LADY FRANKENSTEIN *** Italy 1971 Dir: Mel Welles & Aureliano Luppi. 99 mins
When Dr. Frankenstein (Joseph Cotten) is killed by a monster he created, his daughter Tania (Rosalba Neri) and his lab assistant Marshall (Paul Muller) try to continue his experiments. The two fall in love and attempt to transplant Marshall’s brain into the muscular body of a slow servant Stephen, in order to prolong the aging Marshall’s life. Meanwhile, the first monster (Paul Whiteman) seeks revenge on the grave robbers who sold the body parts used in its creation to Dr. Frankenstein. Soon it comes after Marshall and the Doctor’s daughter as they try to ensure the cursed experiments continue.
“Lady Frankenstein” is a surprisingly decent Italian Gothic horror entry. One of the better features is the good action involved here as the film picks up considerably once the creature gets loose and terrorizes the countryside. This knocks off a lot of victims in its rampage and these scenes have a lot of really great moments, really enhancing the cheesiness of the setup with the make-up for the creature which is in no way anything remotely scary. The charm of this make-up work during this kind of action is really impacted by some over-the-top moments that are quite fun with the glorious Gothic atmosphere featured throughout here. This all provides the film with a lot to like, which are enough to hold it up over the few flaws even though they’re huge. The biggest one is easily the dragging pace that takes forever to get to the creatures escape as most of it is about her desire to help as well as the lamest police investigation possible into the romantic subplot between those that are left which makes the few kills interspersed alongside that much more interesting due to the inactivity surrounding them from the films lame pace. The cheesiness is another big factor to get over, and the film’s lack of variety in kills is also big with only a few that are different beyond just the same two or three kills over and over again and it really detracts that it just does the same thing over and over. These here are what really drags the film down.
Review by Don Anelli
LADY FRANKENSTEIN is available on Amazon