Franchises: Hammer's Frankenstein Series. The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)

Is that not an awesome poster?

All of the glimpses I got of the Hammer Frankenstein movies in The History of Sci-Fi and Horror documentary left an impression, thanks to the actual clips and Butch Patrick's description of both their plots and their pros and cons, but this one, in particular, struck me due to the design of the monster, which Patrick noted was very much in the classic Universal mold, and what he had to say about it. He noted that it featured the most sympathetic portrayal of Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein and that it was also the weakest of the series. That was the general consensus I always heard about it afterward: it was the least effective of the films and was also the most old-fashioned, two factors that also weren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Regardless, aside from a little bit of the theatrical trailer, which played at the end of the documentary, The Frankenstein Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster, which featured on the special editions of the classic 1931 film, I didn't see any other clips from The Evil of Frankenstein until I saw the movie itself on that Hammer Horror DVD Collection in early 2006. For a while, this and The Curse of Frankenstein were the only Hammer Frankenstein films I had in my collection and, during that time, I could never understand why this was considered to be a bad film; now, I can certainly see more of the flaws but, I still don't think it's a bad movie. In fact, if you've been with me for a while, you'd know that I've mentioned this film on lists I've done on movies I think are underrated, a viewpoint I still stand by, to some extent. Maybe it's not as much of a game-changer as Curse or as well-made and written as some of the other movies, but I wouldn't call it the worst in the series by a long shot (oddly, The History of Sci-Fi and Horror made no mention of 1970's The Horror of Frankenstein, which is definitely the series' lowest point). It is the most derivative of past movies, the story does have issues, and the monster isn't all that great, both in design and execution, but I still think it has a lot to offer, including another stellar performance from the always dependable Cushing (despite my mixed feelings about this particular portrayal of his Baron Frankenstein), good production values, nice music, and enjoyable and exciting sequences, including the climax.

A body snatcher spirits away the corpse of a man who has just died and takes it to the secret laboratory of Baron Victor Frankenstein, who proceeds to remove and use the heart in an experiment, with help from his young assistant, Hans. Unfortunately for the Baron, a young girl who both witnessed the stealing of the body and ran into him out in the woods identifies the body snatcher to a local priest, leading him to the lab. The priest, seeing Frankenstein's work as blasphemy, destroys the equipment and escapes, forcing the Baron and Hans to leave the area. Frankenstein decides to head back to his old chateau in Karlstaad, despite having been exiled for his past experiments, hoping to find valuable possessions he can sell for money to continue funding his work. But, when they arrive, they find the place has been utterly ransacked and everything of value has been taken. After Frankenstein tells Hans the details of his original experiment, which led to the creation of a crudely-made, brutish creature that was ultimately gunned down by the police, the two of them head into town to have something to eat at the inn, using the presence of a fair in town as cover. But, when Frankenstein spots both the policeman who shot his creature, now the chief of police, and the burgomaster, he becomes outraged when he sees the latter is wearing a ring of his. Evading the police, Frankenstein confronts the burgomaster at his home that night, as he's the one who took the valuables from his chateau, but, again, must flee to avoid being arrested. He and Hans escape into the nearby mountains, where they're befriended by a deaf-mute beggar girl who leads them to the cave she uses as shelter. There, Frankenstein discovers his original creation, frozen in ice after having been shot off a cliff, and they thaw him out using fire and take his body back to the chateau in order to restore his life-force using the energy from a storm. But, despite their efforts, he remains in a comatose state due to his brain having been damaged. Frankenstein, remembering Professor Zoltan, a hypnotist who was performing at the fair, enlists him to use his ability to stimulate the creature's brain, which he succeeds in doing. However, the creature will only respond to Zoltan's hypnotic suggestion, and Zoltan, intending to make a profit off him, forces Frankenstein into an uneasy partnership. Even worse, Zoltan's greedy and vengeful nature leads him to use the creature to rob the village and punish those who ruined his show, a scheme that may spell disaster for the Baron and his work.

