FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN. Wild reimagining of Shelley’s novel

Flesh for Frankenstein is a wild reimagining of Mary Shelley’s famous novel.

Baron Frankenstein lives in an old Serbian castle with his wife Katrin (who is also his sister) and their two children (who enjoy silence and guillotining dolls). In his laboratory, the Baron, aided by his loyal assistant Otto, conducts scientific experiments in an attempt to create a perfect race of superhumans. To do this, he stitches together a man and a woman from various body parts and brings them to life so the monsters can reproduce—thus fulfilling the Baron’s twisted vision. But the male creature shows no interest in his artificial mate, forcing Frankenstein to seek a “donor” head with a strong libido.

His choice falls on Nicholas, a lusty farmhand known for his promiscuous nature. Nicholas also catches the attention of Katrin, who feels neglected by her husband and demands the servant satisfy her sexual needs. During his visit to the castle, Nicholas discovers Frankenstein’s lab and his horrifying experiments.

Flesh for Frankenstein was one of two films (alongside Blood for Dracula, 1974) directed by Paul Morrissey and financed by Italian producer Carlo Ponti. Roman Polanski was reportedly among the originators of the film’s concept, believing the American director—associated with Andy Warhol—to be the ideal candidate to make a 3D Frankenstein film. The movie was indeed shot in 3D, with special effects by Carlo Rambaldi (who would later work on Alien (1979), Possession (1981), and Dune (1984)). The lead roles were played by Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren, and Arno Juerging. Though the film was sometimes released under the title Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, the pop-art icon was only a nominal producer. He had no real involvement in the project—his name simply helped attract more attention.

Like Blood for Dracula, Flesh for Frankenstein takes a very loose approach to its source material. Anyone familiar with Shelley’s novel will immediately notice that the plot has almost nothing in common with the book—the only shared elements are the character of Frankenstein and the idea of creating life from human corpses.

While Shelley’s scientist is motivated by personal tragedy and a desire to conquer death, Morrissey’s Frankenstein resembles a Nazi eugenicist obsessed with creating a master race. The casting of a German actor with a heavy Teutonic accent only reinforces this reading. Kier, for his part, is flawless in the role: his exaggerated, theatrical performance fits perfectly with the film’s campy tone. Frankenstein is a deranged degenerate—but his surroundings are no better. Katrin is an arrogant nymphomaniac who uses Nicholas purely for sex. Nicholas, in turn, is portrayed as a dim-witted, womanizing slacker.

Once again, as in Blood for Dracula, class themes emerge—unexpectedly so for an erotic horror film loaded with nudity and gore. The aristocratic Frankensteins are thoroughly corrupted; they are, after all, incestuous siblings who have married and had children together. On top of that, they treat their servants, Nicholas and Otto, with a barely concealed mix of disdain and superiority. Katrin and Nicholas are also shown as unable to restrain their carnal desires, a portrayal that some have interpreted as a veiled critique of the 1960s sexual revolution. That reading makes sense, considering Morrissey—despite his ties to Warhol’s famously libertine entourage—was a conservative Catholic whose films “depicted the emptiness of people living in a transitional period of culture. ” It’s refreshing that the director’s wild Frankenstein take aimed to be more than just a parade of naked bodies, severed heads, and buckets of blood.