Frankenstein (2004 made-for-TV miniseries)

FRANKENSTEIN (2004 made-for-TV miniseries)

I haven't read Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein in over two decades, so I cannot discuss how Hallmark's miniseries (which runs two hours and fifty-minutes without commercials) fares in terms of being a faithful adaptation of the book (though many reviews on IMDB praise this version's faithfulness to the source material). The tale opens with the crew of the Prometheus (a ship caught in ice) rescuing Viktor Frankenstein (who had been pursuing his bipedal creation on a dog sled) from freezing to death. Viktor tells his life story to the ship's captain, so the bulk of the story is a flashback to the events described by Frankenstein (the narrative returns to the captain and Viktor on the ship several times). The plot moves from Viktor's childhood (when his parents adopted an orphan named Elizabeth) to his time at a university where he immerses himself in absorbing all he can learn about chemistry, physics, and science in general. Viktor develops a hypothesis about how to bring the dead back to life, and he tests his ideas on a dead dog that he manages to momentarily resurrect. Not content to experiment on animals, Viktor assembles a human out of various corpse parts scavenged from the local graveyard. One stormy night, Viktor brings his creature to life. It escapes into the community and takes a coat with Viktor's journal in one pocket. The monster (which is more articulate and intelligent than in most filmed versions of this story) reads the journal and realizes that it is the creation of Viktor Frankenstein. It somehow finds its way to the Frankenstein estate in search of its creator, accidentally kills Viktor's young brother, and frames a servant girl named Justine for the killing. Viktor manages to locate and confront the creature, and it demands that Viktor create a female mate with the promise that the two monsters will exist peacefully outside of civilization if Frankenstein complies. Viktor agrees, but his friend Henry (upon learning of the dreadful experiments) convinces him not to proceed. In the presence of the monster, Viktor burns the not-yet-reanimated body of the mate. The creature vows that it will find Viktor on his wedding night. Viktor inexplicably does not tell his bride-to-be (creepily enough, his stepsister Elizabeth) about the danger they're in. The creature kills Henry, and a grief-stricken Viktor gets on with his life and marries Elizabeth. Viktor's creation does indeed track down the happy couple in their honeymoon suite and kills Elizabeth. Viktor pursues the monster (it leaves a series of cryptic notes for Viktor to find) and ends up on the dog sled from the prologue chasing the creature across an icy landscape. Viktor dies aboard the Prometheus after finishing his tale, and the ship's captain watches as the creature carries its dead maker off into the blizzard.

My main problem with this version of Frankenstein is that the story is supposed to be the events Viktor describes to the captain of the Prometheus, yet there are numerous scenes in which Viktor is not present. How did he know what the monster was up to when it was off on its own? This quibble aside, the Hallmark version of Frankenstein is quite watchable and boasts marvelous production values for a made-for-TV endeavor. Nothing jolted me out of the “reality” of the tale – I noticed no anachronisms in terms of the environments or dialogue, but then I've never been to modern day Europe and certainly have no idea what it was like during the time period in which this yarn takes place, so how would I know if something was dreadfully off-key? With a cast that includes Donald Sutherland (as the Prometheus captain), William Hurt (as Viktor's college mentor), Julie Delpy (Viktor's mother), and Luke Goss (the creature), the 2004 made-for-TV miniseries version of Frankenstein is not wanting for talent. It's not a project that warrants or demands repeat viewings, but it's worthy of a look (especially for fans of the Shelley novel).

