Victor Frankenstein - Bringing Creepy Stuff to life for 200 Years!

Victor Frankenstein
2015
Paul McGuigan
Rated PG-13 - Approx. 110 Min


Taglines:
 - Meet your makers

 - Discover the origin of the monster and his creation.

Alternate Titles:Victor: The Secret History of Dr. Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Igor






"Igor, you and I shall be at the heart of a scientific enterprise that will change the world. We shall create life out of death!"
                                                                        -Victor Frankenstein                      

Once again, I find myself going to bat for a movie that was much maligned by critics and public alike, yet I found enjoyable.  Victor Frankenstein is a new take on the nearly 200 year old novel by Mary Shelley and while it's certainly not going to end up on any "Best Of" lists, I found it to be an amusing and flashy Frankenstein romp.

Daniel Radcliffe's turn as Igor was exceptional and interestingly, I found his initial appearance in the circus to be a bit of an homage to the 1910 Edison version of The Frankenstein Monster.  Whether or not it was intentional, I don't know...but it was the first thing that I thought of.

In this updated retelling of the legend, Frankenstein finds Igor working as a clown/physician at a traveling circus.  When they first meet, he does not actually have a name.  Frankenstein gives his new friend that name after rescuing him from his abusive employers.

There is a police inspector on their trail as well, due to the fact that their escape from the circus did not go exactly according to plan and some circus folk ended up dead and/or disabled.  Such is the life of a mad scientist, eh?

The pair retreat back to Frankenstein's laboratory, where the good doctor informs Igor that he is in fact, not actually a hunchback, but rather has a large cystic sack of fluid on his back that he proceeds to drain, followed by some rather unorthodox chiropractic procedure.  After all is said and done, Igor is able to stand (mostly) straight with the help of a special harness.

I should probably back up a moment.  The reason that rescues Igor from the circus is because he discovers that Igor has a brilliant mind and is quite skilled in medicine, having performed a dangerous and rapid medical procedure on a fallen trapeze artist with whom he is infatuated.

Anyway, back at the lab, Frankenstein shows Igor the Lazarus Fork.  A special device that when coupled with a solution of certain electrolytes, metals, blah-blah-pseudoscience, etc, can bring life back to dead tissue.  He gives Igor and example with a pair of (I think) simian eyes.  Igor is suitably impressed but informs the good doctor that he's screwed up the nerves which is why the eyes aren't moving in sync.  Frankenstein begins bringing various organs to Igor piecemeal, having him work one organ at a time on his latest biggest experiment:  Bringing and ape back to life.

First of all, this humunculus is one of the most disturbing little critters I have seen in my entire life.  After a night out on the town drinking, Frankenstein brings Igor back to the lab and shows him what he's been working on on this time.  Being the rash and impatient man that he is, Frankenstein immediately takes the ape to the University to show off his findings.  Things predictably go a bit sideways, but none the less, he attracts the attention of a wealthy student there who agrees to fund his further project.  Now armed with all the money he needs, Frankenstein sets off on creating a thinking, intelligent man.

To go further into the plot is to spoil the film and so I shall stop there.  I will say that it was an interesting change to see the story through Igor's eyes.

While there are certainly some flaws in the film and it runs on the longer side, I never once found myself bored.  The cinematography was beautiful and the special effects, though there was a lot of CGI was also excellent.  The Frankenstein Monster is also very cool looking and probably one of my favorite designs.






GORE 
For a Frankenstein flick, it's actually pretty light on the gore, though there are a few nasty little bits.  The aforementioned eyes.  The various organs and such.

T&A 
Nope.  PG-13 my friends.

MONSTERS
Damn straight!  Frankenstein's Monster!  Not to mention the little humunculus that rampages through the University.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I've got a serious soft spot (I seem to have a lot of those, don't I?) for the classic monsters.  I couldn't even begin to tell you how many Frankenstein movies there are in existence, let alone TV shows, cartoons, comics, video games, books, etc.  There is A LOT of Frankenstein out there.  This is certainly not going to land on the list anywhere near the Universal classics or the Hammer films, but it's a damn sight better than the lackluster '94 Frankenstein with Robert De Niro as the Monster!

The Pyramid - I Want My Mummy

The Pyramid
2014
D: Grégory Levasseur
W: Daniel Meersand, Nick Simon

S: Ashley Hinshaw, James Buckley, Denis O'Hare
Rated R - Approx 89 Min
Twentieth Century Fox/Silvatar Media

Taglines:
 - You only enter once.

