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Features: DVD, Remastered, Widescreen
Reevaluates the horror film, infusing it with satiric with and sexuality. Morrissey's tale of the mad baron frankenstein and his perverse creative urges was heavily edited upon initial release; criterion presents the restored director's cut, fully intact after twenty years.
Editor's Note
With Andy Warhol lending his name as "producer," longtime filmmaking associate Paul Morrissey (FLESH, TRASH, HEAT) turned in the first of two uncompromisingly idiosyncratic convention-shattering interpretations of classic horror tales starring the suitably demented Udo Kier, who was previously unknown to American audiences. Dr. Frankenstein (played straightfaced and earnestly deadpanned by Kier) pieces together male and female monsters, eventually lacking only the perfect "Serbian nasum." Frankenstein lives in false marital bliss with his detached and malcontent wife-sister and two sinister children, who perpetually peek in on the forbidden experiments of Frankenstein and the equally forbidden sexual liaisons of Mme. Frankenstein with the local peasant stud (Joe Dallesandro). When Frankenstein and his blithering assistant steal the head from a local peasant, their carefully laid plans run afoul, no thanks to the interference of the peasant's friend (madame's lover). Filmed in the famous Cinecitta by a crew of Italian master filmmakers, FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN is suffused with the crumbling glamour of old Italian films, paying homage to (while simultaneously parodying) the earnest and stark visual and psychological beauty of the old horror films on which it is based. Morrissey's patent Warholian sense of ironic detachment gives FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN a modernity and beauty all its own.
Plot Summary
Difficult to look at with a truly critical eye, WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN knows it is campy and trashy, going full speed ahead regardless of any unkind words it might see up ahead. In this version of the story, Frankenstein desires to create perfect male and female specimens from body parts he has collected. If all goes well, his creations will then start a "perfect" new race. When the brain of a holy man is mistakenly placed in the head of the male creature, things don't go as the good doctor planned. The result is an abundance of nudity and gore as well as a disturbing gall bladder fetish.
| Features | Region 1 | | Keep Case | | Director's Cut | | Letterbox - 1.85 | | Widescreen - 2.35 | | Audio:
| Mono - English | | Additional Release Material:
| Audio Commentary: Paul Morrissey - Director, Udo Kier - Star, Maurice Yacowar - Film Historian | | Interactive Features:
| Scene Access | | Interactive Menus | | Text/Photo Galleries:
| Production Stills | | Publicity Photos |
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| Technical Info
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Release Information
|  | Studio: Home Vision/Public Media |
| Release Date: 12/8/1998 |
| Running Time: 95 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1974 | | Catalog ID: 1546 | | UPC: 00715515009423 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew | Joe Dallesandro | | Monique Van Vooren | | Udo Kier | | Enrico Job - Production Designer | | Carlo Ponti - Producer | | Andrew Braunsberg - Producer | | Jean Yanne - Producer | | Gianni Giovagnoni - Art Director | | Roberto Arcangeli - Special Effects | | Luigi Kuveiller - Director of Photography | | Jed Johnson - Editor | | Carlo Gizzi - Composer | | Jean-Pierre Rassam - Producer | | Tonino Guerra - Screenwriter | | Franca Silvi - Editor | | Carlo Rambaldi - Special Effects | | Anthony M. Dawson - Director | | Paul Morrissey - Director |
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