The Curse of Frankenstein

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

A 1957 project that launched the Hammer Film series of Frankenstein movies, The Curse of Frankenstein opens and closes with scenes of a disheveled Baron Victor Frankenstein imprisoned in a cell where he implores a priest to believe his tale of bringing to life a humanoid creature cobbled together from various corpses. After the prologue, the main plot picks up with Victor as a wealthy child (he's just inherited his family's fortune) hiring a tutor (Paul) to educate him. When Victor has grown into a man, he and Paul remain friends and test their unorthodox scientific theories by bringing a dog back to life. Victor proposes that they next create and reanimate an ideal human specimen, but Paul balks. Victor pushes forward alone and assembles a creature from the parts of assorted dead bodies. Obsessed by his research, Victor spends little time with his fiance (his cousin Elizabeth) or his mistress (a servant woman who works for him). Nearly fifty minutes into the film (which runs eighty-three minutes total), Victor brings his creation to life as lightning flashes through the windows of his laboratory. The monster promptly attempts to strangle its maker to death, but Paul intervenes and saves Victor's life. The men strap the creature down, but it escapes the next day. Out in the countryside, Paul and Victor hunt the abomination with rifles. Paul shoots and kills it, but not before the creature encounters a blind man and a small child (both presumably meet horrible fates, though whatever occurs to them happens off camera). Victor and Paul bury the monster, but Victor secretly reanimates it. The mistress, meanwhile, threatens to expose Victor's secrets and research if he does not marry her. Victor traps her in the lab with the creature, thereby solving that problem. The night before Victor is to marry Elizabeth, the monster gets loose again and ventures up to the roof. Elizabeth (who has been pressing Victor for details about the nature of his research throughout the tale) explores the laboratory and deduces that someone is up on the roof. She heads up there. Paul and Victor, outside, spot the creature atop the abode. Victor races to the roof just as his creation approaches Elizabeth. Victor fires a couple of shots from a pistol and accidentally hits Elizabeth in the shoulder. Victor throws an oil lantern at the monster, which burns and falls through an angled rooftop window into the lab below, where it lands in a vat of acid. An epilogue back in Victor's cell implies that nobody believes Victor's tale (Paul and Elizabeth refuse to corroborate his story). Guards lead Victor out of his cell, and the viewer spots a guillotine through a window.

For its first fifty minutes, The Curse of Frankenstein is slow-paced by modern standards with lots of lengthy shots of characters gushing exposition through dialogue on lavish sets. Once the creature rips the bandages off its face and reveals its gruesome visage, the tale gains momentum and remains engrossing right up to the end when guards escort Victor (presumably to his execution) from his cell. Peter Cushing vanishes into the role of Baron Victor Frankenstein and gives a fine nuanced performance as the obsessed mad scientist. He chews up the scenery, particularly on the set of the way cool laboratory in which chemicals bubble in beakers and strange equipment glows and hums.

The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Films notes that The Curse of Frankenstein “devotes considerable screen time to the actual construction of the monster (an event that [Mary] Shelley's novel glosses over).” This observation keys into my main complaint about this film – the creature only shows up for the last half hour and even then has little screen time. The filmmakers (director Terence Fisher and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster) made a bold choice in crafting a project that focuses more on Victor than his creation. If you're willing to sit through a slow first fifty minutes, you'll enjoy an enthralling denouement with a horrific animated corpse lurching around.

Friday the 13th Parts 3 & 4

^{FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3}

Much more flawed than the first two films in the series but featuring a chilling second half, Friday the 13^th Part 3 opens with a five-minute prologue that recaps the end of Part 2 and then sows further confusion about just how the previous film ended by depicting Jason on the floor of his shack with the machete no longer embedded in his body. Was the “Jason jumps through the window” moment just a nightmare? Apparently, which leaves the question of what happened to Paul at the end of Part 2 (unless the bit where Ginny's loaded into an ambulance is also part of a dream).

Friday the 13^th Part 2 paints Jason as a territorial recluse who only goes after people who enter his turf. Here in Part 3, he's more proactive in terms of seeking out victims. He first goes after a general store owner named Harold and his wife, apparently drawn to their laundry that hangs outside so he can get a change of clothes. Harold's wife watches a newscast that establishes “Crystal Lake” as the name of a community, not just a camp and a lake. Harold snacks on the food in his shop and swills Jack Daniels as he sits on a toilet, continuing the Friday the 13^th tradition of painting many of the locals (like Crazy Ralph) as colorful eccentrics. Jason dispatches Harold by lodging a cleaver in his chest, then kills the missus by jabbing a knitting needle through the back of her neck. The sequence in and around Harold's store runs about eleven minutes, so once again the viewer must wait an inordinate amount of time before meeting the protagonist.

Chris Higgins (a young woman) and a small group of her friends (inexplicably including a marijuana-loving couple who look about ten years older than the others) travel via van to a place called Higgins Haven (a bit of land on which a barn and a two-story house sit near the lake). En route, they encounter a strange older fellow sleeping in the middle of the road. The young adults get out of the van and listen to the man ramble on in a manner that makes it clear he's meant to be the equivalent of “Crazy Ralph” for this film. He shows them a human eyeball, which sends them fleeing back to the van. As they drive away, the eye-toting fellow bellows “I've warned thee!”

