bony ridge starting to protrude over Eddie's eyes. Concerned, Stein calls for Malcolm and they wheel Eddie back to the lab for some blood tests on him, but can't find anything wrong. All the test results say the experiment should succeed. Thinking they need to run the tests again, Winifred then makes another startling discovery: black pubic hairs have sprouted on the back of Eddie's hands. (You monsters! What did you to do him? What sin could a man commit in a single lifetime...) Worse yet, Eddie has slipped into a coma and doesn't respond to stimuli. Ordering Malcolm to increase the dosages of S-SWS DNA, the befuddled Stein decides to sleep on it and get a fresh start in the morning. 

During the night, strange guttural noises arise from the lab. Eddie's awake, but he has been transformed into Blackenstein! The Black Frankenstein -- or, more appropriately, The Black Frankenstein Monster; but now I'm just nitpicking, and, believe you me, this film just isn't worth it. Frankly, I don't even want to fathom why Dr. Stein dressed up his patient in high-water pants, sport coat, and patent leather shoes but, nonetheless, Eddie Monster (*hee*hee*) shambles off into the night like a drunk trying to act sober, and grunting like an obscene phone caller. 

I guess I should thank my lucky stars that the monster isn't naked, right? Right...

Making it all the way back to VA hospital -- and judging by his rate of speed this should have taken him about three days, but thanks to the editor and his magic editing meat-leaver Eddie makes it in no time at all -- the monster heads inside and finds the surly orderly. Pummeling him mercilessly, Eddie then pulls one of the orderlies arms off and proceeds to beat him to death with it. After the carnage, Eddie shambles off. But the night is young, and we find Doc Severnson and Dolly Parton home in bed engaged in some foreplay (well, that's who they reminded me of.) Dolly's worried about her dog, who's barking up a storm outside. When the barking abruptly ends with a loud whine, Dolly tells Doc if he wants to get any, he'd better go and check on her dog. He does and we soon hear his death-yipe, too. Heading outside to investigate, Dolly finds the body of Doc and the dog. She appears to be more upset about the dog -- until she spots Eddie, who grasps her in a deadly bear hug. And then, well, the editor's meat cleaver gets a work out as we see some legs, then hear some wet sounds, more legs, and then Eddie playing with Dolly's entrails. 

The next morning, Winifred checks on Eddie (who I assume snuck back in sometime. Why? No, I'm asking you!) Alas, Eddie has slipped back into a coma and is not responding at all. Suspicious of Malcolm, Winifred starts to run some experiments on Eddie's medicine...but then we hit some kind of time warp, and suddenly, it's night time again. After the bubbling and buzzing noises of the lab rock Winifred to sleep, Eddie grunts back to life and shambles off again, into the night, looking for more entrails to play with.

He finds some prey in the park, where a young couple has come to make out. But when the creepy young man cranks up his tunes and starts putting the moves on his date -- Omigod. Listen to the song! Is it? It is! It's Good King Wenceslas! You know, I've always found public domain holiday tunes make great make-out music -- the girl feels he's getting a little too fresh and rejects his advances. Rebuffed, he pulls the "put out or walk home" card; she chooses the latter. True to his word, he roars off, leaving her behind, and we watch her legs walk through the forest. Then we switch to Eddie's feet shuffling along. Her feet stop, as if her toes heard something following her. They hear it again, and her feet pick up some steam while Eddie's clod-hoppers ramble along at the same plodding pace until, inexplicably, her feet collide with his feet at the bridge. And as we ponder just how in the hell did he manage to get in front of her, the girl's feet, legs and hips are drug off into the darkness. (An awful lot of shots of feet in this damn movie...)

The next morning, things are rather glum around the breakfast table at the Stein house. All except for Malcolm, who is acting pretty smug. Confounded by Eddie's lack of progress, Dr. Stein and Winifred return to the lab to run more tests, where they hear grunting coming from Eddie's cell. (He came back again?) When Eddie reaches through the bars and paws at Winifred -- c'mon, he just wants to play with your entrails -- Dr. Stein fights him off with an awful convenient piece of chain. (Wait. You mean he came back and locked himself in his cage?) Calling for Malcolm to chain Eddie up, his assistant informs him the police are here and would like to question him about several murders in the neighborhood.

Stein meets with Detective Oblivious and Sgt. Unaware, and they asks if he's noticed anything strange the past few nights. When Stein says, no, he hasn't, Detective Oblivious and Sgt. Unaware thank him for his time and leave. (You're tax dollars at work people.)

