Frankenstein's Daughter (1958)

Capitalizing on the 'teenage monster' craze of the late 1950's, this is one is weak even by the modest standards of the teenage schlock horror school of film. It's better than 'Teenages From Outer Space,' but that's not saying much.The eponymous monster, Frankenstein's Daughter, does not appear even vaguely female, instead looking like one of the lunch ladies from my grade school cafeteria, or perhaps the great thespian William Frawley.I suspect the producers of this film must have figured out that they had Fred Mertz Monster on their hands, because there is a really strange and tangential subplot which involves making a temporary monster out of a cute young bathing-suit clad ingénue. This time the monster make up is good (by schlock-horror standards) and there is some interesting footage of a nice-looking bathing suit clad female body with a horrible monster face.The other interesting thing in this film is the creepy, murderous and sexually predatory Dr. Frankenstein. He attempts to date rape one teenage girl, and he turns another one temporarily into a monster (see above). Oh, and the one he attempts to turn into a monster...well, he tries to put the moves on her as well.The son of the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd plays a part in this film, but damned if I can remember him. The guy who played the boyfriend of the ingénue/monster girl later showed up in a few of the Annette Funnicello/Frankie Avalon beach movies. There is also some obligatory teenage music and scenes by the swimming pool.As an adult connoisseur of schlock horror and bad movies, this film is mildly enjoyable. Whereas some of the better teenage schlock horror films can also be enjoyed for their aesthetic value as well.

In time for last Halloween (which I subsequently skipped!), I acquired scores of horror/sci-fi fare from the genre's Grade-Z heyday; this, obviously, was one of them – which I decided to get hold of in spite of Leonard Maltin's unflattering BOMB rating! Anyway, the late 1950s saw favorite Gothic/fantasy themes being brought up to date and mixed with such topical fads as juvenile delinquency (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF [1957]) or, as here and in BLOOD OF Dracula (1957), rock'n'roll music! Curiously enough, in the space of a year we had a number of films on the same theme (and they were also comparably substandard): I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957), FRANKENSTEIN - 1970 (1958) and, the last to be released, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER itself! Incidentally, there are some definite points of interest to the title under review but these do not make it a good picture. First of all, we have not one but two monsters – and they are both female and incredibly ugly (like the afore-mentioned BLOOD OF Dracula and DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL [1957], one of them – played by Sandra Knight, the future Mrs. Jack Nicholson! – is drugged into turning hideous and, frankly, it is simply a case of the makers having their cake and eating it…since these scenes basically serve to pad out the running-time and little more)! The official, titular creature is one of the most memorable of the era for all the wrong reasons: one, the fact that the make-up was devised to be applied on to a man (so what transpires has nothing at all to do with who the character, a luscious girl, had been beforehand!) but also because she is attired in a spaced-out costume (complete with robotic motions) as Michael Jackson would frequently adopt during his performing tours some 30 years later!! The last and, possibly, most entertaining thing is the trio of dabblers in the unknown (one is the heroine's elderly uncle who is not above stealing vital ingredients from the government in his search to stall the aging process, the others a direct descendant of the Frankenstein name and his condescending aide and the latter's forebears' own assistant now passing off as the old man's gardener) who spend so much time at each others' throat one wonders how they ever got anything cooking at all in the lab! Interestingly, Frankenstein has a secret workspace within where he is assembling yet another creature from dead body parts: missing only the head, he mows down the heroine's sluttish friend (who, in the very first scene, comes face to face with the one Knight herself had inadvertently become!) with his car…but no sooner has the monster been revived that it runs out of control and out of the house! Knight suspects the truth about her 'sleep-walking' activities (since she wakes up each morning with a hazy recollection of events but sporting the clothes described in the papers as having been worn by the monster) yet she never fingers the sleazeball Frank as the culprit…while her thick-headed boyfriend merely (and continually) scoffs at her nightmarish accounts! The rock'n'roll element comes into play here during a barbecue given at Knight's house (even if her uncle had just suffered a near-fatal heart attack!) and incorporates a couple of tunes sung by, of all people, Harold Lloyd Jr.(!) who, naturally, also handles the intentional comedy-relief angle throughout the film (but, as I said, the lab antics provide the real giggles here!).Also on hand are a couple of cops who have their hands full trying to cope with the many misdeeds (not to mention, egos and anxieties). The film is noted for not skimping on the gore front: we get to see a couple of severed hands, the mangled legs of the monster's last donor, and even the villain's face being ravaged by acid when the hazardous liquid thrown at the creature by the hero (whom he had somehow been keeping at bay with the lame, repeated shoving of a stretcher!) misses its mark completely…after which the monster expires, too, when clumsily setting itself on fire when coming in contact with an active Bunsen burner!P.S. Now...where to get hold of an English-friendly copy of SANTO VS. FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1972)?

