Video Nasties: Flesh for Frankenstein

In this series I’m taking a look back at the films that, in the early 1980′s, were caught up in the Video Nasties moral panic in the UK. When video first arrived in the UK it was not covered by our censorship laws, and that, combined with the reluctance of the studios to embrace the technology, meant that many of the early releases were lurid, uncensored, horror films.

The tabloid press mounted a campaign against the films, and with a new right wing government in power and the growing influence of pro-censorship campaigner Mary Whitehouse, the Director of Public Prosecutions was instructed to draw up a list of films liable to prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act. I’ll be looking at every one of the 74 films that made this list, giving you a snapshot of the controversy around each film before watching and reviewing it.

The Ban
A period film that could be called a body – rather than bodice – ripper, it’s not a huge surprise that Flesh For Frankenstein, with its frequent dangling of sheep guts and combination of sex and blood, attracted the attention and irritation of the DPP. The cinema version had been cut by the BBFC by several minutes back in 1975, but Vipco’s VHS release of 1982 appears to have been uncut, and it went on the list in March 1984. The ban lasted outright until 1996 when First Independent submitted the film, and got away with 56 seconds of cuts. A raft of nasties were passed in the early 2000’s, which likely prompted Tartan’s submission of Flesh For Frankenstein in 2006, when the BBFC finally waived all outstanding cuts, allowing the release of an uncut special edition DVD.

The Film
Among a list of films that contains the likes of Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit on Your Grave and The Witch Who Came From the Sea ‘Fun’ is perhaps not the first word that comes to mind, but that’s exactly what Flesh For Frankenstein is. It has amateurish moments, some crappy effects, and is as camp as a row of tents, but it is so lunatic, so overblown, that it is tremendously entertaining and… oddly… almost charming in its total abandon.

The key figure in this enjoyable camp is Udo Kier, the German actor playing Baron Frankenstein. Kier’s accent is so thick as to be near impenetrable, but it’s also the source of many funny moments, and really the only voice that could ever suit this Frankenstein. You just couldn’t have Colin Clive or Kenneth Branagh turn to their assistant and say “Otto, to know death, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder”, it wouldn’t sound right. Kier, however, gives every line a fantastically overripe reading that makes the Baron, in his craving for a perfect head with a perfect ‘nasum’ for his male ‘zambie’ seem even more cacklingly insane in practice than it is in theory. While Kier’s hamtastic performance is the undoubted highlight the camp value is carried through by Arno Juerging as Otto, the Baron’s assistant / abuse sponge and by Monique Van Vooren’s scenery chomping as the Baron’s sister / wife. Unfortunately, director Paul Morrissey’s frequent collaborator Joe Dallesandro is a relatively dull hero.

While the film has its technical issues, it does largely look fantastic. The sets aren’t all that convincing, but the Baron’s lab is effectively designed as a mix of the high and low tech. What does shine through is that Morrissey is a capable director. Flesh For Frankenstein was originally shot in 3D, and I’d actually be interested to see that version, if only for the hilarious moment in which Kier gives a dying speech (a very long speech at that) while his liver hangs on the end of a lance that should appear to be thrust out of the screen at us. I don’t see 3D as anything more than a gimmick, but that’s how you use a gimmick. Overall though, Flesh For Frankenstein has real visual style, as well as a notable dedication to some (often nastily real looking gore). Where the film does fall down is in the effects it can’t just use offal for. While the scars on the ‘zambies’ look okay (though even these are not gross enough to take away from how great a naked, 20 year old, Dalia DiLazzaro looks as the female ‘zambie’) other make up effects often don’t work; a cut off head looks very plastic, and Kier can be seen holding the appliance for the Baron’s cut off and in place at the end of the film.

Thanks to being made back to back with Blood For Dracula over just eight weeks, Flesh For Frankenstein was largely written on the fly by Morrissey, who would type up pages each night before shooting the next day. Some of this chaos is evident in the film, as when Kier is clearly reading a speech from the bench in front of him as the Baron works on a body, but overall the thing hangs together remarkably well, and even manages to have a few provocative ideas running through it (what is the relationship between Kier and Van Vooren here; husband and wife, brother and sister, both?) and while it has a few dull passages that suggest a little more writing time wouldn’t have hurt – most of the stuff involving the lunkheaded, but pretty, Dallesandro – there are a lot of memorably bonkers scenes here, all topped off with a final image that is genuinely rather haunting. On the other hand it does sometimes push too far into the ridiculous, such as with the sex scene between VanVooren and Dallesandro, which has the most hilarious sound effects I’ve heard in ages. For the most part though, the mix of camp and horror is dead on, be it when the Baron orgasmically fist fucks the chest cavity of his female ‘zambie’ or Kier’s impaled soliloquy, there are things here you just don’t see in many other movies.

While there is obviously a fascist subtext to the Baron’s experiments (he wants to create a new race that only he can command, and is desperate to breed it from the perfect – ‘incidentally’ aryan looking – stock) I think it would be a mistake to take Flesh For Frankenstein all that seriously, because Kier’s performance collapses that particular house of cards pretty quickly. However, it’s a wonderful camp entertainment with style to spare, and definitely one of the better films on the DPP list.

7 / 10