A recurring thought that crossed my mind throughout ALL of 'The Evil of Frankenstein's runtime was 'Whats the point of all this?' and its a question that...Really doesnt get answered.
The film itself is something of a soft reboot for the franchise, taking elements from 'Curse' and 'Revenge' of Frankenstein and slamming them together to create a new narrative from which THIS film spings forth.
In this films portrayal of events, Baron Frankenstein lives in a big 'Mad Scientists' castle on a cliff face, and years ago (without Paul) created a hideous monster that fled into the hills after killing a large number of animals, and eventually was wounded, and vanished. With the police wanting the Baron for murder, he fled the country, changed his name and continued his research elsewhere, eventually picking up an assistant called Hans. The pair in this film are now returning after a period in hiding to try and restart the works.
Only, on arriving back at the castle, its revealed the place has been ransacked. with the burgermeister (chief of police) having taken around 90% of Frankensteins possessions for himself. The baron is furious, but is subdued quite quickly when a local deaf woman reveals to him that his creation is in fact in tact, and had been frozen in ice since the day he was shot.
Enlisting the help of a stage hypnotist, the Baron once again begins his experiments in the hopes of proving his theories to the world.
And thats kind of the whole movie. and one fact I learnt about this one going in, is that around the time this film was greenlit, Universal pictures finally arrived at a firm distribution and work deal with Hammer studios and part of that agreement was that Universal would no longer take legal action against Hammer if they were to use themes and ideas from the Universal monster movies.
And thats basically what this feels like, like Hammer got the greenlight to use as much of the universal monster stuff as they wanted...SO without really thinking, they just rushed a movie out the door that did EVERYTHING Universals frankenstein movies did...just because they could...whether they SHOULD have however, is a different matter entirely.
I found this thing to be quite dull. the revisionism of the first 2 frankenstein films is annoying as I personally liked the direction they were going in, the plot itself is quite uninteresting and doenst really have any kind of firm direction, the title is quite misleading, as this is argably the nicest we've seen Frankenstein in ANY of the Hammer films. the characters all have little to no motivations, and are pretty base line developed.
The act structuring is loose and uneven, the tone is inconsistent and bland. The direction and cine are 'On the level' but dont really develop much beyond the kind of stuff we've seen previously.
Everyone looks quite bored here, and the HIDEOUS design for the Frankenstein monster itself REALLY brings down the films overall quality for me honestly.
A mid range uninspiring horror score really polishes this thing off as being just...really quite a dull viewing experience. Not Hammers finest hour, it feels rushed, unfinished and incoherent at times. Not one I can personally recommend. Not one I plan to revisit anytime soon.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-evil-of-frankenstein/
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