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The gut-busting and side-splitting laughs found in Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker, his 1990 parody of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, are only one part of the film’s many exploitative charms. There’s an abundance of blood, boobs, and bad acting to boot. No, Frankenhooker isn’t a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but for those rabid gorehounds out there and cult connoisseurs (like myself), the man who made Brain Damage and the Basket Case trilogy is – in the messy arena of cult classics - a close second to none other than Stanley Kubrick.
Eccentric inventor and medical school drop-out Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) just killed his girlfriend. It was a proper accident, of course, but there she is – poor Elizabeth (Patty Mullen in a fat suit) - raining down upon her father’s birthday guests after being brutally dismembered by Jeffrey’s new invention: a remote-controlled lawnmower. It was a gift for his future father-in-law, but now it is just a multi-bladed murderer.
The accident sends Jeffrey into a tailspin. He becomes obsessed with the idea of putting his fiancée back together again. He drills holes in his head to help come up with the perfect plan for her re-design; it’s a plan that involves a number of crack-starved hookers belonging to a pimp named Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez) and lots of laughs…but he does it. And, of course - because she is literally sewn together from scores of raunchy New York prostitutes – she has to walk the streets looking for her next fix; her next trick.
Poor Jeffrey.
It’s simply too hard to criticize a film that remains this consistently fun. Sure, the film might believe it is wittier than it actually is, but that doesn't stop the absolute joy in this unpolished jewel of junky exploitation from shining through. Lorinz is a hoot of absentminded dementia characterization as he struts about and overacts and delivers some relentlessly funny off-the-cuff comments about drugs, his dead-alive again fiancée, and New York in general. Mullen is the real star, though. Her take as Frankenhooker is funny, inventive, and sexy. The real shocker is that Mullen, as the monster, delivers some genuinely funny moments of banter and mimicry that begs for more attention than she’s ever really garnered.
With Frankenhooker, Henenlotter answers the film’s simple premise with the promise of something poised to be memorable. He delivers time and time again with a film that includes a Morton Downey, Jr rip and a zombiefied weatherman (John Zacherle). Yes sir, Frankenhooker is where “Trash TV” meets its match. Black comedy horror can’t possibly get much better than a pieced-together prostitute mouthing dialogue from all the banks of a bruised memory as she searches for the drugs and the men to keep her fuses lit.
If a little hilarious x-rated zombie action is your idea of a good time on a Friday night, then Frankenhooker is your date.
MPAA Rating: R.
