Frankenstein Unbound/The Possessed--Day 6

Something tells me we’re not in New Los Angeles anymore.

Okay, let’s get some plot out of the way: the film opens with a brilliant scientist in the future who creates an atomic particle beam that, as a weapon, not only can destroy a person but completely eviscerate them with nothing remaining. But this powerful weapon (done at the research facility of the scientist and his research team in metallic-colored space-suit like apparel) costs a lot (to the point that funding could be jeopardized) and has created a stratospheric effect (slips in time!) which could doom the planet. Well, one of these “time slips” opens a hole in the sky and teleports Joseph Buchanan to 1817! He’s certainly a fish out of water. He meets in a pub a certain scientist named Dr. Frankenstein (played by Raul Julia! Now this is interesting casting!) who takes a few cracks at Joseph’s unique attire (it’s Raul Julia, so it is cracks with a certain regal authority and command, not in a mocking tone) and is curious about his “timepiece” (his digital watch which runs on electricity). So Joseph takes a direct interest in the period’s interesting people. Dr. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron are all people he can actually talk to face-to-face. A young woman accused of using witchcraft to kill William Frankenstein (yep, the Baron’s brother) is tried and convicted in a ridiculous state of affairs with no evidence other than a locket of the child’s in her possession (she woke up and it was there, put there while asleep) in a Geneva court. That is where Joseph sees Frankenstein and wife in the congregation, and Mary Shelley sitting by herself (the scorn from the moralist society because she lives with Percy unwed). Joseph is an admirer of Mary’s and tells her he likes her work (knowing that perhaps the case in this kangaroo court will inspire her most famous novel). Joseph had also hitched a ride on the carriage carrying Frankenstein home, getting off when the Baron does, following him to a meeting with a certain “beast”.

Funny, isn’t it? Buchanan “fractured the core of time and space” by creating a weapon meant to destroy in order for his country to benefit from its power without thinking of the consequences involved. The “time travel cloud” is a manifestation based on man’s unhealthy use of science. It parallels Frankenstein’s use of science to disprove a “fictitious and cruel God” (paraphrasing Victor, the Baron) by creating life that becomes an awkward, confused, murderous monster made up of the bits and pieces of others, needing to understand how human life exists and lives but is rejected by the very man that gave him existence. Science creates and harms; sure superstition and fanatical religion sentences the innocent to hang or burn at the stake, but science offers dangers as well.

Julia has a flair in his delivery, an intensity that magnifies his characters; a voice that can crumble stone and a pillaring stance made for the stage. Frankenstein is a character suited to his acting style. When he dispatches the idea of a God or soul, and is rooted in seeing his experiments succeed (when the beast kills his Elizabeth, Frankenstein insists on rebuilding her as a mate for his monster!), Victor will not allow Joseph to interfere in his plans. Julia is the kind of actor, as is John Hurt (who I loved in this movie), that is wholly convincing when in character and says the dialogue as if every word comes from whoever they portray. Frankenstein Unbound, Roger Corman’s celebrated return behind the camera as director after a considerable absence, is more science fiction to me than horror, but the beast does some serious damage to men that stand in his way or anger him (ripped off limbs, heads taking off with a single strike, a heart removed from the upper torso, a chest pulled open, and bodies hurled to and fro) and Frankenstein features strongly towards the end, but the story is certainly all about time travel and a scientist from the future trying to shape events (like stopping an unfair execution and mixing with historical figures like sleeping with Mary Shelley!) while in the past.

