The Final Hammer Frankenstein Film

Another experiment, another monster, another Frankenstein failure, but, by the end, Dr. Victor, once a Baron, is plotting his next successful hopeful with yet another young surgeon/scientist/protege under his questionable mentorship. This time, the final time we see Cushing in the role, he's up to his mad science in a lab hidden in a lunatic asylum. Wearing an unfortunate wig/hairpiece, Cushing, having aged and thinned quite a bit after the death of his wife, seems perfect for Frankenstein at this point...weathered, withered, still obsessive, and just as stubborn and dogged. Briant was very careful, intellectual, deliberate and precise, with no overt reactions or explosive outbursts. The lovely but plained out and pouty-lipped Smith a traumatized and cherubic mute, whose lecherous, antsy alcoholic father is the director of the asylum tried to rape her, helps Frankenstein as an assistant. Frankenstein still has access to body parts thanks to the patients, often victims under suspicious circumstances, can't perform surgery due to his burn-injured hands (held over from a previous entry for a wink of continuity), must rely on others to be his surgeon, and despite setback after setback won't call it quits. The brain from another body used for a "repaired" (this time a furry beast with a wrinkled face who leaped out a prison cell after bending apart the window bars!) body doesn't quite adjust with expected violent results. Cushing still exudes unwavering dedication and unyielding continued focus on progress...even after yet another failed attempt to bring the dead to life with his "creation" receiving a fresh genius brain that ultimately just results in a lab torn apart, glasses shattering, tables turning, vials and devices turned over, and maniacal carnage. Grisly surgery, bloody gushing neck wound, brain removal, decapitated hands, and a nasty violin wire suicide by hanging are gory highlights making this Hammer box office disappointment one of their most graphic films.

This is not bad at all. You do sort of see how the formula works, even though Cushing is so compelling always no matter where his travels take him. Sweeping up the mess, Cushing prepares his assistants for the next venture into the mysteries of life and death, how to perfect the mistakes of the past, and untangle the knots of difficulty that prevents total success. There was no reason not to think Frankenstein wasn't going through his notes, digging up graves, and studying the dos and don'ts all the way until he himself couldn't go on any longer. 4/5

I wrote very detailed user comments in July of 2008 for Terence Fisher's final film, the final Frankenstein film for Hammer, "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell" (1974):

Surgeon and Frankenstein loyalist, Simon Helder(Shane Briant)is sent to an asylum for practicing methods similar to his inspiration, having received bodies dug from a grave robber. Inside the asylum, Simon realizes that Baron Victor Frankenstein(Peter Cushing, in perhaps his finest performance as the mad scientist)is actually running things as the director(John Stratton, playing him with twitches, almost as loony as the patients under him, overcome by his vices for drink and sex)sits idly by allowing him to secretly have almost total control. You see the Baron has incriminating evidence regarding the director's rape of his daughter, a lovely mute inmate, Sarah(Madeline Smith, saying nothing for nearly the whole film yet capturing the viewer's heart just like her fellow "prisoners")who assists him in his "research." Soon Simon, replacing the Baron on the daily activities for the inmates, discovers what the Baron has been up to..continuing his experiments. Through their own suicidal decisions, Baron uses body parts from his inmates to continue his work to create a man. Using the shell of a man born with primitive features(..and animalistic homicidal tendencies), Baron needs an assistant with capable hands since his are burned and Simon is only eager to help since he is a master surgeon. When a mathematical genius, with a musical talent as well, hangs himself in his cell(..motivated perhaps by a sheet appropriately left there ruling him incurable by Baron), Frankenstein and Simon will remove his brain, transplanting it into the body of the brute(..with the attached hands of a craftsman who also offed himself). When the results appear successful, Baron and Simon are optimistic that this will finally prove once and for all that Frankenstein's ravings of reanimating life weren't sorcery, but a breakthrough in science. But, as always is the case, Baron will encounter complications..this time in how the body parts "mesh" with each other. Baron believes that perhaps if the beast mates with Sarah, he can recover from his "deteriorating" state. Simon, realizing that his mentor's inability to divorce science from a moral sense of right and wrong, will attempt to release the weighted burdens of being a monster from Frankenstein's bastard child with devastating results.

I feel that if there was one area where Hammer didn't benefit from reviving the classic Universal monster movies, it was the make-up effects work during the Frankenstein franchise. Jack Pierce's genius and Universal's financial status to deliver top-notch creatures is absent from the Hammer Frankenstein films. I think if any Frankenstein film looked the cheapest, it was this one. The primitive monster in this particular film is terrible, looks like a costume in every way which is a shame, because I thought the dialogue was clever and wonderfully dark. Cushing, perhaps understanding that this was his final time as the diabolical Frankenstein, plays him to the hilt. There's even one time where he joyously glimmers when Sarah brings the Baron kidneys. There are moments where he sinks in misery before our eyes, perhaps realizing that his dreams may never come true, when his new creation begins to falter, after showing such promise. I really enjoyed how dedicated the Baron was, watching very observantly(..and impatiently)as Simon was performing surgery. The setting, which is poetry on celluloid(..where better should a madman continue his work than an asylum?), at the asylum is perfect for such a franchise, as the Frankenstein series, to inhabit. Briant is a more reserved, clinical assistant. Like the Baron, he eyes the future of science differently than the medical(..and moral)community..but, he doesn't adhere to the methods of retrieving proper specimens as his mentor. I think the film masterfully balances the black-as-coal humor with sad empathy for the professor whose brain is stuck in such a grotesque body. I also felt that the film gains our sympathy for the "casualties" inside the asylum, while also playfully displaying their problems sometime for laughs(..such as the inmate who thinks he's God)..I felt Fisher and company achieve a proper balance without the results ever veering off too unevenly. There are some grisly moments such as a brain removal(..showing the cutting away of the professor's upper skull before seeing Simon's extraction of the brain)and the monster's attack on Sarah's father. As the final hurrah for Fisher and Cushing regarding the Hammer Frankenstein franchise, I think the ending works well enough, showing that, despite always failing, the mad doctor journeys onward with a positive outlook. Oh, and the hair helmet Cushing was stuck with might earn a few chuckles...I actually have greater respect for Cushing because it must've been extremely difficult to keep the viewer's mind away from that wig and on the character and performance.