Let's do the time-warp again! Night falls (rather abruptly), and since Malcolm obviously "neglected" to lock Eddie up, the monster shuffles his way down the boulevard toward the Parisian Club, where comedian Andy C wastes the next ten minutes of the film with his lame-ass act. How lame? We really, really want to see what HIS entrails look like after the talking dog joke. Our hopes are raised when Andy C goes outside for a cigarette after finishing his set. (C'mon movie. You can redeem yourself right here. Please-oh-please...) But Eddie shuffles right by him and attacks a couple making out in the alley. He kills the guy quickly, as the woman, whose top has mysteriously fallen open, watches helplessly. Then Eddie rips her apart and shakes her guts around for awhile. 

And this makes us wonder if Dr. Stein gave Eddie the mutant power to put the hypno-whammy on people and cause men to fight like Joe Besser, and cause women to freeze in their tracks until their entrails are pulled out. 

Andy C calls in the cops and soon sirens are roaring toward the crime scene. The police cordon off the area but Eddie very noisily-! walks right through their barricade completely unseen. (Again, your tax dollars at work!) Eddie returns to the mansion where, at this very moment, Malcolm is trying to rape Winifred. Busting in in time, Eddie starts throwing Malcolm around the room until Winifred screams, drawing his attention, allowing her attacker to escape. As the monster shambles toward her, Malcolm returns with a pistol and empties it, point blank, but the bullets have no effect. Grabbing him by the neck with both hands, Eddie lifts him high and throttles Malcolm to death. Taking advantage of this, Winifred escapes from the bedroom.

All the noise brings Dr. Stein running. He finds Winifred and they retreat back to the lab as Eddie goes from room to room and kills both Bruno and Eleanor. He shuffles on, looking for his creators, down the long spiral staircase, meaning he should get to the lab in about two hours. In other words, movie, hurry the hell up. Forget it -- oh Mr. Movie Editor? A little help please? Thank you...

Eddie finds Winifred in the lab and attacks her. It was a ruse as Stein tries to grab him from behind. But Eddie tosses him into the electrical equipment, which promptly short-circuits and electrocutes the good doctor. Turning back on Winifred, the monster closes in for the kill -- but at the last second, the soundtrack turns all syrupy and Eddie recognizes her and backs off. Winifred reaches out and calls to him, but Eddie angrily roars off in a rage -- well, shuffles off in a rage.

If you're smelling the end, sorry, you're smelling something a little more odorous, because the film prolongs our misery as we suddenly cut to a different house where a woman comes out and gets in her dune-buggy. What the? Yeah, but -- Who the hell is this now?!? Aaarrrggghh!! Of course the thing won't start, and the thumping heartbeat on the soundtrack means Eddie is somewhere nearby -- and sure enough, there he is. After putting the hypno-whammy on her, the monster carries her off to parts unknown. Back at Dr. Stein's mansion, Detective Oblivious and Sgt. Unaware find the lab a shambles, Stein dead, and Winifred in shock. Elsewhere, Eddie carries the mystery girl to some warehouse, where she promptly escapes and leads him on a merry chase until the film reaches the required 90-minute running length. And finally, at 90-minutes and one second, the girl is disemboweled just as the LA County Canine Corps roars up and unleashes the Doberman gang.

In due course, the Dobermans find Eddie and attack. And at 92-minutes and 37-seconds, the dogs tear Eddie to shreds. And at 95-minutes and 45-seconds, Eddie's thumping heart finally stops beating. And at 97-minutes and 52-seconds, this film finally comes to and end. And at 98-minutes and 3-seconds, my head detonated all over my living room.

The End

And we, as the viewer, realize the movie was about 90-minutes and 50-seconds too long. Sweet monkey-bajeebus that was bad!

I knew I was in trouble the minute I brought the tape home. I'd bought it used at a vintage vinyl store while visiting a friend in Omaha, and something wasn't quite right with the tape, physically, as we could not get his VCR to accept it. Usually a VCR takes a bad tape then spits it out. Not this time. You couldn't even get the damn thing in it. Taking the tape home, I eventually forced it into my own player with much exertion. The tape played fine once it was in there, but obviously, the VCR knew something I didn't. And I'd like to take this opportunity to express my full apology to both VCRs.

