Outside of some dubious DVD bootlegs and pricey European imports, directorial one-timer Mario Mancini’s lowly, schlocky splatter flick FRANKENSTEIN ’80 (1972) has – during this the still-ongoing digital age, at least – remained conspicuously absent in anything even close to resembling a passably watchable version. But now, thanks to Cauldron Films, this unabashedly seedy, skeezy and sleazy Italo-horror finally gets a real first-class presentation with their superb new Blu-ray.
Top surgeon Dr. Rudolf Schwarz (Bob Fiz) has developed a revolutionary anti-lymphocytic serum, which is supposed to help “modify the morphological picture and avoid rejection” during organ transplants. Apparently, this serum – which looks a lot like blue mouthwash, and quite possibly was! – is so innovative that it’s the only one of its kind in the entire world (!); and which, of course, shortly gets stolen from Schwarz’s office by a mysterious nocturnal intruder, right when the good doctor – and especially his current patient – needs it most. Enter Karl Schein (John Richardson). Karl is a reporter assigned to the “crime news desk” at some unspecified local newspaper, and is visiting his terminally-ill sister at the hospital, who is awaiting an urgent heart transplant c/o of Doc Schwarz, and will surely soon die without one. Due to that mysterious third party having absconded with Schwarz’s crucial serum the night before, Karl’s sister dies not long after her operation when her incompatible physiognomy rejects the donated heart, so her grieving brother – who doesn’t really seem all that bothered by her ‘tragic’ demise, quite frankly (chalk it up to underacting ‘star’ Richardson’s bored lack of interest in the material!) – is put on the “Schwarz serum case”. This special enquiry leads him to the hospital’s head pathologist, Dr. Otto Frankenstein (Gordon Mitchell) and his misshapen, stitched-together – and sexually voracious – monster, whom/which his creator has dubbed Mosaic (Xiro Papas). Incidentally, you’d think that any hospital which would hire-on an employee named Frankenstein, which also gave him free access to all the dead patients’ body parts might at least be suspicious of his motives and keep an eye on him, especially after hours… but apparently not!
Bearing some passing similarities to Mel Welles’ vastly superior LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1971), this micro-budgeted modern-day retelling of Mary Shelley’s most famous work is every bit as piecemeal as Frankenstein’s human jigsaw puzzle Mosaic in the film. As intriguing/puzzling as its ‘futuristic’ title is, most of this film’s running time is devoted to Mosaic its ‘Modern Prometheus’ simply roaming the streets of an unspecified European city (in what was evidently intended to be Germany, judging by the excess of Teutonic names in the cast of characters; although an olive-green Giulia polizia cruiser pegs the true location as being a whole lot closer to home in Mamma Italia). Rather than merely wandering aimlessly, Mosaic goes off searching for women and fresh body parts, much to his master’s chagrin. “You’ve got to stop killing! I’ll get you the organs you need! exclaims Dr. Frankenstein, alarmed by his cobbled-together creation’s increasingly murderous and uncontrollable behavior. Bald-pated, with big bushy eyebrows and sporting fresh surgery scars all over his face and body – as an ill-fated, short-lived hooker discovers, much to her horror – Mosaic also wears a Gestapo-like black leather trench-coat and black fedora hat (and a rather goofy one at that!) which makes him look like some wannabe ’40s-era hoodlum with a leather fetish. Unable to speak beyond uttering a few unintelligible grunts and groans here and there, he somehow still manages to pick up the odd unwary prostitute (“What’s the matter with you, eh?” asks one. “You made-up for Halloween?”), who definitely get more than they bargained for when they take this ‘john’ home to their bedsit.
Like the protagonist of some third-rate giallo, our disinterested hero Karl snoops about both figuratively and literally in the dark, and along with Schneider (Renato Romano), a very frustrated police Inspector (“Give me the essence of it! The juice, ya know?!”), they discover Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, which is secretly – laughably enough – hidden behind a swinging partition within the very hospital itself. In the meantime, Mosaic goes on a continuous killing spree while the police sit back twiddling their thumbs and biding their time, if nothing else doing their bit to pad the film out to an, um, ‘respectable’ running length. Another purely extraneous bit of business involves ‘special guest star’ Luigi “Gigi” Bonos, the then-sole-surviving brother of the once-popular Fratelli Bonos acting trio (he too passed away in the year 2000). A seasoned specialist at playing stock comedic characters, Bonos herein cameos without saying a word as a grubby old vagabond who has a particularly unpleasant (and fatal) encounter with the man-made monster and a large, heavy car part in an auto graveyard after dark.