 - The curse is real

Alternate Titles:
Curse of the Pyramid - Turkey
The Pyramid - Grave of Horror - West Germany
Site 146 - Working Title







" If anyone finds this... bring guns!"
                                                     -Holden


I was pretty damn excited when Universal announced that they would be creating a shared cinematic universe for their beloved classic monsters.  Reboots for all, handled by the original studio that brought them to life...what's not to love?  Okay, it got a little less exciting when they announced that instead of making a shared horror universe it was going to be a universe in which the monsters would be put into action/adventure movies.....but I digress.  I will wait until the films come out to pass judgement.  After all, I thought Dracula Untold was pretty cool!  But I'm not here to talk about Dracula.  Why am I bringing up Universal Monsters at all?  Because I love a good mummy movie. And when I first saw the previews for The Pyramid, it was just after the announcement that the first official reboot in the cinematic universe would be The Mummy,

The trailer for The Pyramid gave me hope that there was going to be a resurgence of mummy flicks coming out and this one looked like it might actually be pretty good!  It certainly looked promising.  Well, it is with a heavy heart that I must report that The Pyramid is certainly NOT the film that I was hoping for.  What's more, it's not even a mummy movie.  I will explain.

The film starts out with a film crew following around father and daughter (Holden & Nora) archaeologists who have uncovered an unprecedented three sided pyramid.  Right off the bat we can see that there is a lot of tension between Holden and Nora.  Frankly....it seems that Holden is a dick and doesn't appreciate Nora trying to use new technology to explore their find.  Or something like that.

Anyway, due to mounting tensions in Cairo, the team is told that they must evacuate the site because it has become too dangerous with the riots and whatnot.  Of course being movie archaeologists, they decide to go against what the government has told them and instead send in a multi-million dollar robot (on loan from NASA) to explore a bit of the pyramid.

Things go awry when something attacks the robot.  Instead of just cutting their losses and sucking it up (and telling NASA that they just trashed a robot who's cost could have solved a small third world countries debt) they decide to go in and grab the 'bot.  Bad idea.

Sure enough once they enter, they become disoriented and lost and then end up falling through the floor into the lower levels of the pyramid.  From here it's pretty tedious "How are we going to get out" and "This is all your fault" banter as people get injured or killed either by booby traps or nasty little feral hairless cats.  Also, if you get scratched by one, you become infected  by....uh....something,,,,,an ancient virus or something that is never really fully discussed.

So for most of the rest of the running time, it's bickering, boobytraps and cats.  It's not until about the halfway point in the film that we find out that there MAY be something bigger in there with them.  OH YEAH, MUMMY TIME!  RIGHT?!  RIGHT?!  No.  We get no mummies.  What we do get is kinda ridiculous.  I'm not usually the type of person who's a stickler for stuff making sense.  Usually my mantra is "Check your brain at the door and have a good time!"  And I still stand by that mantra.  However when the movie doesn't let you have a good time, you start to count on the big payoff at the end of the film to balance out the rest.  There have been many times that I've sat through a movie thinking "Oh jeez, just let it be over!"  and then it gets to the climax and something unexpected and awesome happens and it completely changes the movie for me.  That doesn't happen this time.

But hey, I was looking for a mummy movie and discovering that I was getting no mummies was the final nail in the sarcophagus, so to speak.  So I'm not going to spoil it for you.  Maybe you will have a better time with the film than I did if you go into it KNOWING that there are no mummies.  There's a monster.  I'll tell you that much......but it's a damn ridiculous monster

T&A
We get to see Nora in her underwear, get a little side-boob from her and get a closeup of her breasts through a thin white shirt.  That'll have to do, I suppose.

GORE
There's some nasty bits here and there, but nothing over the top.

MONSTERS
Those nasty little hairless cats are roaming around everywhere in the pyramid.  I can't for the life of me imagine what they eat.  Maybe each other?  Who knows.  We also have the "Big Baddie" that roams the chambers.  Would have been more awesome if there was a mummy.

FINAL THOUGHTS
There seems to be a new trend emerging in some films.....they want to be found footage movies but they use cameras that are far too high quality to be believable.  Also they will cut in and out of the footage without any explanation.  So one minute you're in the action looking at everything POV through the camera....the next minute there's a wide angle shot showing all the characters together.  The film quality never changes so it seems as if there's someone else shooting footage from a different vantage point.  Unless the monster has his own camera and decided to shoot some stuff and then later give it to the filmmakers......it just doesn't work.