Terence Fisher’s The Curse of Frankenstein, stars Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein. It was the first Hammer horror film in color, and the first of their Frankenstein series. The movie is very loosely based on the novel Frankenstein: or, Prometheus Unbound by Mary Shelley. This time around, we meet Victor at a very young age; he is still a teenager when he becomes the heir to the Frankenstein fortune. Victor wants to finish his studies and hires Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) to tutor him.
Buy The Curse of Frankenstein 4K UHDVictor studies with Paul for two years before becoming his intellectual equal and they start to conduct experiments together. One of their first projects is trying to bring a dead puppy back to life – a project that goes rather well. Unfortunately, while Paul believes they should keep their research focused on small animals and publish their results, Victor wants to create a perfect human specimen out of various parts taken from the local dead and bought covertly at the charnel house.
Meanwhile, Victor’s young cousin, Elizabeth (Hazel Court), has grown up and moves into the mansion where some time will pass before they are intended to be married. Up until this point, Paul was a willing participant in Victor’s project, but with Elizabeth in the house, he feels he can no longer be involved, and he starts to do his best to put an end to Victor’s endeavors.
Victor, in the meantime, is doing his level best to create one of the first grotesque body horror films up to that time (1957). There are dead bodies galore, eyeballs ripped out of skulls, and plenty of brains thrown around. Victor’s experiments work, and despite Paul’s protestations, Victor creates a stumbling, oozing, “man.”
It was imperative to the filmmakers that their monster was different from every monster that had come before. This is how they ended up with a completely unrecognizable Christopher Lee as the monster. There are none of the herky-jerk movements, the moaning, and no bolts sticking out from the sides of his head. Instead, he is more mummy-like, wrapped from head to toe in gauze, with great big scars across his forehead where it looks like his brain has been shoved in, and his face looks stapled on and slack. He is an excellent, surprising-looking monster.
Bonus Features:
With three aspect ratios to choose from, more than twelve entertaining and informative featurettes, and four sets of commentaries conducted by nine experts in the field, the bonus features are spectacular.
Disc One (4K UHD)
- 1.66:1 UK Theatrical aspect ratio version (with 2025 commentary featuring Kim Newman, Barry Forshaw, and Stephen Jones)
- 1.37:1 Open Matte aspect ratio version (with 2012 commentary featuring Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby)
- “Beside the Seaside”
- “Reviving The Curse of Frankenstein”
- “Alternate Eyeball Scene
- “UK Trailer”
- “UK Censor Card”
Disc Two (4K UHD)
- 1.85 US Theatrical aspect ratio version (with commentary featuring Heidi Honeycutt and Toby Roan and 2020 commentary by Dr. Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr)
- “Recreating the Creature”
- “A Fitting Vocation”
- “Topped and Tailed”
- “Good or Tuesday?”
- “Painting with Fine Brushes”
- “A Gothic History of Frankenstein”
- “Image Gallery”
Disc Three (Blu-ray)
- “Frankenstein Reborn”
- “Life with Sir”
- “The Resurrection Men”
- “Hideous Progeny”
- “Torrents of Light”
- “Diabolus in Musica”
- “8mm Home Movie Abridgement”
