Terror of Frankenstein
| Terror of Frankenstein | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Calvin Floyd |
| Screenplay by | Calvin Floyd Yvonne Floyd |
| Based on | Frankenstein by Mary Shelley |
| Produced by | Calvin Floyd |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Tony Forsberg John Wilcox |
| Edited by | Susanne Linnman |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 92 minutes |
| Language | English |
Terror of Frankenstein is a 1977 horror drama directed by Calvin Floyd, based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Starring Leon Vitali, Per Oscarsson, Stacy Dorning, Nicholas Clay, and Mathias Henrikson, the film tells the story of young scientist Victor Frankenstein and his quest to create life.
The film’s footage was reused in a 2016 comedy called Director’s Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein, directed by Tim Kirk and produced by Rodney Ascher. The film is a spoof of film commentaries, starring the voices of Clu Gulager and Zack Norman as heavily fictionalized versions of the filmmakers of Terror of Frankenstein, with Vitali also appearing as himself.
Plot
[edit]Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed with the application of alchemic principles to modern science. He leaves for university in Geneva and conducts an experiment to create life from dead matter, privately assembling a monster from bodies acquired from a morgue. When the Monster wakes, Frankenstein is horrfied by it and suffers a mental breakdown. His friend Henry Clerval visits an addled Frankenstein, who comes to believe that he had imagined the entire event.
Frankenstein's Monster wanders, abandoned, mute and childlike, in search of food and shelter. He learns to speak and read by observing a family. When he tries to enter their house, they mistake him for a burglar and become hostile. He burns down their house after they flee. His curiosity leads him back to the laboratory in which he was created. Feeling rejected by his creator, the Monster vows revenge against Frankenstein.
Back at his family home in Switzerland, Frankenstein begins to recover and spends time with Elizabeth, his fiancee and adoptive sister, and his younger brother William. The Monster stalks and murders William. Frankenstein meets with the Monster, who confesses to killing William. Threatening the Frankenstein family, the Monster demands that Frankenstein revives the experiment to give him a mate. Frankenstein goes to Scotland and begins to build the female in a makeshift laboratory, but fears that together his creations could breed a race of murderers and destroy humanity. He destroys the female; in retaliation, the Monster kills Clerval.
Frankenstein returns to Elizabeth to be married, unknowingly pursued by the Monster who kills Elizabeth. Frankenstein leaves his home forever and vows to kill his creation. Frankenstein pursues and fights the creature over the following years until he finds the ship of Captain Walton, which has become trapped in the ice on an expedition to the North Pole. After Frankenstein tells his story to Walton, the Monster confronts him one last time. Frankenstein has a fatal heart attack and the Monster, unsatisfied with his revenge, wanders into the cold to die.
Cast
[edit]- Leon Vitali as Victor Frankenstein
- Per Oscarsson as The Monster
- Stacy Dorning as Elizabeth
- Nicholas Clay as Henry Clerval
- Jan Ohlsson as William
- Olof Bergström as Victor's father
- Mathias Henrikson as Capt. Walton