As much as I enjoyed I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I figured I best give this one a go. It’s not bad, but it falls short of Werewolf in several ways. I Was a Teenage Frankenstein lacks the teen angst of its predecessor, for one thing, instead centering around the all-too-common mad scientist and the drama surrounding him. The scares inflicted on the audience by Werewolf are also largely missing from Frankenstein. But first things first…
If Professor Frankenstein is from England (this is stated multiple times in the film and he apparently has a work visa) then why the hell does he have a very obvious American accent? I mean, either give him a British accent or make him an American. Perhaps this detail shouldn’t bother me so much, but it does.
Anyway, by some miracle coincidence, I teen is in a fatal vehicular accident right outside Professor Frankenstein’s lab just as he’s cooking up a scheme to reanimate the dead. Predictably, the professor and his assistant snatch the boy’s body before the authorities arrive and begin experimenting in ways that are familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Frankenstein movie. When they’re finished, the monster comes out with a body like Charles Atlas and a face that looks like it was thrown in a blender and set on fire–one of the movie’s many oddities.
Probably the most frightening thing about the movie is the makeup/mask worn by Gary Conway as Frankenstein’s monster. It’s pretty creepy for the era, and one has to wonder how much scarier the movie could’ve been if the filmmakers had focused on him rather than the professor. The monster is gleefully violent, it seems, and filled with rage because of his appearance and lack of social life. His story, a secondary one, is exceedingly more interesting than the one we’re forced to follow. And just as we’re getting wrapped up in the monster’s tale, his horrifying face is replaced by a normal one. It’s like a song with great chorus that isn’t played long enough to satisfy the listener.
Notable Quote: “In the laboratory there is no death until I declare it so.”
Watch I Was a Teenage Frankenstein on YouTube.