The Rites of Frankenstein (1972) Jess Franco

Genre: Horror

Country: Spain | France | Director: Jess Franco

Aspect ratio: Cinemascope 2.35:1 | Length: 81mn

Dvdrip H264 Mkv - 1011x448 - 25fps - 1007mb

Frankenstein is presumed dead, and his daughter Vera (Beatriz Savón) arrives in town to reanimate her father just enough to find out that his monster is on the loose and in the hands of Cagliostro. The concerned Dr. Seward (Albert Dalbés) spoke to Frankenstein before his death, and knows about his monster, so he’s investigating the situation as well, periodically paying visits on Vera. Vera tracks down the monster and stops him from abducting an artist’s model, but soon after, Frankenstein’s creation is back in control of Cagliostro and then has the daughter under his spell. Cagliostro’s ultimate goal is to create a female for the monster to mate with, using an abducted woman from the town named Madame Orloff (the gorgeous Britt Nichols from Franco’s Daughter of Dracula). More orgy-type torture and shenanigans follow in the depraved castle, and it’s up to the good Dr. Seward to stop it!

Made during director Jess Franco's amazing early 70's period, post Harry Alan Towers and pre-porno, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is a surrealist masterpiece, poetic, perverse, comic, and mesmerizing. Shot for next to nothing on location in Portugal, the film is full of evocative, wide-angle, hand held imagery that must have appeared jaw-droppingly innovative at the time, and still astounds today. Daniel White's atonal, experimental score skillfully enhances the film's nightmarish languor, and the roles, particularly Anne Libert's blind cannibalistic Bird Woman, and Howard Vernon's strangely sexy Cagliostro, are performed with aplomb and conviction. You won't soon forget the scenes of white-shrouded undead gliding through a mist-laden forest, the strange, red-lit shots of Cagliostro's acolytes blithely staring at cruel tableaux orchestrated for their perverse amusement, or a shrieking, silver-skinned Frankenstein's monster relentlessly whipping a man and a woman tied together over a bed of spikes.