Ah, those Universal monsters. Frankenstein’s creature … the Wolf Man … hardly the sorts that would be seen in Video Nasties. Except they were.
1974’s Flesh for Frankenstein (marketed as Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein at some points) was a wild and gory ride, identifiable today as the link between the bloody Hammer Frankenstein films and the flying intestines and head-giving of Re-Animator. Of course it was going to attract the British high sheriffs’ attention, and it did. It eventually passed with about five minutes of cuts in 2006, and then went uncut in 2016, with an 18 rating.
The other film under discussion, The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975), was the eighth Werewolf movie featuring Spanish cult favorite Paul Naschy. A sort of soft reboot, it ignored the previous seven Werewolf entries and came up with a new backstory for the franchise’s lycanthropic protagonist, Waldemar Daninsky. (It was released in America as Night of the Howling Beast.) Because it contained more gore and skin than the Waldemar flicks traditionally did, it too flirted with censorship via the British Board of Film Classification. It wasn’t cleared for theatrical release in the first place, and its “pre-cert” videotape invited prosecution. It seems that it was never re-released and so did not apply for certification. It may be one of those perpetual Nasties that retain their status more due to general indifference than to any nastiness. Makes me wonder if some of these are like Blue Laws that are still on the books but too archaic to be enforced.
Flesh for Frankenstein is my favorite rewatch so far on this tour through the Nasties. It’s a little slow, but damn is it fun. It’s a sex farce worthy of David Cronenberg, with its frequent licking and caressing of scars. It’s a great adult party film (its copious sex is softcore at best, but it caught an X rating in America). Writer/director Paul Morrissey goes for camp overstatement whenever possible. The same loony bright red blood that flows through the Hammer Frankenstein films (and Re-Animator and Frankenhooker) crests in waves in Flesh for Frankenstein. Yet there is beauty here — the movie was filmed in Italy and Serbia, and radiantly looks it. Some of the compositions, such as a dinner shot from a medium distance, rival similar ones in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
Baron von Frankenstein (Udo Kier) is obsessed with creating a male “zombie” and a female “zombie” who will mate and create a master Serbian race (with the proper “nasum”). To get the right head for his male, he decapitates a peasant worker, whose head is grafted onto a much taller body. The Baron’s assistant is Otto (Arno Juerging), who may be even sicker than the Baron is. The beheaded worker’s studly best friend (Joe Dallesandro) gets busy at a local house of ill repute, in the woods with another “nice girl,” and finally with the Baron’s wife/sister (you heard me), Katrin (Monique van Vooren).
To give you an idea of the dialogue here (which isn’t always on the unimprovable level of the Baron’s “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder“1), Katrin and the stud have a tiff during which he doubts her ignorance of his work in the lab: “Ya must know what he duz,” Dallesandro growls in his Noo Yawk accent. “Ya see ‘im every night at dinnah.” Eventually she invites him out of her bedchambers, snarling, “You filth! You farmer!”
That was the exact moment I renewed my love for this gloriously daffy film, in which Udo Kier gets funnier as the Baron gets dottier. “Make him unconscious,” he commands snappily, “but don’t kill him, or damage his head in any way.” The end sees the Baron talking well past his expected due date, gasping “I don’t regret anything. I tried my best” as his innards dangle in front of us. Dallesandro, tied up and suspended in the lab, awaits the scalpel-wielding children of the Baron and Katrin, assuring us that the aristocrats’ brute exploitation of the bodies of the working class will continue. Paul Morrissey knew what he was doing. Flesh for Frankenstein turns out to be as political as it is farcical and horny and gory.
And did I mention it was shown originally in 3D? Vinegar Syndrome has a 4K/Blu-ray package containing two different 3D versions. Even in 2D, which is the version streamed by Kanopy, you can tell which shots of spurting blood, oozing entrails, or medical bone shears were planned to dangle above or poke out at the amused audience in “SpaceVision.” If you can’t stomach even obviously cartoonish Mad Lab blood and guts, Flesh for Frankenstein won’t be your cup of gore, but anyone who dug Re-Animator has a real treat in store here. And there’s a companion film, which Morrissey shot right after this one: Blood for Dracula, with Kier as the bloodsucker in search of “where-gins.”
The Werewolf and the Yeti isn’t nearly as fun, partly because Paul Morrissey is a real filmmaker and the director here, Miguel Iglesias Bonns, just points the camera. Star Paul Naschy himself wrote the script, a basic one in which Waldemar, out tracking the Yeti, falls prey to two werewolf women. He’s bitten, and before long he’s changing via dissolves into a fangface. There are some attempts at camp with the werewolf women, but that’s over fast; it’s decidedly not Flesh for Frankenstein, though.
Or, rather, it starts out basic, but then Naschy doesn’t seem to know when to stop. The movie redefines “plotty,” piling on so many incidents and elements it forgets its own story (plot and story being two separate things), which is that there’s a Yeti and the werewolf must fight it; the story being the question of which monster will win. That was good enough for any number of Universal monster mashes. Instead we get lots of stuff involving bandits and their kingpin and his devious sorceress and a monk and I just fell asleep typing this. Seriously, the pacing is so willy-nilly and the plot is so clotted with needless ornamentation it hardly breathes. And when it does breathe, it’s boring. Trashy and boring are not my favorite combo. If they were, I’d have better things to say about Joe D’Amato. Or Death Proof.
Maybe it’s not fair to watch The Werewolf and the Yeti after a wonderful godless perverted party like Flesh for Frankenstein, but life isn’t fair and attention spans less so. Naschy and his creation Waldemar have their fans. They should live well and enjoy. I’m not tempted to seek out Naschy’s other efforts, and that’s probably a shame. But there are only so many hours ahead, and I’d rather fill them with what I enjoy. Like, say, Flesh for Frankenstein.
Flesh for Frankenstein is free on Kanopy. The Werewolf and the Yeti is free on Tubi.
- Watch it again and check out Otto’s “seems legit” nod at the end. This movie is magic. ↩︎
