The Revenge of Frankenstein

A Hammer film set in a European town. Baron Frankenstein had been sent to the guillotine. The execution takes place. But the man beheaded is someone else; another body was substituted for the priest and the baron escapes. He settles in a new town. He changes his name and works as a doctor. His practice serves the rich. He also works at a hospital for the poor, and that is where his material comes from. From there the film is a story about a transplant. He wants to move a brain into a sound body. The subject is willing. Karl is a hunchbacked orderly; he hates his own body and accepts the offer. The operation succeeds. Then a problem appears. The new body begins to fail after a time and Karl's behaviour changes. What the narrative is interested in is not the monster but the doctor: there is no creature at its centre, only the man who made it, and the narrative runs from his point of view. The baron is not drawn as evil. He is arrogant, cold and entirely certain of himself; but he genuinely treats his patients. The town's medical council is inside the narrative too. The local doctors are jealous and are looking into who he is. There is a young assistant as well. Hans knows the truth and stays anyway. The ending does not give the genre's usual resolution and opens the baron a way out; the series continued through that door. Peter Cushing plays the part measured. No shouting, no excess. This is the second film in Hammer's Frankenstein series and Terence Fisher directed again. Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn and Oscar Quitak are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hammer horror and Peter Cushing. Who it is not for: anyone looking for tension; the narrative is closer to medical drama than to horror and there are few shocks.