Violence/Gore: There’s a decapitation with a sickle resulting in a hearty spray of blood splashing against a sign, a severed head falling out of a hat box, a body in a glass case crashing to the floor, a brain transplant, a janitor being stabbed to death, a brain transplant, a shaved head circled with crude stitches, and a face seared with flaming paper just to name a few. The corpses never seem to decay though.

Sex/Nudity: Frankenstein’s rape of Anna.

Best Line: “I’m afraid that stupidity always brings out the worst in me.” (Frankenstein to a bunch of know-it-all cads)

Score:

Frankenstein is alive and well and continuing his experiments in a secret laboratory in an abandoned mansion. Now that he’s killing people himself to provide the cadavers necessary for his work, all is going fine for the Baron, until a buffoonish thief of the broad comic variety decides to ransack the abandoned mansion. What he finds is a whole lot of corpses, a nasty shock and a very angry, disguised Baron. Of course he escapes, informs the police and forces the Baron to find a new place to hold his devilish experiments.

Meanwhile, cute couple Dr. Karl Holst and Anna Spengler are making ends meet by engaging in a little illegal drug trafficking, when lo and behold, they are blackmailed by the Baron into assisting him with his experiments. (If there is a stronger anti-drug message than “Just say no, otherwise Baron Frankenstein will be able to blackmail you into assisting him,” I can’t think of it at the moment.) This deal with the devil, so to speak, leads to the total destruction of Anna and Karl’s lives, with Karl becoming a murderer and Anna, in an extreme scene for a Hammer production, being raped by the Baron.

This time around, the Baron’s plan is to retrieve one Dr. Brandt from a mental institution, cure his insanity and then extract information from him on how to freeze a brain without resulting in any freezer burn (or to the layman, permanent damage). Naturally, this plan goes awry, and the Baron has to place the brain in some scrawny dork’s body with zero scare potential but big time pathos.

As a narrative film, FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED is the equivalent of a one of those crappy EC Comics rip-offs of the ’60s, like DC’s THE WITCHING HOUR or Gold Key’s abysmal TWILIGHT ZONE or RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT. The film promises this grand outcome, but instead only comes up with two old farts fighting to the death in a flaming house. It’s enough to make you want your money back.

But that would be the case if and only if Peter Cushing didn’t deliver the horror performance of his life. While most of the writing is weak, the Baron we get this time is just flat-out evil, totally obsessed with his own goals and willing to step on anybody to get them. He’s a murderer, a blackmailer, a rapist, and a bad house guest - which in Britain, I am sure, is the worst crime of all. Cushing relishes every moment, playing the Baron with such malevolent restraint that every moment he is on the screen is one to be savored. In its way, FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED is the prime example of a star vehicle and Cushing delivers with such aplomb that the film demands, and rewards, repeat viewings.

The film marks the fourth time that director Terence Fisher and actor Peter Cushing teamed up to do a Frankenstein film (previously there was CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN), and for the Cushing part the reward is obvious. Fisher manages to make a fair show of Bert Batt’s rote script, but every time he’s devoid of his central actor, the film drags.

It’s interesting to note that the Hammer Frankenstein films are not sequels per se, but reinventions, much like Sergio Leone’s “Man With No Name” trilogy, in which Clint Eastwood’s character is never functioning in the same universe as his previous incarnation. While the Baron was a bit unsavory in CURSE, in …CREATED WOMAN he was practically a paragon of decency, albeit with a few uncouth moments.

DVD Extras: Warner’s DVD is bare bones with the film presented widescreen and the only extra being the theatrical trailer.

AH