The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1973)

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is the 1973 Spanish cut. It features less flesh than the alternative 'The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein', but features inserts of Franco favourite (and future wife) Lina Romay as a gypsy girl.To cast Romay and then almost completely obscure her with over-darkened day-for-night filming is an interesting directorial choice. It's equally 'brave' to show close-ups of the Frankenstein Monster's eyes, which brazenly exposes the limitations of the 'head piece' and the lack of effort made to marry it up with actor Fernando Bilbao's face. Forget the lumbering gait of traditional Monsters – this one moves quickly, leaping and snarling as he does so.My favourite scenes involve white-cowled figures passing ghost-like through a misty woodland. These people appear to be followers of Cagliostro (Howard Vernon), who now controls not only Frankenstein's Monster, but also Melisa (Anne Libert), a blind, shrieking vampiric bird woman with plumes of green feathers adorning various portions of her body. Vernon and Libert are probably the best and least restrained actors here, providing an arch and perverse double-act that could only thrive in a Franco film. Cagliostro plans to create a female creature in order to procreate with the original Monster to create a super race. Ah yes. That old chestnut.Dennis Price, whose cultured, recognisable voice is bizarrely dubbed by some inferior actor, gives a scattered performance here as Doctor Frankenstein – that is, a performance that is scattered throughout the film in brief scenes where he is forever on the edge of death (and then beyond, M. Valdemar style) without ever having the good grace to actually expire before much of the film is done (in a scene that can most kindly be described as 'unlikely').The film's reluctance to pursue any level of coherent storyline makes a lot of it fairly ponderous viewing, and yet I rather enjoyed this. Like Frankenstein himself, Franco has stitched together bits and pieces haphazardly to form a whole. It won't sway anyone uncertain about Jess Franco's talents as a film-maker, but it reaches levels of pleasingly frightening weirdness.

Doctor Frankenstein (Dennis Price) creates a man (Fernando Bilbao), but before he can fully enjoy his creation, Melisa (Anne Libert), a blind vampire with wolfman hands, steals him and takes him to her master Cagliostro (Howard Vernon) so he can use him to collect beautiful virgins. Not exactly the Frankenstein story we are familiar with, but one from the mind of Jesus Franco.Vera Frankenstein (Beatriz Savón) is on the hunt to find her father's creature and continue his work. Unfortunately, she falls into the clutches of Caliostro and must help him in his quest to create the most beautiful woman in the world. I don't know why he wants to create a woman when Lina Romay is close at hand, and she would certainly qualify on her own.The film was a great disappointment as it was basically a story of an evil genius, a strange vampire that served him and Frankenstein's creature. The creature didn't rape any beautiful virgins. In fact, there was nothing in the film that would get it more than a PG-13 rating - and that was all from the blood drawn by the vampire.

Cagliostro (Howard Vernon) and his bird woman creation, Melissa (Anne Libert) work tirelessly to create a female mate for the silver skinned creature created by Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price).A wild ride deep into Jess Franco terrain. This is an unhinged, no-budget attempt to redo the Universal horror motifs in the style of Italian Erotic Comics. It works, at least in the nude/uncovered version, simply because Franco and his cast immediately go way over the top and stay there: ratty set design, the silver skinned monster who looks like the confused survivor of a spray painting attack, the nude whipping scene, the mysterious sect led by the perverse, totalitarian Cagliostro, Melissa-the flesh eating human vulture who predicts pleasure and death, are typical "Jess Franco" elements, but this time he stages them with such Sadean glee that those who "get it" will be utterly transfixed while those who hate will cite it as another file in the case against the director. It's a long way from James Whale...The version made for Spain contains additional scenes featuring Lina Romay as a gypsy and omits all of the outrageous nudity which is so essential to Franco's aesthetic (or anti-aesthetic). The score is an iconoclastic collection of sonic blasts, jarring cues and odd sounds.

This picture is utterly weird. Between unbelievably dull scenes (filmed without any inspiration) we find some of the most extraordinary scene's ever. It uses characters and idea's that were known at that time (and are therefore not introduced), but since comics like Crepax' Valentina are sinking to obscurity, girls who are actually birds and a monster of Frankenstein who whips a couple while they are standing above a field of sharp pins aren't daily routine. I was lucky to find a copy on VHS, so it exists!