Clumsily-executed across the boards and strung-together with only the flimsiest of plotlines – albeit still highly entertaining nevertheless – FRANKENSTEIN ’80 represents usual cinematographer Mancini’s sole endeavour as a director. He was actually a fairly prolific DP on many a low-budget Italian film and, again in 1972, he also worked in that capacity on F.L. Morris’ (a.k.a. Ferdinando Merighi) equally shoddy giallo, THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS (1972); it too features the same economical and garish lighting schemes, which comes as quite the surprise in the case of the present film, since it was shot by no less than Emilio Varriano, one of Mario Bava’s most trusted camera operators (who, two years later, went on to lens Bava’s claustrophobic, nail-bitingly suspenseful crime thriller RABID DOGS [1974]). Talented composer Daniele Patucchi also provides a fun, if wholly appropriate, piano-driven score, but he also reuses a cue from his languid, easy-listening score to Elò Pannaccio’s IL SESSO DELLA STREGA (1972). Following a drawn-out peeler act at a stripclub, bits of Patucchi’s score for Carlo Croccolo’s low-end Klaus Kinski spaghetti western BLACK KILLER (1971) can also be heard.
Making its HD debut in 2017 via Germany’s Region B Blu-ray/DVD Mediabook courtesy of ’84 Entertainment, this nicely-packaged edition began with a disclaimer about their somewhat compromised HD transfer, which specified that “short scenes were no longer available on 35mm film and had to be inserted from an inferior source”, in this case a grainy VHS videocassette. Apart from these thankfully-only-brief inserted scenes (including longer-lingering extra bits of nudity and gore), which jar quite noticeably with the bulk of the film’s transfer print proper, ’84 Entertainment’s Blu-ray was definitely worth the upgrade, and miles better than any other version on the market, especially to anyone familiar with Gorgon’s long-out-of-print and badly pan-and-scanned fullscreen VHS tape. This is also the first time (at least to English-language viewers) that the film had been made available in its original widescreen aspect ratio, which made for a far-less-confining and claustrophobically constricting viewing experience all round. The LPCM 2.0 audio was also available in both German and English language options, although the English track featured some audible hiss, but overall sounded just fine in light of the film’s obvious relatively primitive technical attributes.
Extras included a fairly beat-up, but most-welcome original trailer, with some brief German narration; alternate opening credits from the U.S. and German (as MIDNIGHT HORROR) VHS versions (3m30s); a brief gallery (1m07s) of the entire set of Italian fotobuste; plus ‘lost film scenes’, which were all the extra inserted scenes, including surrounding context (3m55s). Apart from one extra brief artwork gallery (57s) of video and promotional art present only on the DVD, both discs included the same transfer and extras.
Earlier this year, Cauldron Films finally released the film’s first official — and only true uncut presentation — on Blu-ray, which was scanned in 2K from “the original camera negative in Rome, Italy by Variety Films.” Detail on the Blu is first-rate, and will serve as a real revelation to anyone only familiar with Gorgon’s VHS tape (“He had a bone to pick…”) or Cheezy Flicks VHS-sourced DVD. Many of the film’s previously problematic day-for-night scenes come through just fine here, and the robust colours help better accentuate all the glistening viscera and stage blood on display. The disc also includes a pair of DTS-HD master audio 2.0 mono tracks in English and Italian (with properly translated English subtitles), which sound very good with no discernible issues whatsoever. Incidentally, the Italian audio track differs ever so slightly, so keen viewers may want to give both a listen.
Extras on Cauldron’s disc begin with an audio commentary from film historian Heather Drain who discusses the film’s “pretzel logic”, and plenty of background on the film along with several much-welcome digressions; the simplistic but effective F/X work of Carlo Rambaldi, Mario Mancini’s long career as a camera operator, the many “spiritual heirs” to FRANKENSTEIN ’80, and her love of Italian horror films in general. It’s an easy-going, fact-filled listen, which compliments this schlocky film perfectly. In Dalila Forever (27m46s), Andrea Meroni and Eugenio Ercolani provide a terrific career-spanning audio interview with Dalila Di Lazzaro (an on-camera interview was not possible due to health reasons) wherein she discusses her early inspirations, her stern upbringing, her time working in Rome and many of her first roles including Luigi Comencini’s LO SCOPONE SCIENTIFICO (1972) alongside Alberto Sordi, Joseph Cotton, and Bette Davis, Paul Morrissey’s FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973), and of course, FRANKENSTEIN ’80. In Little Frankensteins (38m20s), film historian Domenico Monetti discusses Frankenstein within Italian cinema, and how the “true nature” of Mary Shelley’s work was changed “Italian-style”, covering such films as Tulio Demicheli’s ASSIGNMENT TERROR (1970), Robert H. Oliver’s FRANKENSTEIN’S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974), the aforementioned Paul Morrissey film, FRANKENSTEIN ’80 of course, and even Aristide Massaccesi’s late-entry poverty-row stinker FRANKENSTEIN 2000 (a.k.a., RETURN FROM DEATH, 1992).
Although already sold out, the limited Blu-ray with slipcase also included a 23-page booklet on The Art of Frankenstein ’80, which featured poster art, fotobuste, and other miscellaneous stills supplied by Cinema Arcana’s Bruce Holecheck, a double-sided fold-out poster featuring the work of Justin Coffee (he also supplied the disc’s beautiful cover art) and “Putrid” Matt Carr, and a nice collectible slipcase for those that care about such collectible ephemera. Order the standard release Cauldron Films or DiabolikDVD.
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