7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Having escaped death by the guillotine, Dr. Frankenstein relocates to Carlsbruck. There, as Dr. Victor Stein, he successfully establishes himself as a physician with a large practice and a hospital for the poor. After three years however he is recognized by Dr. Hans Kleve but rather than expose him, the young doctor wants to join him in his research. Frankenstein has resumed his experiments and is on the verge of re-animating a body he has constructed using the brain of Fritz, the deformed assistant who helped him escape from his death sentence. The operation goes quite well and Fritz is quite pleased with his new body. An encounter with a drunken hospital attendant however sends him on the run. As his mind and his body deteriorates, he publicly reveals the good Doctor's true identity...
Starring: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn, Lionel JeffriesHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
German: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
German
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In a way, it’s probably a good thing that Hammer virtually stumbled into what would be its calling card for much of the late 1950s and beyond, the all color Gothic horror film. Perhaps surprisingly, at least for those of us who grew up with films like Universal’s Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy playing ad infinitum on at least late night television (in the Salt Lake City market where I was a kid devouring television, there was a regular Friday night show called Nightmare Theater that aired all of these, as well as countless others), Joe Dante mentions in the appealing overview of Hammer Horror included on this disc as a supplement that the 1931 James Whale film hadn’t yet been released for broadcast when he was a kid, and so Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein was his first “sighting” of the hideous monster at the center of Mary Shelley’s tale. Even given the fact that some of the Universal films may have faded a bit in the general public consciousness by the mid-fifties, Hammer was still more than a bit audacious to consider reimagining what was still one of the most iconic horror franchises in the entire history of film. As a number of supplemental features on various releases over the years have gotten into, and which is also covered at least tangentially in Diabolique Films’ Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros. Years, Hammer kind of arrived at its whole horror enterprise almost by accident, but once The Curse of Frankenstein and then Horror of Dracula became stratospheric global successes, the die (in more ways than one) was cast, and a slew of both “new” projects (like The Mummy) and various sequels were put into production. The Revenge of Frankenstein was the first of several Frankenstein features the studio released, though kind of interestingly while The Revenge of Frankenstein followed The Curse of Frankenstein in relatively short order (only more or less a year after the first film), the others in the series were doled out more sporadically, and in fact the next film in the series, The Evil of Frankenstein, didn’t make it to theater screens until 1964.
The Revenge of Frankenstein is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Anolis Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. When compared to the pretty lackluster looking Region A release from Mill Creek Entertainment Marty Liebman covered in his The Revenge of Frankenstein Blu-ray review, this transfer will probably strike most videophiles as vastly superior. It's perhaps arguable that things occasionally skew a bit too much toward yellows, but overall the palette is really pretty gorgeous looking, and I was particularly struck by tones in the all important red to purple ranges. (By comparison, the Mill Creek release had a kind of pink tint some of the time.) Clarity is variable, though in the best moments fine detail on things like fabrics and props is typically very good to excellent. There are also some variances in grain resolution, and some of the grain can add to an overall yellowish cast, but there aren't any major problems in this regard. This may not be at the same level of consistency and especially nice color temperature that Frankenstein Created Woman, but considering its prior release in Region A, this looks pretty darned good a lot of the time, and none, or at least very little, of the damage that Marty mentioned in his review of the Mill Creek release is still evident.
The Revenge of Frankenstein features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono mixes in either German or the original English. Perhaps surprisingly, the German track is arguably just a bit fuller sounding, especially with regard to the score, and it also sounds a bit hotter overall to my ears. That said, there's really nothing to complain about with regard to the original English language track. The English track is just slightly thinner sounding in the upper registers, but all dialogue comes through cleanly and clearly. Optional German subtitles for the English language track are available.
The Revenge of Frankenstein is a fun and occasionally scary second outing for Hammer in its reinvention of the venerable Shelley tale. As the interesting feature from Diabolique Films gets into, one of the kind of ironic ways that the Hammer Frankenstein films depart from the Universal ones is that in the Universal films a slew of different actors played various Frankensteins (and or course another list played the monster), whereas the Hammer films keep Cushing (by and large, anyway), while having a bunch of totally different monsters (not just different actors portraying the same monster). This particular monster is arguably not quite as monstrous as Christopher Lee was in the first Hammer film, but there's still a nicely Gothic ambience to this enterprise, and the production values are quite high. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package very enjoyable. Recommended.
Frankensteins Rache
1958
Frankensteins Rache / Limited Mediabook Cover D
1958
Frankensteins Rache / Limited Mediabook Cover B
1958
Frankensteins Rache / Limited Mediabook Cover C
1958
Frankensteins Rache | Limited Hartbox Edition
1958
(Still not reliable for this title)
Die Brennenden Augen von Schloss Bartimore / Limited Mediabook / Cover B
1964
The Evil of Frankenstein
1964
Frankenstein schuf ein Weib - Hammer Edition Nr. 30 | inkl. Postkarte
1967
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell | Hammer Edition 12 | Limited Edition
1974
Frankenstein muss sterben | Cover C | Hammer Edition #41
1969
These Are the Damned / Sie sind verdammt
1962
Die Rache des Pharao - Limited Edition Mediabook Cover A
1964
Frankensteins Fluch / Hammer Film Mediabook / Cover A
1957
Horror of Dracula / Restaurierte Fassung
1958
Taste of Fear | Hammer Edition
1961
Ghostland
2018
2015
1956
Inclusive 3D version / Die Rache des Ungeheuers
1955
Der Unsichtbare
1933
Die Folterkammer des Hexenjägers
1963
Frankensteins Schrecken
1970
XX... Unbekannt | Hammer Edition Nr. 35
1956
1994
Der Schrecken Vom Amazonas 3D
1954