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The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
I am in two minds about this Hammer Frankenstein film. The plot is OK, but nothing groundbreaking.
Spoilers ---->
The Baron, along with his assistant, are caught experimenting with the organs of stolen bodies, and are chased out of town. So they return to the Baron's old chateau in Karlstaad, which he finds has been ransacked. The Baron is angered, and this leads to conflict with the local authorities. So they need to hide out, and are assisted by a local deaf/mute girl (and if there is a better looking deaf/mute girl in any film, I haven't seen it). They soon discover that this girl has the frozen body of the Baron's creation in her cave, and they transport this body back to the laboratory at the Baron's chateau to reanimate. However the monster is largely non-responsive when reanimated, so they enlist the help of a local carnival mesmerist. He is able to control the monster, but uses the monster to do his own bidding, including stealing gold ornaments from the local church. Naturally, the locals don't take too kindly to the monster's return...
<--- Spoilers
The sets themselves are impressive, especially the laboratory. As this film was distributed by Universal, Hammer was able to use Universal concepts re: sets and make-up. The old Universal laboratory hardware in vivid colour looks amazing. The scenery, with snow-covered alpine landscapes, were equally pleasing.
Unfortunately, the monster looks anything but amazing. Even thought the make-up was based on the Universal monster, it just does not hit the mark, and previous hammer monsters were far more impressive.
So, this film is a bit of a mixed bag. The plot is passable, and Peter Cushing is always good. However, it doesn't really "fit" into the Hammer Frankenstein series, and the creature was a poor interpretation of the Karloff original.
6/10
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