Young Victor Frankenstein (Ralph Bates) is interested in anatomy and wants to go to University to study. His father, (George Belbin) refuses to pay for his son to further his education or for the equipment he needs to perform his experiments.
Victor kills his father, becomes the new Baron Frankenstein and inherits his father’s fortune. He then goes to Vienna to continue his education. At medical school Victor meets Wilhelm Kassner (Graham James). They become friends and work together on various projects. All is well until Victor gets the Dean’s daughter pregnant.
Victor beats a hasty retreat back home and brings Wilhelm with him. Victor pays the local grave robber (Dennis Price) to bring him body parts. The research continues until Wilhelm can take no more of the ugly experiments that Victor is obsessed with. When he threatens to inform the authorities, Victor kills him and uses some of his body parts for his experiment.
Victor is using these various parts to create his own human being. He then plans on bringing the patchwork human back to life. To do that he needs a brain. The brain he chooses is that of Professor Heiss (Bernard Archard). Heiss is the father of Victor’s childhood friend, Elizabeth (Veronica Carlson). Unfortunately the brain gets damaged and Victor’s creation turns out to be a giant homicidal maniac (David Prowse).
“The Horror of Frankenstein” was released in 1970 and was directed by Jimmy Sangster. It is a British science fiction horror movie produced by The Hammer Film Studios. It is the sixth Frankenstein movie done by Hammer.
The movie is considered a re-make of Hammer’s own film “The Curse of Frankenstein” 1957. Because of this, and the fact that this is the only Frankenstein film that Peter Cushing is not in, people consider this film not part of the Hammer Frankenstein series. The tone of the film and the cavalier attitude of Bates as Frankenstein gives the film the feel of being a bit of a parody of the Frankenstein legend.
In this rendition, Victor Frankenstein killed more people than the creature did. Once again, the creator is worse than the monster. If you’re looking for something a little different than the standard Frankenstein origin story this one may be what you seek. It also has enough bosoms to keep most men interested. I actually enjoyed this film even though Peter Cushing was absent. Bates did a fine job of portraying the Baron as a sociopathic homicidal megalomaniac. He’s no Peter Cushing, but he does OK here.
David Prowse, who plays the monster, also played Darth Vader in several of the Star Wars films. He also played the monster in “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” 1974. Here he’s not actually really ugly, but he is buff. He’s probably the sexiest looking Frankenstein monster I’ve ever seen.