Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 1990. That movie is "Frankenhooker".
I'm gonna tell you, guys, I've been wanting to watch this movie for the longest time ever since I saw the trailer for it a couple of years ago. And eventually, I did find a copy of it at one of my local video stores and ending up buying it. However, for one reason or another, it just kept getting pushed back for other movies I had lined up on the schedule at the time, and I just couldn't find room for it. Well, being that this is the time of the year where I watch horror movies everyday this month, I figured that this was *finally* the time to stop holding it off and actually getting around to watching it.
Now if you don't know anything about this movie, the plot to this is essentially about some guy's girlfriend, who ends up dying through unfortunate circumstances, and he somehow, someway, ends up rebuilding her using parts of dead prostitutes and, through the power of science, ends up bringing her back to life. However, she's not exactly...herself, as I remembered from the trailer I watched way back when. And yes, that seriously is the plot to this movie, but it sold me on wanting to check this movie out, and I'm finally gonna get my chance tonight to see how it plays out.
One other thing that I should quickly mention, before I start this thing, is a quote that's on the front of the DVD. And it's from Bill Murray himself who says that if there's one movie that you should watch this year (ala 1990), it should be "Frankenhooker". Now, I don't know exactly if he was saying that in either a positive or negative way, since his comment is slightly vague, but nevertheless, it probably left some kind of impression on him to say something about it. Now granted, I know a celebrity's opinion is incredibly useless, especially when it comes to anything regarding politics, but I still felt like mentioning it just because.
So, I'm hoping for this film to be really good. But if it somehow ends up sucking, I'm gonna be a bit disappointed by it, because I've wanted to see this film for the longest time, and it would be a fucking shame if it turns out it's garbage. I'm really hoping that it isn't garbage, but there *is* that small chance that it could be. I don't know. The only way I'm gonna know for sure if this movie is good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Frankenhooker".
6 minutes later
You know, guys, it's weird. While I did remember the overall plot of the movie, I didn't remember exactly how she died. Well, now I actually do. And it's still kinda messed up. Granted, it was kind of her fault for standing in front of the lawn mower before moving, but still, it is sort of a messed up way to die.
7 minutes later
OK, I have a bit of a question here that just came to me. Why does Jefferey have photos of his dead girlfriend's eyes closed? It was weird enough to have it on the sketched body where he also had a still photo of her with her eyes closed on the head, but why does he have at least two frames of her of the exact same shot of her eyes closed? Is that just, like, a secret fetish of his of some kind? I don't know, but I find that to be really kind of odd and creepy, you know what I mean?
6 minutes later
OK, I knew he kept the head of his dead girlfriend somewhere, but what's even more messed up is the fact he's having dinner with her and pouring wine inside of her mouth, which is obviously spilling the wine from underneath her head. I think it's safe to say, even though I know Jefferey confirmed that himself, is that he's kinda messed up in the head. And that's me being nice, mind you.
15 minutes later
Guys, I have rarely used a drill before, but I've never used it to try and drill it inside my head before like that and *not* have blood come spilling out. Part of me is really curious to know if that's even feasibly possible, but at the same, I probably don't even want to know the answer to that.
2 minutes later
I just saw a guinea pig blow up. What's surprising to me is that there was no blood splatter when that happened. Now I don't know the anatomy of a guinea pig, but I'm pretty sure it's suppose to contain *some* blood. Still though, that was kinda messed up, and Jefferey's mind has definitely gone more places now that I didn't even think were actually possible. And yet, it still makes Jefferey the most interesting character in this entire movie so far. That's definitely something.
6 minutes later
Well, guys, I think this is pretty obvious, but Keenan Thompson said it best. Cocaine is *definitely* a hell of a drug, as I'm seeing now where all of the prostitutes are getting high off of Jefferey's drugs that he brought with him...for some reason. And was also kinda stupid enough to toss the bag to the girls that had their money. Still, I didn't think I'd quite get to see something like that in this movie.
2 minutes later
O...K...I never thought I'd get to say this, but out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, exploding hookers was not certainly one of them! And it's still going, too! Again, guys, cocaine is certainly a hell of a drug. Just thought I'd let you guys know.
4 minutes later
Wait, so Jefferey kept the bag of body parts in the trunk of his car. And I should mention that it's partially open, where some of the other body parts are exposed. Are you telling me that *nobody* saw this as Jefferey was driving back to Jersey? Granted, I understand it's probably really late at night, but I'm gonna tell you guys, if even one person saw that, I'm sure they would've notified the police as soon as possible. But that's just me trying to put in logic into a movie about a guy trying to revive his dead girlfriend through the power of science. So, make of that what you will.
8 minutes later
Well, guys, it took almost an hour, but we're finally getting to see Elizabeth in her new body. And in most cases, I would say that the pacing leading up to it is rather glacial, however, I'm tempted to give it a pass here, and I'll tell you why later once I get to reviewing this thing.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Frankenhooker". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...where to even start with this one? So, I mentioned that little quote from the beginning that was made by Bill Murray. About how he said that if there was one movie that you should watch in 1990, it would be this one. And I'm gonna assume he meant that in a positive way. Because if so, then he was right. This movie is definitely really interesting. I wound up rather enjoying it a lot.
Now with that said, let's get into the review here, shall we? I'm gonna start with the biggest problem that normally would be a deal breaker for me. I've noticed a recurring pattern within the past couple of weeks where I've seen certain movies that have had one certain problem to them. The problem I'm referring to is pacing. And the two movies that I'm talking about are "Spaced Invaders" and "Robert and the Toy Maker". Both movies had horrible pacing problems in which they were mostly the reason why I ended up not liking them very much. Of course, there were other problems there as well, but pacing was definitely a big issue when it came to those movies.
