Flesh for Frankenstein (DVD, 1998, Criterion Collection)

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Description

With Andy Warhol lending his name as "producer," longtime filmmaking associate Paul Morrissey (FLESH, TRASH, HEAT) turned in the first of two uncompromisingly idiosyncratic convention-shattering interpretations of classic horror tales starring the suitably demented Udo Kier, who was previously unknown to American audiences. Dr. Frankenstein (played straightfaced and earnestly deadpanned by Kier) pieces together male and female monsters, eventually lacking only the perfect "Serbian nasum." Frankenstein lives in false marital bliss with his detached and malcontent wife-sister and two sinister children, who perpetually peek in on the forbidden experiments of Frankenstein and the equally forbidden sexual liaisons of Mme. Frankenstein with the local peasant stud (Joe Dallesandro). When Frankenstein and his blithering assistant steal the head from a local peasant, their carefully laid plans run afoul, no thanks to the interference of the peasant's friend (madame's lover). Filmed in the famous Cinecitta by a crew of Italian master filmmakers, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN is suffused with the crumbling glamour of old Italian films, paying homage to (while simultaneously parodying) the earnest and stark visual and psychological beauty of the old horror films on which it is based. Morrissey's patent Warholian sense of ironic detachment gives FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN a modernity and beauty all its own.