While many considered this a turkey, I quite liked it. I thought it was imaginative, with lots of ideas, and the vision of seeing a futurecar driving in 1817 Europe just rocked to me. Sure John Hurt’s weapons-designing scientist romancing the author of Frankenstein and exchanging conversation with Percy Kelley and Lord Byron (and Victor Frankenstein for that matter) is quite wild in theory, time travel movies do this all the time…it affords storytellers to go all out and embellish to their hearts content. Frankenstein Unbound is no different. I never felt there was a creative net; no restrictions in whatever direction Corman and company wanted to go. He even concludes with quite the laser lights show as Joseph causes a time slip from the cloud to send him, Victor, the Monster, Elizabeth’s Monster, and Victor’s laboratory into a future overcome by a wintery apocalypse. Tragic events leave only Joseph and the Monster, with the two of them converging one last time inside a mechanized building (a building whose circuitry recognizes Joseph by name and helps him), soon leveled, with explosions and neon laser light coloring the surroundings. A future-city is at a distance and Joseph knows he can never escape the mistakes he made. So lots of ideas, and maybe Corman’s failure is in cohesively presenting them. I have to say that it always felt quite episodic, with Joseph basically on a series of adventures and encounters; it was as if Corman loved the thought of some man from the future interacting with several characters so important/influential in the horror genre. I love the idea of John Hurt as the star of a film like this and he interacts as I imagine many would; perhaps his treatment of the Monster wasn’t totally humane, but it seemed like the only means to stop the killing. It does have a grand feel to it all as if Corman was going for something big. I enjoyed it even if not totally successful. Hurt as future-man and Julia as Victor Frankenstein…quite a pair, I thought.

While I have never liked Jason Patric much (he did have the right look needed for a Joel Schumacher film so his casting in The Lost Boys seemed right) and he’s as dull as ever as Lord Byron. Michael Hutchence didn’t exactly knock it out of the park (seemed fitting for October baseball playoff season) as Percy, either. Hurt has to carry them. Bridget Fonda just looks lovely, registering an okay Shelley. The supporting casting hurt the film more than the real stars who, thankfully, get the most screen time; that being Julia and Hurt. I think that hurts the film mainly because these should be fascinating characters with a compelling back-and-forth with a man from another time. If anything, this film has me now wanting to revisit Ken Russel’s Gothic.
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The Possessed may be more successful as a curio than a chiller because of the interesting casting with several names before landing roles that enhanced their careers (such as Harrison Ford, PJ Soles, Diana Scarwid (Psycho III), and Dinah Manoff(Empty Nest)). The ending just doesn’t cut the mustard considering the build to it. Joan Hackett is mainly known for parts in the excellent tale in Dan Curtis’ Dead of Night, Bobby, and the sci-fi George Segal flick, The Terminal Man; in this film, she’s done no favors as the headmistress of a Salem’s all-girls school soon to be possessed by some sort of “fire demon”. Mysterious fires are erupting all over school. A sheet of paper in a typewriter of a teacher, a student practicing her valedictorian speech, a room containing a certain student, and a biology teacher having an affair with a student all go up in flames; these fires seem to center around a specific student. James Farentino is some sort of messianic defrocked priest who has a way about him that baffles those around him. He seems to have been sent specifically to the school by a scientist, but that doesn’t turn out to be the case. He was a priest, turned alcoholic and sexually active admittedly, in a car crash, seemingly dead as paramedics attend to him. At the end, when willing to take Hackett’s possession from her, diving into the school’s pool, a fire blazing at instant, Farentino’s presence could be far more supernatural than realized. Farentino has this bizarre conversation with a sketchy Hackett (she seems to be going mad; afterward, it is confirmed as she behaves more than a little goofy, her face turning a different color, spitting out tacks and some sort of weird liquid in Farentino’s face) in a “butterfly room” where the two seem to be indicating a sexual connection, their back-and-forth equal parts awkward and compelling.

 

The beautiful Ann Dusenberry has the unfortunate name, Weezie, and her mother, Ellen (Claudette Nevins) is emotionally crumbling as the fires in her school jeopardize membership and attendance if they keep up…Weezie was the student having an illegal relationship with Harrison Ford’s biology teacher, Paul. Scarwid, Soles, Dusenberry, Manoff, and other girls are students in the school…Scarwid is the unfortunate girl whose legs light up, creating an air of unease and fear. Familiar face character actor Eugene Roche is the detective in charge of investigating the fires in the school, cynical and skeptical of any supernatural shenanigans involved. This has the look and feel of a 70s television horror flick…a bit talky and odd. Reeks of The Exorcist, without totally invoking the presence of something Satanic, but the ending plops out a couple of stupid demonic gags and Hackett delivers the expected “possessed and crazed” teacher needing help from Farentino’s heroic whatsit. This is one of the first oddballs to make the watch list this year; it probably won’t be a mainstay. Ford’s really good as a charming, charismatic teacher who perhaps has bedded many 18-year-olds, and it’s clear he had a thing with Hackett, as evident by a meeting between the two after Farentino indicates he might know of the sexual transgressions going on in secret.
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