Frankenhooker

This week in the corner we are going to take a look at Frank Henenlotter's wonderful horror comedy Frankenhooker.  Henenlotter has amassed quite a bit of cult following status with this movie and for Basketcase.  I had seen Basektcase years ago and loved it's absurdity, gore, acting, but also the strange way it showed heart and compassion.  I saw Frankenhooker for the first time two days ago and Henenlotter included many of the same things in this movie that made me like Basketcase so much.  Frankenhooker starts out following a young couple, Jeffrey and Elizabeth, very much in love at a backyard birthday party.  Jeffrey is into medical experiments and has been thrown out of 3 medical schools for it.  Elizabeth is a bit of a ditz, but is very happy and content with her life.  Ten minutes into the movie Elizabeth falls victim to a tragic lawnmower accident and her body parts are sprayed all over the backyard during the birthday festivities.  You can pretty much read the title of the movie and figure out where the movie goes from here.  Jeffrey uses the body parts of dead hookers and the decapitated head of his dead girlfriend and pieces her back together a la a Frankenstein like creature.  Any description I write cannot do justice to what this movie truly is.  It is a campy, comedic, over the top movie whose genre became popular in the late 80's and early 90's.  If you have ever seen the iconic Evil Dead or Re-Animator, then this movie falls right into that same type of arena.  Although in my opinion this movie is not quite as gory as those two.  The characters are wonderful and the actors do a great job.  Patty Mullen uses her timing and facial expressions to nail down the title role.  This movie has a scene of exploding prostitutes that I could watch over and over again, and the ending is so classic and unexpected that I wouldn't dare write about it here.  If you watch this movie you will be glad you knew as little about the ending as I did.  It will truly make you enjoy it more.  This movie is fairly hard to find.  I purchased it on blu ray from the Synapse Films website.  The HD transfer looked great and there are a number of special features.  So if you are into this kind of a movie you may just want to go ahead and purchase it to add to your collection.  I am happy I bought.  If you don't think you want to own it you cannot stream this movie instantly on Netflix but you can get the disc through the mail.   I had a great time with this movie and if my opinion isn't enough, Bill Murray of Ghostbusters and Caddyshack fame has said many times that this is one of his favorite movies of all time.  So give it a shot!

I will be out of town next week, so there will be a week off from a new entry.  But I am going to try to have my next entry be my first blog post from a new movie in the theater!  I hope to have a new entry on the The Evil Dead remake that is set to hit theaters on April 5th.

As always if you have comments about Frankenhooker I would love to see them.  If you have friends or family members who are into horror, pass this website on to them!  Finally thanks to everyone who takes the time to read these every week!  I have had almost 350 readers in 5 weeks!  I really appreciate it and I hope you keep reading!