HnetFlix | Shane “Love Monster” Hnetka | Feb. 10, 2022
“Alone: bad. Friend: good.” —Frankenstein’s monster, Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Aliens, vampires and Frankensteins need love too. With Valentine’s Day here, I decided to look at the most romantic of all genres: monster movies.
They Did The Mash
I recently watched Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, a.k.a. Flesh For Frankenstein. In this 1973 horror/comedy, the singular Udo Kier stars as Doctor Frankenstein. He’s married to his sister (?!) but the union is sexless (although they have two weird kids). She’s also taken in a lover she pretends is a servant. Meanwhile, Doc F. has created a female creature and now works to complete her male counterpart so the two can mate (because Science!). Frankenstein just needs the severed head of someone with a great libido.
He mistakenly uses the severed head of a sexually repressed man.
This movie is bad. Very, very bad. It’s also hilarious. Its best line: “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life… in the gallbladder!”
INTERESTING FACT NUMBER ONE: Andy Warhol didn’t have anything to do with the movie, other than letting filmmakers slap his name on it.
INTERESTING FACT NUMBER TWO: A sister film, Blood For Dracula, was made right after this one with the same cast and crew.
In Blood For Dracula, Kier plays a feeble, dying vampire who needs virgin blood to live (because of course he does). Unfortunately, his own homeland is short on virgins, so naturally he goes to Italy — a Catholic nation in which pure women are doubtless plentiful. There he meets a wealthy landowner with four daughters. Surely they meet his requirements?
Events ensue and certain assumptions are proven wildly incorrect. But after some drama, Dracula finds a virgin woman who loves him. Neverthless things go horribly wrong.
It’s not as much fun as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein but Blood For Dracula has its moments.
Monsters Just Wanna Be Loved
You think monster movies are about murder and mayhem? Wrong. This might be film’s sappiest and most sentimental genre. Dracula? He just wanted love (and blood). Frankenstein’s monster longed for a mate. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, King Kong, the Fly, the Mummy and many more all craved someone special.
Hellraiser had unfaithful wife Julie killing unsuspecting men to restore her skinless, hell-escapee lover, Frank. Slither followed oozing, parasite-infested Grant’s attempts to woo his wife Starla. Re-Animator saw a reanimated, severed head lust after shlock-horror legend Barbara Crampton. And Sil, the alien from Species? She just wanted to reproduce with a quality mate.
Happy Valentine’s day!