Frankenstein Unbound (1990) – Review

As one of the most oft-adapted stories in history, there’s a sense that not much more could be added to Mary Shelly’s deeply prescient story has hasn’t already been tried. Through the years, such directors as James Whale, Terence Fisher, Kenneth Branagh, Guillermo del Toro and many others have turned their distinctive eyes onto Frankenstein and tried to mold it in their own image – but while some tried to stick to the original story like glue, others drew out iconic results by streamlining the tale down to its base elements. However, no matter which filmmaker eventually tackles the book, the inevitable result is that we all know basically what’s going to happen thanks to the basic beats of the story being common knowledge, which further leads to a tougher task for future attempts to stand out from the crowd.
However, no one obviously told Roger Corman this as he attempted to circumvent the problem by adapting Brian Aldiss’ 1973 novel, Frankenstein Unbound, into one of the most bizarre takes on the story anyone had ever seen. After a career that saw him redefine micro budgets, give a generation of filmmaking royalty their start in the business and make his own, directorial mark on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, it’s totally fitting that the last movie Corman helmed proved to be completely fucking batshit.
Frankenstein Unbond? Try unhinged, baby.

The year is 2031 (See? Told you things were going to get weird) and scientist Dr. Joe Buchanan is toiling to finish work on an ultimate weapon that not only makes the enemy disappear completely, but should have zero effect on the natural environment. While a child of four could tell you that creating the ultimate weapon to end war forever is like trying to scare ants away from a picnic by pouring sugar on the ground, Buchanan is fully aware that a side effect of his invention has created sporadically opening time rifts, and yet still looks surprised when it happens to him.
However, an upside of being whisked away to 1817, Switzerland, is that the time slip was also considerate enough to zap his computer controlled talking car right along with him; and so as he happily drives along nineteenth century roads in what’s essentially K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, Buchanan tries to figure out what to do next. However, his attention is well and truly nabbed when he accidently bumps into the actual Victor Frankenstein, who not only is real, but has already created his Promethean monster who is currently engaged on a rampage that’s already killed Victor’s young brother.
But not only does Joe get caught up in the drama of Frankenstein and his abandoned creation, he also finds himself caught up in the complex relationship between Lord Byron, Percy Shelly and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Wooing the future Mary Shelly by showing her a printout of the novel she hasn’t even written yet (Doc Brown would shit in his pants), Buchanan realises that he’s found himself in the midst of the Frankenstein mythos and opts to try and aim for a happier ending. But both Victor, the Monster and time itself have other ideas…

Frankenstein Unbound is one of those movies that has you chuckling at its crapness one minute and then marvelling at how audaciously crazy it is the next, which makes it surprisingly hard to review it objectively. For a start, the budget restraints are painfully obvious (one of the sets for an icy future literally looks like it could have been used for a 70s episode of Doctor Who) and half of the cast deliver their lines like they’re blitzed out of their skulls on pain medication, or something. And yet for every instance where the film fumbles it’s rather vast scope, there’s at least two that make you want to pause the film and wonder what the Hell possessed Corman to make such a particularly crazy choice.
In fact, whenever Corman fully harnesses the power of being completely fucking bonkers, you get the very real feeling that the veteran director may be taking the piss a little. For a start, it’s exceedingly strange that he’d cast the 50 year old John Hurt to play the plucky, time-displaced scientist who goes on to bed the nineteen year old Mary Shelly by violating every law of time travel in favour of a guaranteed, iron-clad chat-up line. Even weirder yet is that he cast a very Cuban Raul Julia as Frankenstein, Bridget Fonda as Mary Shelly (a romance between her and Hurt’s character was certainly not on my 1990 bingo card), Jason Patric as Byon and, possibly most confounding of all, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence as Shelly’s future husband. However, brow furrowing casting and ropey sets are only the opening salvo of Corman’s last directorial ride as he crams so much attention-grabbing detail into a scant 85 minutes, you start to suspect he’s just here to have fun at everyone’s expense.

From odd additions such as granting Nick Brimble’s impulsive monster two thumbs on each hand and eyes that have been stitched together (utterly illogical, but a damn cool poster image), he’s also prone to ripping off a damaged arm and using it like a club while rasping random questions about the nature of creation. All this would be strange enough, but it all occurs while Joe (possibly the least careful time traveler in cinema history) happily drives around in his talking car in full view of agog, nineteenth century peasants, which also just happens to also contain printing facilities to produce a physical copy of Mary Shelley’s book and casually dole out a metric ton of temporal paradoxes. But in addition to this, we also have children from the year 2031 holding a funeral for their old bike after getting a new one, a random attack from a time displaced, mongol warrior and no less than three instances of those wibbly wobbly dream sequences Corman used to love sticking in those old Poe adaptations of his.
The smarter members of the cast lean into Corman’s excesses lest they get swept away in the chaos. Unfortunately, despite sporting quite an original look, Brimble’s Monster isn’t much more than a confused thug, but Hurt is obviously stoked to be playing the time-hopping hero, running and jumping everywhere when he isn’t flouncing round the place in his super-car. Similarly, Raul Julia is clearly enjoying playing the cad as his version of Frankenstein stubbonly refuses to take any responsibility for the damaged he’s caused as his creation racks up an enthusiastic body count, but it’s still weird that Frankenstein Unbound manages to hue so closely to Shelly’s original tale while still flinging in buckets of surreal sci-fi fuckery to muddy the waters. I mean, I don’t think in her wildest nightmares would Shelly ever think that someone would alter her ending by transporting all the main players to snowy distopian future and has the Monster defeated by a thrift store laser show.

More of a curiosity than a coherent movie, it’s nice to see Corman’s farewell, directorial effort have the same, utter disregard for normalcy that he displayed in his anything-goes-for-a-buck heyday. However, due to its rather stiched (*snort*) together nature, this particular unbounding of Frankenstein is only likely to be loved by die hard Monster fans and Corman completists.
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