I had heard from other prominent sources that Blackenstein was, quite possibly, one of the worst movies ever made. Armed with this information, I was able to steel myself before watching it. Expecting the worst, there's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that takes over when watching this movie. You keep telling yourself "It's not that bad," relieved to know it couldn't get any worse. How could it? The film isn't so much a painfully bad movie...but a painfully inept movie.

How inept? Well, let's look at the evidence:

First, let's pick on the script and it's author, Frank R. Saletri. By 1972, the Frankenstein mythos was so engrained in pop culture that you'd think there would be no way he could screw it up. We all know that Frankenstein is the name of the monster's creator -- not the monster itself. Here, the monster is black but "Blackenstein" is obviously white. (Played by actor John Hart whose only real claim to fame was replacing Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger for a year.) And I ain't even going to touch his bogus science behind the super DNA and RNA formulas. He's insulted the audience enough already. To make matters worse, director William Levey gets a little too arty-farty for his own good. I don't know if he was trying to be avant-garde -- or aping Hitchcock, or, more likely, with all those shots of feet, Jacques Tournuer -- but he failed miserably. Too many bad camera angles; too many low angle shots of nothing but feet; too many fancy framed shots; and too many shots of  shadow-puppetering. The first few shots like this are laughable, but that soon grows tiresome -- and then quickly becomes irritating, then degenerating to full blown annoyance. Levey went on to gain more fame as a bad movie director with The Happy Hooker goes to Washington and the truly odious Skatetown U.S.A. Saletri stuck with monster blaxploitation and penned Black the Ripper and hasn't been heard from since.

I've already made fun of the editor and his magic editing meat-cleaver but let's continue, shall we? The film sets a record with 1026 establishing shots of Stein's mansion from the outside. Definitely, I see a heavy influence from Dark Shadows, the gothic soap opera that brought monsters to daytime television. Now, if you watch that show, you realize with almost each seen change there is a quick cut to the outside of Collinwood manor or wherever the action is taking place. Blackenstein is the same way, with a shot of the manor, or a lightning crash -- right out of a clear blue sky! -- for the transitions. And t also really appears to have been edited with an actual meat cleaver and then spliced back together with some masking tape. Lot's and lot's of jarring cuts, here, that gives the film a schizophrenic feel that really doesn't help things at all.

Speaking of multiple personalities. If the editor is a mad butcher that never allows you to get a sense of time, then the soundtrack mixer is a malevolent hack as well. Bouncing around from funk to soul to sampling -- stealing riffs from old horror and sci-fi movies, most noticeably IT! The Terror Beyond Space -- is like nails on a chalkboard. The music just never seems appropriate anywhere in this movie.

Next, let's look at the mad scientist's laboratory. The only thing that they did do right was digging up Kenneth Strickfaden and borrowing the equipment used in the original Universal production. Strickfaden had kept all the equipment in his garage all that time. (Mel Brooks would do the same thing for Young Frankenstein a few years later.) And we get to see every piece of equipment spark and blink as the camera lingers on them for eons and eons, killing precious screen time. Putting all of this equipment in a Day-Glo colored room, and add to that a wildly beeping and booping soundtrack, it resembled less of a maniacal devil's workshop and more like Muppet Labs -- where your future is being made today! Hell, I kept expecting to see Dr. Bunsen Honeydew detonating Beaker's head somewhere in the background.

Which leads us to another pertinent question: Why is the electrical equipment always running during the operations? Is Stein just showing off? Frankenstein stitched his patient together and then turned the equipment on to imbue life into the dead. Eddie's alive and kicking, right? And only getting some spare limbs attached. These machines are overkill. You'd think with all that electricity in the air the room would turn stale, rancid, and start to stink of burnt copper, ozone and, yes, the air would even start to taste bad. 

I could go on about the film's pacing, lighting, structure, acting, motivations, and reasons for being...but another psychological defense mechanism is already in full swing, repressing all memories of this film from my brain. 

If this movie has taught us anything, it's that there is a difference between badly inept and ineptly bad. And as the memories of this movie fade to black, I will say that Blackenstein is by no means the worst movie ever made -- but-! I also cannot, in good conscious, recommend seeing it at all to anyone.

More Sinister Soul Cinema!

Posted: 10/13/02. Copy and paste at your own legal risk.

Questions? Comments? Shoot me an e-mail. My dubbing policy.

How our Rating System works. Our Philosophy.