FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN) (CARNE PER FRANKENSTEIN)
(director: Paul Morrissey/Antonio Margheriti; screenwriters: Paul Morrissey/Tonino Guerra; cinematographer: Luigi Kuveiller; editor: Jed Johnson; music: Claudio Gizzi; cast: Joe Dallesandro (Field Hand), Monique Van Vooren (Baron’s Wife), Udo Kier (The Baron), Srdjan Zelenovic (The Farmer, male monster), Dallia Di Lazzaro (Girl Zombie), Arno Juerging (Baron’s Assistant, Otto); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: X; producers: Carlo Ponti/Andrew Braunsberg/Jean-Pierre Rassam/Andy Warhol; Bryanston Pictures; 1973-Italy/France-in English)
“It succeeds only in being raunchy.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A schlock film, shot in Italy, that has Andy Warhol as co-producer, but the film bears no resemblance to his more creative trashy works. Instead it reaches out for the mindless drive-in crowd who yearn for gore and softcore porn for their date flicks, and who can in appreciation of such trash wet their pants as they enjoy the gross-out butchery in 3-D. Paul Morrissey, a Warhol fave, leaves the comforts of Warhol’s The Factory to try his hand at really directing and falls on his kisser, proving that Warhol’s films depend on characters alone and not on the director.
The plot centers around a self-absorbed, evil and demented Baron (Udo Kier), a necrophiliac with a bad German accent, who slaves away at his castle’s lab to create a new master race and thereby rule the world. The Baron uses the peasant population to get his body parts, as he assembles his male and female zombies with the help of his servant assistant Otto (Arno Juerging). Needing a male brain, he mistakenly beheads a farmer (Srdjan Zelenovic) about to enter a monastery to become a monk and the experiment goes awry because he’s not interested in having sex with the nympho female robot created (Dallia Di Lazzaro).
The snooty and brusque Baroness (Monique Van Vooren) feels neglected in this loveless marriage and makes love with the sulking local field hand (Joe Dallesandro). The Baroness happens to be the Baron’s sister. When the stud, the original target for the male brain, notices the head of his friend on the male robot, he becomes pissed.
In a film filled with many tasteless scenes, this one is memorable: The Baron cuts open the female’s rib-cage and climbs on top to screw her, afterwards waving the gall-bladder in Otto’s face he utters “To know life, you have to fuck death in the gall-bladder.”
The talentless cast and director only in spurts draw comedy from this sicko spoof scenario. It succeeds only in being raunchy; a film for those who like their Frankenstein “lewd” and “shocking.” In its campy presentation, it includes a silly bat attack, plenty of blood splatter, a cast who thrive on their bad heavy-accents and a ponderous and pointless use of the grotesque.
REVIEWED ON 1/27/2006 GRADE: C- https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/