Professor Frankenstein (Andres Soler) has been sentenced to prison for life for crimes against humanity. In prison he makes friends with another inmate, Jaime Rojas (Joaquin Cordero). Jaime is a murderer, however, due to insufficient evidence; he was only convicted of assault. Jaime is scheduled to be released. He tells the Professor that he is innocent and wants to clear his name. In reality he wants to take revenge on everyone he believes hurt him. He also tells the Professor that he is willing, once he is out, to break the Professor out of prison so he can continue his work, creating a combination human and mechanical life.
Once he is released, Jaime finds out that the world has moved on without him. His girlfriend, Estella (Rosa de Castilla) has gotten herself a new boyfriend, Victor (Jose Loza). Along with Judge Davalos (Antonio Raxel), who sentenced him, Inspector Santos (Armando Calvo), who arrested him, as well as Gaston (David Reynoso), the cohort that abandoned him when he was caught, Jaime’s list of people to take vengeance on is getting long.
Jaime breaks Frankenstein out of prison and they head for the mad scientist’s secret laboratory where they meet up with his assistant, Eric (Carlos Ancira). Eric’s face is deformed and scarred. Once Frankenstein’s experiments are completed, Eric hopes to be given a new face. In order to complete his experiments, Frankenstein needs blood. Jaime begins killing people and draining them of blood for the professor. He tells Eric that he will help him get a new face if he helps in acquiring the blood. People begin to think there is a vampire on the loose.
Eventually, Frankenstein perfects his creature. He uses Jaime’s face as a model for it. He calls him Orlak. Orlak is controlled by a short-wave radio that sends signals to his mechanical brain. Jaime begins using the creature to get revenge on the people he believes have wronged him, including seducing Judge Davalos’ daughter, Elvira (Irma Dorantes) so she can give him an alibi for his crimes.
“Orlak-The Hell of Frankenstein” AKA “Orlak, el infierno de Frankenstein” AKA “The Hell of Frankenstein” was released in 1960 and was directed by Rafael Baledon. It is a Mexican science fiction horror film.
Joaquin Cordero has a duo role in the film. He plays both Jaime Rojas and Orlak, the monster. As Orlak, Cordero doesn’t look like either a robot or a traditional monster but like a human whose movements are stiff and whose expression is blank. Towards the end of the film, whenever Orlak is not being directed, he begins to appear to have more human emotions.
The film was a bit long and the plot a little involved, but it ended up being interesting and entertaining. As with many Mexican films it takes the Frankenstein premise and adds some fun and bizarre twists, one of the highlights being a face melting scene near the end of the film.
The film is cut into four parts. The reason for this has nothing to do with the film itself but with Mexican cinema at that time. Feature length films were controlled by the STPC (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Producción Cinematográfica) which had different rules than the STIC (Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Industria Cinematográficaequired). The STPC did full feature films and the STIC was responsible for newsreels, documentaries and short films. To get around the stringent requirements, filmmakers produced interlinking short films that looked like episodes but were actually part of a whole film. That way they could bypass strict union regulations and pay actors less.