Ever since Universal's classic in 1931, starring Boris Karloff, "Frankenstein" has continuously been one of the most filmed stories ever. There literally exist hundreds of versions, remakes, re- imaginings, parodies, spin-offs, sequels and variants on Mary Shelley's legendary tale and there probably will follow hundreds more. Only a small portion of these films can be considered as classic, whereas the vast majority can be considered as inferior. "Frankenstein's Daughter" is something entirely different and quite unique. This is epic trash! Up until now, I thought only Andy Warhol's "Flesh For Frankenstein" fell into this category, but now there's two. Hooray, because there can never be enough trashy/campy horror in this world. "Frankenstein's Daughter" is absurd but massively amusing rubbish from start to finish, with awkward plot twists, demented characters, gruesome (for 50's standards) make-up effects, inane dialogs and completely irrelevant but swinging poolside dance sequences. The brilliant but naive and elderly professor Morton is working on a breakthrough medicine that will prevent the further ageing of human cells. His unbalanced assistant secretly serves this still malfunctioning potion to Morton's attractive young niece Trudy, which turns her into a horribly deformed monster that terrorizes the streets at night. Now, this given alone is quite awesome already, but it's only a small part of Oliver Frank's hidden agenda. For you see, he's actually the grandson of THE baron Frankenstein and determined to further optimize the mad science family business. Oliver has the luminous idea to plant a female set of brains into the body of the creature. Why? Well, because females obey orders much better. These aren't my words, naturally, but just one of the many bonkers and politically incorrect quotes from the movie. "Frankenstein's Daughter" is quite heavy for a 1958 flick. The monstrous make-up effects are hideous but nasty and there are multiple sadistic implications, like an aggressive hit-and-run scene and various dismemberment. Donald Murphy's psychotic and mad-raving character Oliver Frank(enstein) is sheer opposite to the bone-headed and typically 50's teenagers, who like to play tennis and dance to atrocious song. Truly one of the most epic trash/camp movies ever made. Recommended to the right audiences.

This is the movie that almost killed me. Watching it many years ago, at NYC's Thalia Theatre, as part of an amazing double feature with "The Monster From Green Hell," I laughed so uproariously that I really thought I was going to rupture my spleen. It has been my favorite "bad movie" ever since, and I love it to this day, for many reasons. First of all, we have to wait a mere 20 seconds or so before we see one of the film's two impressive monsters. That first one is Trudy, who, when we first see her, is an ugly, bucktoothed, bushy-browed horror in a nightgown. Come morning, Trudy is as pretty as can be, but retains memories of the previous night. Could all this have something to do with the presence of her uncle's research assistant, Otto Frank (nee Frankenstein), in the house? What would you think? As it turns out, ol' Otto, the grandson of the original good Dr., is using Uncle Carter's lab for some projects of his own. The creature he ultimately creates looks like a wrinkled mass of toadstools, while the monster's female brain "is conditioned to a man's world; therefore takes orders where [19th century ones] didn't." (This line always brings the house down in theatres!) Fifties stalwart John Ashley provides his usual sturdy support to the befuddled Trudy, director Richard Cunha remarkably brings in his fourth awesome film of 1958 ("She Demons," "Giant From the Unknown" and "Missile to the Moon" being the others), and the Page Cavanaugh Trio performs two swinging rock 'n' roll numbers. Indeed, the song with the refrain "Shaba-labba-lop, bobba-lobba lobba-lop" (which I now know to be called "Daddy-Bird") was the one that almost killed me back at the Thalia. This really might be the most entertaining teen/horror/rock 'n' roll movie ever made, nicely presented on this crisp-looking Image DVD.