Upon arrival at Higgins Haven, Chris goes into the house where her love interest (a guy named Rick) practically assaults her on sight, lunging forward and surprising her with a hug and a kiss. She rightly rebuffs him. Chris looks out a window and notices the barn door moving. She and Rick head outside and shortly thereafter hear a scream from the house. They rush in and find a fellow named Shelly with a small axe apparently embedded in his head, but it's not real; Shelly is the prankster of the group, and he pulls such stunts for attention. He sits up and laughs at his own cleverness, oblivious to how much the others dislike his brand of humor.

Shelly and another one of Chris's friends (Vera) go on a supply run in town, where they get on the wrong side of three bikers (two guys and a woman). The gang shows up at Higgins Haven looking for revenge (Shelly ran over their motorcycles with a car). They siphon gasoline from the van with the intent of using it to burn down the barn. Unfortunately for them, Jason lurks in the barn and picks them all off in quick succession.

Chris and Rick have a heart-to-heart discussion in which Chris reveals her backstory of having been attacked in the nearby woods by a hideous man a couple of years earlier. She's returned to Higgins Haven to conquer her fears. The Jason of Part 2 would never have left her alive, so once again the narrative of Part 3 alters the nature of the antagonist.

The male stoner goes to an outhouse at night, hears something outside, and finds his girlfriend lurking out there.

Vera sits at the end of a dock at the lake, and Shelly (clad in a wetsuit and wearing a hockey mask) grabs her leg and leaps out of the water to scare her. He holds a spear gun. Shelly heads for the barn, and shortly thereafter Jason emerges with the hockey mask hiding his face: the first time the killer sports his iconic look. Jason uses the spear gun to shoot Vera in the eye, killing her.

Two other members of the group (Andy and Debbie) have sex. Debbie then goes to take a shower. Andy walks down the hall on his hands, and Jason (apparently tired of hanging out in and around the barn) appears and slices him in half. Debbie returns to her hammock following her shower, and Jason (hiding below) thrusts a blade up through her back and out the front of her chest.

The male stoner goes to check the fuse box. Meanwhile, Shelly (with his throat slit) stumbles into the kitchen and startles the female stoner, who thinks that he's pulling another prank.

Jason throws the male stoner into the fuse box, electrocuting him.

The female stoner realizes that Shelly's throat actually has been slit, and she panics and races through the house until Jason stabs her in the belly with a hot fireplace poker.

Rick and Chris (who had been out hiking) return to the property and find popcorn burning in the kitchen. They split up and explore in search of the others. After a bit, Chris goes outside and calls for Rick, unable to see that Jason's right around the corner of the house with a hand clamped over Rick's mouth. Jason crushes Rick's head.

Chris finds blood and clothing in the bathtub and realizes something's seriously amiss. She runs outside and approaches the barn and finds a biker's corpse. Chris retreats to the house and locks the doors, but Jason hurtles Rick's corpse through a window to create his own entrance. Chris runs upstairs, hides in a closet, finds Debbie's body, and gives away her location by screaming. Chris pulls the knife out of Debbie and goes on the offensive as Jason chops down the door with an axe. Debbie stabs Jason's hand and leg, and thus the third act begins seventy-seven minutes into the film.

The remaining fifteen minutes of the story are best experienced firsthand, so track down the Blu-ray (which unfortunately does not include the commentary track one can find in the “From Crystal Lake to Manhattan” DVD box set) and enjoy Jason versus Chris in high definition. I won't spoil the final twists and turns of the plot, but I will say that it's a harrowing ride that ends with Jason seemingly dead with an axe stuck in his head on the floor of the barn.

Friday the 13^th Part 3 expands the Crystal Lake mythos but creates some paradoxes and questions. If Chris and her family have inhabited Higgins Haven for some time, why did Jason never slaughter them given that the property seems to be in his territory? Why did Jason leave Chris alive when he attacked her in the woods a couple of years earlier?

Not as focused or as chilling as the first two films in the series, Part 3 nonetheless delivers an entertaining and tense second half saturated with innovative kill scenes. It's the weakest of the first four tales in this franchise, but it's nowhere near as vile and unwatchable as, say, Part 5. A new spin on the Jason Voorhees legend, Friday the 13^th Part 3 delivers the goods that fans of quality slasher films expect. It could've been better, but it ain't bad.

