Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This a sequel to Frankenstein must be destroyed It is very scary. Frankenstein is Doctor Frankenstein. The monster from hell is the Frankenstein monster. It is not the original Frankenstein monster. But it is the same race. It a monster Doctor Frankenstein creates out dead body parts. So the title is misleading. Because it is not a monster from hell. But still this movie as a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. It is very intense. If this movie does not scary you then no movie will. This is the sixth part to the hammer Frankenstein movies. The first five Hammer Frankenstein movies are a little better.

The movie is quiet like the not so good "Diamonds Are Forever" the last official Bond movie starring Sean Connery after a gap in the series which Bond was played by George Lazenby in OHMSS, a great movie though! Here we see good old Peter Cushing again as Baron Frankenstein for one last time although Cushing does not have half of his charm in previous movies but he still is considered the original Baron Frankenstein which gives movie a sense of originality to the audience.The movie appears to be a desperate departure from the cliché to lure audience in the fading market of mid 70s by briefly showing supposed to be gory but extremely cheesy surgery and slaughter scenes. Despite the incited curiosity, Such scenes were never shown in any of the prequels, a trend which should have been disappointing but it was not due to solid and very interesting stories. But in this very last, there was no solid screenplay and as a result, cheesy became cheesier and at some point became comic! a tragic failure for a horror movie. Now let's see what made this movie so bad... bad screenplay/story of course not the production. Production was as good as it was supposed to be.1. The monster's body came from a supposed to very strong criminally insane man. Well, what we saw was a beast straight out of "Beauty and the Beast", a creature which does not exist in reality.2. The monster was so disappointing but it leads to the second question. Why Frankenstein chose such body in first place? He always wanted to create a perfect man so why this monster? I know the answer. Frankenstein didn't want the beast but it was assumed by the producer that the audience wanted such monster.3. Apparently Baron had a hand problem so why not transplanting those supposed to be awesome hands to himself so he can do surgery again? Also as I remember, he changed his body once in the second movie so why not this time?4. Why baron wanted to transplant an insane genius's brain to his creation? to create an insane genius with the body of king kong?Terrible monster, Terrible story... it was a watchable movie just as part of the series. Do I feel that I wasted my time watching this movie?ABSOLUTELY

As with "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed", this was a magnificent return to form for the series. This is not only the final Hammer Frankenstein film but the final film directed by one of its most prolific and celebrated directors, Terence Fisher. His contributions to making Hammer the success that it was cannot be overstated. He once again displays his magic touch in this film, which many regard as Hammer's swansong (though they did make several more films over the next five years).Although it borrows elements (some quite liberally) from earlier Frankenstein films, it is nevertheless a brilliant film in its own right. Peter Cushing is once again excellent as the amoral, utterly fanatical Frankenstein. He appears frail and gaunt due to the recent death of his beloved wife Helen – the film was shot in 1972 but went unreleased for almost two years – and he complained that his wig made him resemble Helen Hayes but he is never less than convincing. As was often the case, he lead a very strong supporting cast which included Patrick Troughton, John Stratton (as the utterly vile asylum director), Charles Lloyd-Pack and Bernard Lee (who sadly has no lines). Shane Briant is very good as his "student" Simon Helder as well. (He studied law at Trinity College Dublin. As a UCD law graduate, I'll not to hold that against him!) Madeline Smith is very beguiling as the mute Sarah, though I thought that she did a much better job at acting before she spoke. David Prowse plays Frankenstein's Monster for the second time, becoming the only actor to do so in a Hammer film. On this occasion, his make-up was far more impressive and elaborate. One of my only criticisms of the film was that the Monster is described as a Neolithic man but he's clearly far, far more primitive than that. Perhaps Anthony Hinds meant Neanderthal man but even then he seems far less advanced than he should be physically.This was without a doubt the most frightening of the Hammer films that I've seen, indicating that the studio felt a greater need to appeal to audiences who favoured the more explicit American horror films of the early 1970s. The design of the Monster is particularly horrific, especially due to the fact that he is eyeless when we first meet him. Ironically though, he was the most sympathetic and downright pathetic one featured in the seven films as the brain of the quiet, kindly Professor Durendel was transferred into a rather unattractive body (which is rather graphically depicted). Durendel committed suicide upon learning that he was considered incurable, meaning that he was already severely depressed before the transfer process. Waking up in said rather unattractive body didn't exactly help his mood. I criticised "The Evil of Frankenstein" for ignoring the potential provided by the relationship with the Monster and the mute girl. On this occasion, Hinds recognised his mistakes and provided us with a surprisingly sweet and touching relationship between the Durendel Monster and Sarah, rendered mute by the trauma of being raped by her father. In contrast to "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed", the (off screen) rape is at least relevant to the plot here so I didn't have any objection to it. The destruction of the Monster is also the most graphic of the seven films. In contrast to the previous film, I adored the ending which depicts the undeterred Frankenstein announcing his intention to begin again. Brilliant stuff.

Warning the following contains plot spoilers'FatMfH' is probably my least favorite of the Hammer Frankenstein series. I believe it was also the last in the series. I'm not saying it's a bad film. In fact I did enjoy it. I just didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other Hammer Frankenstein films featuring Mr. Cushing. You really can't go wrong when you combine the acting of Peter Cushing with the direction of Terence Fisher. I believe this was the last feature film that Mr. Fisher directed and the last time that Peter Cushing played the Baron in the series. It had all the charm of a typical Hammer production with Mr. Fisher at the helm, wonderfully realistic characters, fine acting, and the sort of period colorful atmosphere Hammer excelled at. The film did drag slightly at times, fortunately Peter Cushing and the other lead Shane Briant more than made up for that. My major complaint about the film is the poor makeup on the monster. It looked very phony to me, sort of a cross between a costume store gorilla suit that was losing it's hair and a neanderthal man. The monsters bare chest and back looked too much like a Halloween costume and not realistic. To me it was only a few steps up from the look of the comical gorilla like aliens in 'Robot Monster'. In spite of that I still enjoyed the film. It was a scary enough looking creation not to ruin the fun. The story did manage to show just how cruel Mr. Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein really was beneath his gentleman like facade. For instance he stated he did not want to murder an insane genius in order to use the poor man's brain for his creature. Still he didn't mind setting up a situation where the disturbed man was bound to commit suicide. Frankenstein then took his brain with a clear, if sick, conscious. Also, Frankenstein was willing to sexually sacrifice his gentle female assistant, Angel, to the monster for the sake of his experiment. It was both chilling and sad to see the disturbed genius who had killed himself wake up with his consciousness inside the body of a hideous monster. The poor man was bemoaning his plight saying over and over 'why why why....'. He had wanted to die and instead was doomed to this life instead, thanks to the cruelness of Frankenstein. At one point he even dug up his old body and looked at it face-to-face. This reminded me of a similar and memorable scene from an earlier Hammer Frankenstein film.In conclusion this film is well worth seeing and was almost a fitting end to the Hammer Frankenstein series. Fans of Peter Cushing and Terence Fisher should not be disappointed.