Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Frankenstein's Daughter Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 26, 2021

There's obviously something to watching a cheesy horror movie for the first time when you were a young child that has an indelible effect on your psyche, but which arguably may cloud judgment a little about the actual worth of whatever cheesy horror film you watched. Commentator Tom Weaver freely admits this in the opening moments of another generally hugely entertaining analysis included on this disc as a supplement (even though the disc kind of oddly lists the commentary as being by Jason A. Ney). Weaver evidently stumbled on Frankenstein's Daughter when he was quite young, as he had with another Richard Cunha directed outing, Giant from the Unknown, which was released on Blu-ray by Film Detective some months ago, also with a Weaver commentary. A number of "guest stars" on Weaver's commentary (as he is wont to do) also discuss having first seen Frankenstein's Daughter when they were young, and how deeply affected by the film they were (and evidently continue to be). Now all of this effusive accolade bestowing may lead some to start thinking that Frankenstein's Daughter is some kind of undiscovered masterpiece, which in my decidedly not young view it is not, though it does have a number of rather interesting elements which give it a fun and occasionally kind of goofy ambience. First of all, the film offers not one, but two, horribly disfigured monsters, including one ostensible female who is obviously being played by a male (Weaver points out his/her hairy legs at one point). The film also is interesting in that it's set in a late fifties American suburb that is more Leave It to Beaver than Mary Shelley.

Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) is this film's "mad doctor", and kind of hilariously his surname seems to allude to the history of many immigrant families who may have "Americanized" their monikers. I'll let you guess who he turns out to be related to, but suffice it to say there may be a genetic impulse behind Frank's desire to do things like transplant brains into corpses and try to reanimate them. He also has a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde like elixir he foists off on Trudy Morton (Sandra Knight), which transforms her into something akin to Sister Hyde.

This is an unusually gruesome horror film for its production era, with some rather gory moments, but with a probably unintentionally comic aspect to both monsters. Some of the chief allure here is the absolutely smarmy performance from Murphy, who manages to easily upstage putative stars Sandra Knight and John Ashley, not to mention the marauding monsters. As some of the supplements get into, the casting of this film is kind of a trivia lover's dream. Knight of course went on to become Mrs. Jack Nicholson, and also in the cast are two scions of famous families, Harold Lloyd, Jr. and Robert Dix, son of Richard. There's also a famous father in the cast courtesy of Felix Maurice Locher, who plays a cohort of Dr. Frank. Locher was the real life Dad to 1940s heartthrob Jon Hall.

Frankenstein's Daughter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Frankenstein's Daughter is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Film Detective with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Despite The Film Detective's continued use of an arguably out of date codec, their results are typically surprisingly good, and that's the case again with regard to this transfer. The bulk of this presentation offers nice detail and excellent contrast. Whatever restoration gauntlet was undertaken has eliminated any huge signs of damage, but that said, this has more than its fair share of smaller distractions like nicks and especially white specks which can be easily spotted throughout the presentation. There are a couple of curious downturns in image quality, notably in a party scene toward the end of the film (see screenshots 16 and 17). These moments can also offer a slight variation in color temperature and contrast. Grain resolves naturally for the most part. All in all, though, I can't imagine fans of this film (and there are apparently a lot of them) not being generally very well pleased with the look of this transfer.

Frankenstein's Daughter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Setup Menu on this disc is only for subtitles, and the Play option defaults to a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track, but once I started exploring the nooks and crannies of this disc, I noticed three audio tracks, the aforementioned DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track, and two Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks. For a moment, I thought perhaps the second Dolby Digital track might be the "missing" commentary mentioned below, since one of the Dolby Digital tracks obviously had to be the Tom Weaver commentary, but it turns out it's a lossy version of the film's soundtrack. That said, there frankly isn't a whale of a lot of difference between the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono and Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono tracks, though there is arguably a bit more oomph to the midrange and low end on the lossless track. Fidelity is fine throughout, offering secure support for dialogue, score, sound effects and of course the all important grunting by monsters and screams from damsels in distress. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.

Frankenstein's Daughter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I'm not quite sure what might have happened with this release, but the back cover touts two commentary tracks, one by Tom Weaver and one by filmmaker Larry Blamire, while the on disc menu says a sole commentary is by Jason A. Ney. I could only find the Weaver commentary, which does feature a number of "guest stars", as mentioned above. I'll mention only in passing that as I've freely admitted in several reviews, Weaver is one of my favorite commentators only because he seems to approach the job with some pre-planning which allows for both interpolated audio and some funny punchlines. That said, he refers to Covid 19 in this commentary with a euphemism that I suspect some will feel comes off as needlessly political, whether or not that was his intention.

• Commentary by Tom Weaver


• Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker of the Unknown (HD; 36:00) is an incredibly sweet piece which kind of amazingly includes an "interview" Cunha gave on VHS to Tom Weaver, who had sent him a bunch of questions in the mail. You get great background here, but also a tour of Cunha's video store and the whole thing is just kind of charming.


• John Ashley: Man from the B's (HD; 10:15) features C. Courtney Joyner offering a bio of the actor and (later) producer.

Additionally, an insert booklet contains some stills and more writing by Tom Weaver.

Frankenstein's Daughter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Weaver admits that he only saw Cunha's Missile to the Moon when Weaver was already an adult, and that it's by far his least favorite film by Cunha. That may indicate that one's "love" for Frankenstein's Daughter may be at least a bit dependent on one's age for an initial viewing, but that said, even those who have never seen this goofy outing before and who are coming to it long past their childhood years may find some unexpected entertainment value here. Despite a brief arguable misstep, the Weaver commentary is a real standout and the two other supplements are hugely enjoyable as well. Technical merits are generally solid for those who may be considering making a purchase.