Since Terence Fisher was still on his two-year furlough from Hammer, the studio decided to put Freddie Francis in the director's chair, making this the only time Cushing would play Victor Frankenstein under the direction of someone other than Fisher. This would be the first of eight films Francis would direct with Cushing, whom he once said could, "Speak rubbish... and make it sound real," and it was also his first color film as director. Unfortunately, his direction here is pretty standard for the most part, with few of the interesting camera and visual flourishes he'd employed in Paranoiac and Nightmare. Though he would make Hysteria for Hammer the following year, after The Evil of Frankenstein, Francis began mostly working with Amicus Films, doing movies like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, The Skull, The Psychopath, and The Deadly Bees. He would, however, return to both Hammer and the world of Gothic horror in 1968 and it would be a weird instance of history repeating itself, as he would again fill Terence Fisher's shoes by directing a new entry in the studio's other long-running horror franchise.

Even though it features Peter Cushing in his third turn as Baron Frankenstein, this film breaks from the continuity established in the previous ones, creating a totally new backstory that involves him having created a different monster from the one Christopher Lee played in The Curse of Frankenstein, only for his creation to have been apparently killed and Frankenstein himself exiled from his home village of Karlstaad. Why screenwriter Anthony Hinds, under his pseudonym of John Elder, decided to go this route is unclear. It could have been because of the six years that had passed since The Revenge of Frankenstein, with Hinds and the studio figuring the audience had probably long since forgotten that movie's plot and resolution and deciding it was a good idea to start fresh. It also could have been due to the close relationship they had with Universal on this film, allowing them to directly draw on the iconic elements from their movies of the 30's and 40's, which they'd specifically tried to avoid before, and felt it wouldn't have fit with the continuity they'd established. Whatever the reason, the other movies in the series that followed would continue with this template of, at best, tenuous continuity, with Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell basically being standalone films, with virtually no ties to this film or each other, aside from Cushing (and that's to say nothing of the Cushing-less Horror of Frankenstein, but let's not get ahead of ourselves).

The break from continuity allowed Cushing to play Baron Frankenstein in a completely different manner than he had before. Ironically, for a movie called The Evil of Frankenstein, this features the most sympathetic and genuinely likable portrayal of Cushing's Baron in the whole series (for me, that tile would have been better suited for Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, as that's where the Baron is at his most despicable). Rather than the unscrupulous sociopath he'd been before, especially in Curse, here Frankenstein is made to be an unfairly persecuted and misunderstood scientist who has overall good intentions for his research. His methods, which include paying someone to steal a body for him, can still be a bit shady at times, but it feels like he could very well achieve a great, scientific miracle, given the opportunity to refine his experiments. But, because his work is often seen as either blasphemous or just plain horrific (which it undeniably is), or because of unexpected complications, it's always ruined. Over the course of the story, you see a priest disrupt an experiment with a human heart (which appeared like it was going to work), Frankenstein's original creation getting gunned down because he had quite the taste for fresh meat, and Prof. Zoltan's greed from his hypnotic control of the creature contribute to Frankenstein's ruination and apparent death, with Frankenstein himself always lamenting that those who persecute him are ignorant and don't understand what he's trying to accomplish. He's also established as an outcast from his home village due to his experiments, and when he travels back to his old chateau in hopes of finding valuable items he could sell to fund his work, he finds it's been totally picked clean, most of it having been taken by the burgomaster, and there's a hanging effigy of himself down in his old laboratory.

