L'Antre de Frankenstein

MORD39 RATING: 0 (of ****)

I was happy to think that perhaps our old dear creatures from the wonderful Universal days would return in the nineties to breathe some life into the dead horror genre. Boy, was I mistaken.

HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1997) is dumb, comical, and a travesty. It does not deserve to bear the title of its classical 1944 counterpart.

Boy, is it over!

Saw the film and thought that it was fairly interesting. It was entertaining and kept relatively close to the mythos of the various characters involved (Vampire, Werewolf and Frankenstein's monster.) The special effects were okay and the makeup was okay as well, with a minor problem I had with Franstein's creature. The makeup for actor Peter Crombie I felt didn't convey the kind of 'fear' of what the monster should have. He looked more or less like an old wino or junkie with scars; Fairly harmless looking (aside from some metallic bolts on his forehead). If they were attempting to make the monster appear benign and non lethal, then they succeeded. Also, he should have appeared a bit taller I think. He seemd to be the same height as "Fernando", the semi blind character he befriends. (How tall is Pete Crombie anyway?) other than that, it's a pretty good film with enough chills to keep you on the edge of your seat.

I was surprised to see what a low rating this 4-hour mini got. I found House of Frankenstein '97 to be a very enjoyable waste of time, especially since I had never heard of it before. It's nothing too special, but I would definitely watch it again. I agree with an earlier reviewer that it had the same tone and feel of Kindred: The Embraced. The only flaw of the movie is that it displeases it's target audience. I think they may have forgotten who their target audience was entirely. Horror fans want HORROR!! Despite the fact that monsters are running around the big city, it's not really a horror movie as much as it is a cop drama. But it's an entertaining cop drama. Pasdar is great and he should work more. I've been a fan of his since Near Dark and his short-lived television show, Profit, was nothing less than amazing. The rest of the cast was fine with no one really standing out. The make-up is another story that can be summed up in two words: Greg Cannom. He seems to have recycled some of his work for Bram Stoker's Dracula, but dammit I don't care. It's great. And that's about all I can say about House of Frankenstein '97. I enjoyed this mini-series but I don't think it will ever find an audience. Hopefully it will locate its own niche.

When this two part mini-series was first advertised, I didn't know what to expect. Most made for TV horror movies are poorly written, and have cheap special effects. While the special effects left something to be desired, the writing, and performance of the actors in this movie were very good. There were a lot of parts that I felt weren't needed, but overall, it was good enough to keep my attention. I felt that the unnecessary parts (way too much time on the frankenstein monster) could have been cut out, and it would have been a great TV movie. Cut out the unnecessary (notice I didn't say bad) parts and give it a bigger budget, and it would have been a great movie for theaters.

Overall, it was a good, solid movie, that I would watch again.

People here were a bit harsh here at IMDb (imagine!). This movie is not near as bad as some would say. I can't really get into made for TV movies, mini-series or even drama series. That being said, this was mildly entertaining. I watched the whole thing just now on Chiller's lame excuse for a horror channel and it took me 4 hours that could have been better spent. I am not saying that this is a masterpiece (I rated it a 6) but if you are like me and come here to IMDb to check out a movie before watching it - don't listen to the naysayers. It was pretty decent. The costumes were not that bad. The head vamp's rubbery ears I could get past though his wings looked like fabric instead of living tissue. Ah well, the story was good and Teri Polo may be the hottest woman alive. Frank was a bit goofy looking but I think they were trying to make him look less fantastic to aid in everyone's disbelief. This may not have been worth 4 hours but if we could get a DVD version without commercials it would definitely be worth the watch.