This movie is no different, when it comes to having a pacing issue. Because after the little prologue where Elizabeth dies due to an accident involving a lawnmower, we don't get to see Jefferey's dead girlfriend show up alive again up until about 50 minutes later, which is nearly an hour into the movie. And by that point, there's only about a half an hour of film left. And in a lot of cases, I would say that the pacing for this movie is really fucking terrible, because we were promised to see our character that's shown on the poster of the movie, and she doesn't show up until there's about 30 minutes left to go of it.
But this is one of those rare cases where I can *actually* overlook all of those pacing issues. And the reason why I can do that here is that, unlike the two movies I mentioned a moment ago, this movie actually gives you a reason to watch. It gives you a reason and a purpose to make you want to keep watching. You want to see how exactly Jefferey is going to try and revive his dead girlfriend to life through his own messed up science. I'm gonna get more into that in a second here, but just to summarize this for you guys, the pacing in this movie isn't exactly good. However, I will say that it does have a rather big payoff once the movie picks itself up and gets itself rolling. It really is one of those cases if your patience is tolerant, then you will definitely be satisfied by the time the movie is over. I'm just gonna leave it at that.
Anyway, let's get into the actual writing itself here. And if you couldn't tell by the movie's title, this movie is essentially it's own version of "Frankenstein". Only in this one, it features hookers blowing up and our main character being out of his fucking mind. I could go into depth about both of these things, but of the two, I'm mainly going to focus on Jefferey himself. He easily has the most interesting depth in this movie, because as it goes on, you begin to realize that he's not necessarily doing this out of love for his dead girlfriend, but more so just because he wants to give her a more sexier body. Now the love is certainly there, it just's more focused on the sexier parts in his mind. Which is why you see him constantly working the details on the anatomy of the sketched drawing from the beginning of the movie. I mean, he *really* goes into bits of detail on what needs to be changed and parts he needs to make it work. Which is where he later gets the idea of using a prostitute's body for that very purpose. And well, I kinda already spoiled it at the very beginning of this thing, where he uses more than just one body part of a hooker, although I'm not really sure if that counts as a spoiler, since the back of the DVD case says he uses the body parts of New York City's prostitutes in order to make a new body for Elizabeth.
So yeah, the story here, conceptually speaking, is nothing entirely new here. However, I will say that what elevates this film is the fact that it's a horror comedy. And it knows it, too. This movie's comedy is actually really funny, and you're guaranteed to get a laugh out of it. And if this thing somehow ended up being a serious flick, in a more darker setting, then it would've absolutely destroyed this movie. There's no way someone would've at looked at this and thought they could make a serious story out of it. There is just no way anyone could've pulled that off. And thankfully, the filmmakers here didn't go that route. This film is a straight-up horror comedy and it knows when to have fun with itself.
And speaking of which, let's go straight into the acting here. I would say the acting in this movie is mostly hammy with a side of wooden. Now what do I mean by this? Well, first off, I am going to say that the best actor in the movie has to go to Patty Mullen as Elizabeth. Her acting in this movie is hammy and over-the-top. Although that's mainly when she's first brought back to life. The best part of this, though, is her expressions. Her expressions are so fucking hilarious when she's trying to act like a robotic zombie, that it seriously makes her stand out as the best thing about this movie. Although considering that she is on the front cover and all, that's sort of a moot point. She is *the* reason to watch this movie. Almost every other actor is either hamming it up or sounds incredibly wooden. The most wooden actor has to go to the guy playing Zorro. His acting in this movie is so wooden, and so terrible, that he ends up being laughably bad. And the thing is, despite some questionably bad acting, I believe everyone had a blast working on this movie. So, props to the entire cast here, they made this movie worth watching for various reasons.
Special effects in this movie are fantastic. Despite this being a low budget movie, this movie has some of the best practical effects I have seen in a long time. Now granted, some of the body parts Jefferey took with him in his trunk are obviously fake-looking, but that's honestly just a minor fault. Everything else involving practical and visual effects are amazing. Especially towards the last 10 minutes of the movie. I'm not going to spoil that part in case you're curious enough to watch this movie, but I will say that there is no way in hell that I could ever describe to you guys what I saw during those last 10 minutes. It really is something that you have to experience for yourself in order to understand what I'm getting at here. Aside from that, the makeup effects and costuming on Elizabeth look great, as do most of the rest of the cast here.
Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit perfectly. Sound-mix here is fine. The music here isn't exactly all that great. I mean, most of it I can remember from it is some club music. But then again, club music sucks in general, so make of that what you will. Mind you now, the soundtrack here is far from awful, but it's not exactly the best thing about this movie either.
So, when all is said and done, guys, can I recommend "Frankenhooker"? Oh yes, guys, I can totally recommend this movie to you, guys. As long as, again, you have patience for a slow-boiled movie like this. I promise you it's still worth it, especially when the second half of the movie kicks in. It's definitely worth your time. As for myself, I really enjoyed this movie. Now, I will admit that, when it comes to B movies, this one isn't exactly at the top of my lists of B movies that are my favorite, but it's still a really entertaining film on it's own standards. And if you can somehow find this movie on DVD or Blu-ray or somewhere online, go ahead and give it a watch. If you're a B movie fan, then you're most likely going to love this thing. I'm most certainly going to add this thing to my list of movies that I watch every year around this time and it'll certainly have a good spot on my DVD shelf. Now, I'm going to continue my little marathon here and watch another horror movie. Perhaps I'll watch something like "Stitches", because that's another good horror comedy to me. So I'm gonna go and do that next as soon as I get done with this review.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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