- Directed by Frank Henenlotter
- Written by Frank Henenlotter and Robert Martin
- Starring
- James Lorin
- Patti Mullen
- Louise Lasser
We open with Jeffrey Franken, New Jersey electric company employee and amateur “bio-electrical technician”, at his fiancee Elizabeth’s house for her father’s birthday party. Jeffrey has rigged up an automatic lawn mower, but when Elizabeth tries to demonstrate it, it goes haywire and chops her into little bits. (Roll opening credits.) Due to the tragedy, Jeffrey becomes antisocial and seriously amoral (we know because he says so to his mother in a wonderful speech about his mental decline: “I’m antisocial and becoming seriously amoral”). But he’s not going to let things lie, so he manages to save Elizabeth’s severed head (as well as a foot and some other bit of flesh — was it a finger?) in a freezer full of purple solution while he figures out a way to bring her back. Where to get body parts? Hell, there are hundred of hookers just across the bridge in NY who’re dying to sell their body parts! So he cooks up a batch of super-crack that, after the high, causes the user to explode and off he goes.
The greatest thing about this movie was its quirky characters. Jeffrey is a muttering, rationalizing nebbish with a mission, and he’s always insanely funny, whether he’s writing bad poetry to a severed head, or trying to find two matching breasts from a vat of them (”No… no… no, Mutt and Jeff…”). It’s Jeffrey’s animated portrayal that keeps us in our seats as the movie goes through its paces.
The other high point, for me, was the street preacher, reading from the book of Revelation amidst all the hookers. “So you’ve seen her?” “She’s in the bar.”
Only a couple of technical difficulties reveal how low-budget an effort this was. For one thing, all the severed heads (and ther are several by the end) look incredibly fake; not only are they obviously plastic (Elizabeth’s head even has a synthetic wig that refuses to get wet), but they don’t look like the people they’re supposed to be. And there’s one scene (following Jeffrey into the Huevos Grande) where the shadow of the camera is practically the only thing we can see for about five seconds.
But hey, I’m a forgiving guy. I can overlook such errors in a case such as this, where bad taste, excess, and raunchy humor carry the day. (In fact, I think Frankenhooker should be run as a doubler-bill with Dead Alive.)
Some Notable Totables
- body count: 13 (all but 2 of which were results of explosions, see below)
- breasts: 2 in the anatomical diagram at the beginning, 6 in the pictures Jeffrey uses as his models, and a whopping 28 live and on camera (although I’m pretty sure no two people would come up with the same count)
- explosions: 11
- ominous thunderstorms: 1
- dream sequences: 0
- bad poems: 1
- insane weathermen: 1
- trepanations (look it up): 2
- Japanese tourists: 3
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0 (hey, with a largely native NY cast, what were you expecting?)
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