Simon Helder (Shane Briant) is a young doctor who idolizes Baron Frankenstein and his work. While trying to duplicate his experiments he is caught by a police sergeant (Norman Mitchell) and arrested for the crime of sorcery and body snatching. The judge (Clifford Mollison) sentences him to the asylum for the criminally insane for five years.
At the asylum Simon tries to talk to the asylum director, Adolf Klauss (John Stratton). The attendants, Hans (Christopher Cunningham) and Ernst (Philip Voss) take a fire hose to him but are interrupted by the asylum doctor, Karl Victor (Peter Cushing).
Simon finds out that Dr. Victor is really Baron Victor Frankenstein. Having survived a fire, Victor ended up in the asylum. Victor, aware of the director’s habit of raping the female inmates, blackmails the director into declaring that Frankenstein died. The Baron, now going around as Dr. Victor, has the run of the asylum and the freedom to do whatever experiments he wishes. Because of the fire, however, he is not capable of doing delicate surgery. When Victor finds out that Simon is a doctor, he decides to make him his assistant. Simon finds out that Victor is continuing his experiments to create life. This time he is using the asylums patients as his source material. Simon begins helping Victor.
The main creature used in the experiment was a homicidal inmate that resembled a Neanderthal. The creature tried to commit suicide by jumping from his cell window. His eyes were damaged, and his hands crushed. Hands from one inmate are sewed onto the creature and eyes were given to him by another. The creature is still violent and mute. Victor teaches Simon how to transfer the brain from one brilliant but insane scientist to the creature. The operations are a success; however, the giant lumbering creature hates what he has become. Then the body of the creature begins to alter the new brain making it revert to what the monster was before the brain transplant.
“Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” was released in 1974 and was directed by Terence Fisher. It is a British science fiction horror movie produced by Hammer Film Studios. This is the seventh and last Frankenstein film done by Hammer. It is also the last film that director Fisher did. Fisher directed 29 films for Hammer.
This film is a sort of sequel to the 1969 film “Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed” and has nothing to do with the 1970 film “The Horror of Frankenstein”, which was the only film that Peter Cushing was not in.
David Prowse played the Frankenstein monster in two Hammer films, this one and “The Horror of Frankenstein” 1970. The costume he wore for this film was a bulky, hairy suit that made him look a lot like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Not a great costume. I would have expected a little more from Hammer, except they aren’t very good at monster make-up. Prowse was the only actor to play a Frankenstein’s monster in more than one Hammer film.