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Frankenstein vs. The Mummy
R2 - United Kingdom - RLJ Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (29th May 2015). |
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The Film
 Taking place in modern day, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (played by Meanwhile, Dr. Frankenstein has a terrible secret. While studying in Switzerland many years ago he had experimented on tissue reanimation, and is secretly continuing the work in a closed off area. He uses the help of the weird looking school janitor Carter (played by John Pickett) to get “fresh” body parts, in order to construct a fully reanimated living creature. Bodies go missing with the Mummy requiring human sacrifices and absorbing blood and the creature being constructed by Frankenstein comes to life only to be stronger and more dangerous than the doctor could hope for. Once the two meet, it’s a fight to the… death? Special effects artist Damien Leone’s second feature film following “All Hallow’s Eve” from 2013, “Frankenstein vs. The Mummy” is a monster mash-up that has surprisingly not been done before. The Frankenstein monster has fought the Wolfman in “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman” and even Toho Japan even made the Frankenstein monster fight kaiju in “Frankenstein vs. Baragon”. After many adaptations of the Mary Shelley novel, one would think there is not much else to be done with the story. It almost seems like perfect sense to put the characters of Frankenstein (although it should be “Frankenstein’s Monster”) and The Mummy together, both being frightening revived corpses. Director Leone was first approached to do special effects for and direct “Frankenstein vs. The Mummy”, as a POV-horror film which he was reluctant to do since he was not a fan of the genre. But after negotiating if he could redo the script as a straightforward film on the same budget, it was greenlit. The main attraction to any Frankenstein or Mummy film is the make-up effects and they are actually done quite well. The Frankenstein monster looks sinister and disturbing as well as looking like an homage to Leatherface from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” at times, while the skeletal Mummy is also very well done with the skintight make-up effects. The gore is actually not as gory as one would think, but there are a couple of squeamish moments which is to be expected. With an era that CGI effects in low budget movies becoming more prominent, it was highly refreshing to see traditional visual effects and make-up effects used effectively. There were a few instances of CGI used (like fire) which looked too fake, but it only made me appreciate the make-up effects more. As for the actors, Max Ryser as Dr. Frankenstein and Ashton Leigh were quite poor in their roles. Neither really seemed believable as university professors in both age and stature, and their chemistry lacked. The sex scene especially was very PG13 for such a movie. (Did they really do it with her panties kept on?) Apparently Leone was trying to cast a middle-eastern descent actress for the part (as her character’s name also implies), but couldn’t find a good enough actress for the part. Not to say their acting was terrible, but their parts were not exactly written as Oscar-worthy dramatic dialogue in any way. As for the secondary actors, John Pickett as Carter and Boomer Tibbs as Professor Walton were quite good in their creepy roles. Pickett played the role in a snarky and sinister-humorous tone, while Tibbs looking like Peter Cushing played the professor almost like an elderly Renfield from the Frankenstein story, even though he was in the Mummy portions of the story. Two characters we would have liked to have seen more of were Robert MacNaughton (best known as the older brother Michael from “E.T.”) who was the lab assistant, and Daniel Rodas as William who only appears for 3 scenes at the beginning, middle, and end. You would think a character that bookends the film would be more prominent instead of just a reminder of “Hey, it’s that guy!” The film is mostly quite dark, and mostly quite static. Camera moves are non-existent in many scenes with very conventional cutting was used, making it a very standard boring looking movie, possibly to do away completely from the initial POV-horror the director was commissioned to do. As with many low budget horror films, most of the budget and time is directed at the make-up and gore, while the acting and the plot gets the second fiddle. The same applies here. Another point that should be made was that it overstayed its welcome by a good 20 minutes. Clocking in at almost 2 hours when the average horror film goes to 90 minutes, you would hope it builds up to an epic battle that would blow us away with the wait becoming longer and the expectations being built. Unfortunately, the movie was way too long and the climax was way too short. Note this is a Region 2 PAL DVD and requires a region 2 or region free DVD player with PAL capability for playback.
Video
Framed at 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen in the PAL video format, the picture looks good but nothing more. As mentioned, the film is pretty dark, and when bright scenes appear the colors are not as deep it could be, but that may be because of the source material.
Audio
There are two audio tracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo For a horror film, the surrounds are actually very poorly used. The scary scenes and music could have used a bit more push, and it felt like I was actually listening to the 2.0 track when in fact it was the 5.1 There are no subtitles on the disc.
Extras
Audio commentary with writer/director Damien Leone and cinematographer George Steuber The commentary is the only available extra on disc,for the film and it’s actually quite enjoyable for the most part. Leone and Steuber talk about how the film changed from POV to traditional, the comparison to the original Mary Shelley novel the casting of the actors, especially how John Pickett made the director laugh at the audition and immediately got the part. They also discuss the make-up effects and how they were done and the difficulties shooting on a low budget. Start-up Trailers for "The Haunting of Radcliffe House", "Zombieworld", "Day of the Mummy" (3:47) These play when the disc is put in and can be skipped. Most horror fans love to see behind-the-scenes materials, especially of the make-up effects. No making-of featurettes or interviews with the cast and crew. A missed opportunity.
Overall
As a movie itself “Frankenstein vs. The Mummy” was pretty bad for the most part. But within that bad movie status, it does have some good points to look at with the special effects, and with a low budget horror movie, isn’t that really all you need?
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