Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein) (1973)

Well, I sat through it, so I might as well talk about it. It's 1973's cheaper, more insulting, less competent answer to Blacula. It's Blackenstein (The Black Frankenstein).

I dunno, maybe I was expecting too much from this movie. My memories of Blacula were of a movie that was, yeah, a little slow, but at least technically competent. At worst, I figured this would be a hilarious collection of 70s fashion and wah-wah guitars and "jive sucka" dialogue. And I got none of those things.

Let's run down the list of things the movie does wrong: First, and most importantly, it's technically a mess. It's poorly edited, both in picture and sound. The music seems to be stock horror music (there are a couple original songs, which are good enough, if you like that sort of thing, and I do), but it just jumps into and out of scenes, sometimes literally from shot to shot. The dirty, scratched, faded film print used for this DVD does nobody any favors either. Much of the film is way too dark. Watching this in a darkened room, on a nice big TV, I shouldn't have to squint to see if anything is happening (frequently it wasn't).

The script is a poor excuse for a first draft. We're told the white Dr. Stein (Do ya get it? Huh? Do ya?) won "The Nobel Peace Prize for medicine." There's a lot of talk about DNA and RNA, which nobody seems to understand. Despite all the DNA talk, they pull out the same old Van de Graaff generators to perform Eddie's operations. (I'm assuming the rental of those machines took up a large portion of the budget, since they get waaaay too much screen time.)

Eddie is a disabled Vietnam vet. That's an important, interesting topic, and for a few minutes, we think the movie has something to say about it: the attendant at the VA has an ... interesting monologue about it, but the movie's just setting him up to be the first victim. For this film, Vietnam is only a plot device to disable a man, so he can become a monster and the producers can make some money.

The movie has a serious problem with women. Eddie only kills women (he attacks several men, but only women die on screen). I'm disturbed that, like a lot of cheapo exploitation movies from the time, this confuses sex with violence -- we see the breasts of three women, of whom two die violently onscreen, and the third barely escapes with her life. Oh yeah, and there's a LOT of sexual assault in this movie. Our heroine is victimized by a madman (who also altered the DNA formula which changed Eddie into Blackenstein, if you were wondering), and another random woman walks away from a date rapist only to die at the hands of Blackenstein. There's a third sexual assault in an alley, and Eddie kills both parties.

And, believe it or not, that's not the worst part of the film. As far as I can tell, none of the makers of this film were black, and it shows. The movie spends NO time talking about the politics of race in 1973 America, which would make sense if the film addressed those issues as metaphor. Frankenstein is RIPE for the metaphorical plucking, but this movie can't be bothered. This movie doesn't understand what it looks like when the "good" white man beats a savage, imprisoned black man with a chain. This movie doesn't understand what it looks like when police set dogs on a black man, and the dogs literally rip his guts out onscreen. 

Sidebar: there is a scholarly book out there which addresses these issues in the film very seriously. I've scanned a few pages on Google Books, and I'd LOVE to read the whole thing. Take a look (if you can, skip to page 196 for the relevant passage).

I'd like to give the filmmakers credit, and think they knew these things meant something. I'd like to think these decisions were deliberate and thought-through. Unfortunately, the technical ineptitude and lack of effort in every other part of the movie convince me that the whole thing is a slapdash money grab. 

I always give you a buy link, but don't buy this. Don't watch it.