FRIDAY THE 13^th: THE FINAL CHAPTER

The fourth film in the series picks up the night after the end of Part 3 as law enforcement officials and ambulances swarm Higgins Haven and cart away the deceased. Jason (still seemingly dead) heads to a morgue, where fourteen minutes into the tale he stops playing possum and kills a morgue attendant and a nurse.

The next day, a woman known as Mrs. Jarvis jogs through the woods with her daughter Trish. They return home (a house near Crystal Lake) and find Trish's younger brother Tommy playing a video game as he wears a monster mask. The Jarvis family discusses the fact that six young adults have rented the property next door.

The six renters (four guys and two girls) drive toward the property and pass a cemetery in which a prominent headstone marks the resting place of Pamela Voorhees. This is the first time fans of the series learn the first name of Jason's mother. This gravestone is also the source of some controversy among fans, for it lists Pamela's year of death as 1979. Until the release of The Final Chapter, everyone assumed that Part 1 took place in 1980 (its year of release). I stand by the 1980 continuity, for June 13 in 1979 was not a Friday. Perhaps the tombstone engraver made a mistake.

That night, Tommy and Trish greet the six renters as they arrive next door to the Jarvis place. The new neighbors include two single fellows (Jimmy and Ted) and two couples: Sara & Doug and Samantha & Paul.

The next day, the renters go on a hike and cross paths with twins (Terri and Tina). The twins go skinny-dipping with the group (aside from Sara, who heads back to the house).

Tommy and Trish have car trouble on their way home. As Tommy attempts to fix the engine, a fellow named Rob shows up and offers to help. He gets the car running, and Trish offers a ride to Rob (who claims he is hunting bear).

That night, Trish advises Rob to stick to the trails that wend all around the lake.

Next door, the renters party with the twins.

Near the midpoint, Samantha goes for a nude swim alone and climbs into a rubber raft. Jason (who can apparently hold his breath a really long time) leaps out of the water and stabs her from below.

Back at the rented house, Ted smokes a joint while Jimmy goes upstairs with one of the twins.

Paul looks for Samantha and swims out to the rubber raft, where he finds her corpse. Panicked, he heads back to the dock where Jason stabs him in the crotch.

Rob (at his campsite) hears Paul's screams and heads into the woods with a machete.

Back at the party house, Jimmy and Tina get intimate. Their bed breaks.

Ted finds and watches some old nudie films as he smokes dope.

Fifty-one minutes into the plot, a thunderstorm commences. Terri goes to leave without her sister but bumps into Jason outside. She's killed.

Mrs. Jarvis returns to her home to find that the power is out and her kids are not home. She goes outside and is presumably killed (an off-camera death).

Trish and Tommy return home and cannot locate their mother. Trish goes to search the trails outside only to locate Rob.

Jimmy goes downstairs for some post-coital wine. Jason drives the corkscrew through his hand and embeds a cleaver in his face. Jason next appears outside a second-floor window, where he pulls Tina through the glass and sends her toppling to her death.

Out in the woods, Rob explains to Trish that he's actually hunting Jason, not bear, because Jason killed his sister Sandra (see Part 2).

Sara and Doug enjoy each other in the shower while downstairs Jason kills Ted by shoving a knife through the back of his head.

Sara heads back to the bedroom while Doug remains in the shower. Jason kills Doug.

Sara returns to the bathroom, finds Doug's corpse, and runs downstairs. An axe comes through the front door and kills her.

At the Jarvis house, Tommy heads downstairs as Rob and Trish arrive. Jason disables the phone line. Rob and Trish go next door and realize Jason has been there.

The final eighteen minutes of the tale depict the efforts of Rob, Trish, and Tommy to survive as Jason stalks them. This film boasts one hell of a denouement, and I won't spoil the ending here: watch it yourself (ideally on Blu-ray) and enjoy the jolts and scares that lead up to Jason's final moments as a living breathing human being.

Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter (like Part 3 before it) begs certain questions: how has the Jarvis family existed in Jason's territory for so long without having been stalked and killed before? Why would the Jarvis family stick around after hearing news about the slaughter at Higgins Haven (presumably elsewhere on Crystal Lake) when they're aware (via a newspaper that Mrs. Jarvis has) that the killer's “body” is missing?

These flaws aside, The Final Chapter remains one of the strongest entries in the franchise and is on par with the first two films in terms of sheer entertainment value. A major step up in quality from the third film, Part 4 boasts stunning practical special effects and some truly chilling imagery. I recommend the first four Friday the 13^th tales if you're in the mood for a bloody good time this October.