“And you let him operate on you?”

Drake’s rating: TL;DR: Med school reject (re)builds his girlfriend

Drake’s review: I went into Frankenhooker with a certain set of expectations. That seems fair, considering its reputation, and I was ready for all the explosive gore and gratuitous nudity that Troma is known for to erupt from the screen.

Except Frankenhooker isn’t a Troma movie. Although the rights have since been bought by Troma, Frankenhooker was produced by director Frank Henenlotter under his Levins-Henenlotter production company, and distributed by Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, the company who brought us such cult favorites as Maniac Cop as well as the cinematic car crash known as McBain. But for some reason, having only seen part of this movie years ago, my brain had filed it under “Troma” somewhere deep in the cerebellum and that’s where it’s stayed ever since.

Until I watched it again recently, that is, and realized my mistake. But to be fair, Frankenhooker certainly seems like it would fit right into the Troma catalogue. After all, it’s filled with the aforementioned explosive gore and gratuitous nudity. Still, I have to admit that it’s also a well-directed film, with a hint of professionalism that’s often missing from Troma’s more juvenile antics.

Which is not to say that Frankenhooker is totally without antics. After all, a young woman being dismembered by a remote-controlled lawnmower is certainly a grotesque way to kick off a movie. But young Elizabeth (Patty Mullen, Doom Asylum) is more fortunate than most in her situation, as her boyfriend Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz, Robocop 3) is something of a mad scientist. Not an official one, of course, as he’s been kicked out of three medical schools, but he’s still a talented hobbyist with a laboratory in the basement of his mother’s house, and he’s determined to piece together Elizabeth no matter what.

This is made somewhat more challenging by the fact that Elizabeth is missing more than a few pieces. Sure, Jeffrey has her head, as well as a hand and a foot, but beyond that any bits of his girlfriend are either in the morgue, or just plain liquefied. So, as any true mad scientist would, Jeffrey takes it upon himself to go on the prowl and find a new body for the decapitated love of his life. Finding the sex workers willing to be measured as he looks for the perfect fit is the easy part. But Jeffrey is a perfectionist, and an indecisive one at that, and dithers at length over each and every body part.

Suffice to say, circumstances go somewhat sideways and Jeffrey is left with more body parts than he knows what to do with. Piecing some of them together results in a new body for Elizabeth but, seeing as how she’s been dead for awhile, her brain is just not quite right. Cue misunderstandings, a minor rampage and a vengeful pimp named Zorro who’s on the hunt for Jeffrey.

Ostensibly a horror-comedy, Frankenhooker is a fairly predictable movie, aping as it does the famous Mary Shelley story. Or, more accurately, aping the scads of movies based on Shelley’s story. But the horror bits are so outrageous as to be comedic themselves, and the movie leans as heavily into pure camp as it does exploitation.

From the first frame to the last, Henenlotter happily indulges in twisted humor, and even if it’s the twisted humor that only a 12-year-old boy could love, he stays consistent. Playboy models parade around in swimsuits and lingerie and bodies explode with abandon, and it’s all tied together like a lengthy joke out of Mad magazine. There’s no subtlety here, and it would kill the joke if there were.

Fortunately, the actors are in on the gag. James Lorinz provides a running narrative, mumbling along like a graduate of the Clu Gulager school of acting. His Jeffrey is likely more in love with the idea of resurrecting Elizabeth than with the young woman herself, and he stays focused on his goal no matter what strange circumstances he finds himself in. Meanwhile, Patty Mullen is a delight as Elizabeth. Given only a few minutes of movie before her untimely demise, she plays the bulk of the film as Jeffrey’s stitched-together creation, grimacing as she jerkily navigates the city streets, asking every man she sees if they want a date.

A few are receptive, even given Elizabeth’s rather macabre state of being, and needless to say there won’t be any second dates.

Frankenhooker is an exploitation flick through-and-through, made by a filmmaker who kept his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. It’s the very definition of dumb but fun, and a true example of “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore” filmmaking.

Or maybe they do and I’ve been missing out. Man, I need to watch more movies.

Intermission!

• Frank Henenlotter was also the director behind the trilogy of Basket Case movies, as well as the camp horror classic Brain Damage. In 2018, he directed Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana. In the early 1990s, Mike Diana was an underground cartoonist who became the first person to be convicted of artistic obscenity, because Florida.
• The “Glickenhaus” in Shapiro-Glickenhaus is fellow exploitation director James Glickenhaus of The Exterminator fame. Or maybe infamy.
• Makeup artist Gabriel Bartalos has done both makeup and special effects work for dozens of genre films, including the whole Leprechaun series. Yes, even Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha’ Hood. That is some professional dedication.