I do have somewhat mixed feelings about the portrayal of Frankenstein here. While Cushing, as always, is great in the role, and the angle of making the Baron more sympathetic and misunderstood does, in my opinion, work for the most part, you still have the opening where he pays a body snatcher to steal the body of a recently deceased man out from under his grieving family, severely frightening a young girl in the process. What's more, Frankenstein does something blatantly stupid when he returns to Karlstaad. He's rather overconfident in his belief that, because there's a fair in town, it'll be easier for him and Hans to move around without being recognized, but decides to buy a couple of masks for them to wear, regardless. But, when they're having lunch at the inn, Frankenstein spots the burgomaster and the chief of police and causes a scene when he sees the former wearing an old ring of his. This gets the attention of the police and he stupidly demands they arrest the burgomaster, leading to him and Hans getting chased through the village, though they manage to escape... and then, Frankenstein goes to the burgomaster's home and directly confronts him about his having taken everything from his chateau. Now, because of his recklessness, the very people he wanted to avoid know he's returned and he and Hans are forced to take shelter in the mountains. So, when people begin to spot and die at the hands of his creature, of course, they go straight for him, which he makes easy for them, since he revives the creature in his chateau, despite mentioning before it'd be the first place they'd search for him. But, Cushing's earnestness makes it easy to look past these flaws and continue to enjoy the character, especially given how well he treats both Hans and the beggar girl the two of them befriend, another character trait that's far removed from the first two films. And you do genuinely sympathize with Frankenstein when Prof. Zoltan takes advantage of the influence he has over the creature and uses it to force him into an uneasy partnership that ultimately leads to his downfall.

Although he has the same first name as the character Francis Matthews played in The Revenge of Frankenstein and serves the same role as the Baron's ever-loyal assistant, Hans (Sandor Eles) is a completely different person. He's far younger, coming off as much more of a student than Matthews' junior member of Carlsbruck's medical council, but there's no denying the respect and admiration he has for Frankenstein, seeing him as a genius and willing to help him in any way he possibly can. No matter what, he sticks with him, despite how it means constantly being on the run and less than favorable living conditions, and even Frankenstein himself asks why he stays, with Hans telling him he believes he can learn from him something he can never learn at a university. In addition to being an assistant, Hans also attempts to protect Frankenstein from himself at points, like when he restrains him from angrily attacking the priest after he ruins his experiment with the heart, tries to talk him out of going back to Karlstaad, given his exile, and tries to calm him when he becomes agitated upon seeing the burgomaster wearing his ring. He's not at all happy about the awful arrangement Prof. Zoltan forces him into, despite knowing he has no choice and wonders what they're going to do about him. When things quickly unravel after Frankenstein throws Zoltan out, Hans is sent to keep tabs on the creature and the beggar girl when the two of them flee the chateau in the chaos, managing to get them back while Frankenstein is imprisoned. After Frankenstein escapes the jail and tries to subdue his rampaging creature, Hans attempts to help but is forced to escape with the girl, the two of them watching the castle explode and collapse, Hans sadly lamenting, "They beat him after all."

Hans' kindly nature is shown when, upon arriving in Karlstaad, he tries to help a deaf-mute beggar girl (Katy Wild) who's being pursued by some assholes at the fair who mistreated her. Though the girl runs off in fright when her pursuers show up, Frankenstein and Hans encounter her up in the mountains later and she returns the latter's kindness by leading them to a cave they use for shelter, as well as gives them some bread to eat. Unintentionally, the girl also leads Frankenstein to his creature, which has been frozen in ice for years after having been shot and which the girl has seen as a sort of friend, as she's heard mumbling to him when Frankenstein first discovers him. The girl accompanies them to the chateau after they thaw the creature out and attempt to revive him, showing genuine affection for him. She's also the only one he has a friendly relationship with, despite his being under Prof. Zoltan's influence. Speaking of which, the scummy hypnotist terrorizes the girl when he becomes drunk, at one point attempting to rape her, but then decides she's not worth it, referring to her as "trash." Initially, she's the only one who has some idea that Zoltan is using the creature for evil intentions, but is unable to tell the others. After Zoltan is thrown out of the chateau, only to get the creature to let him back in, the girl tries to warn Frankenstein but is unable to stop Zoltan from getting the creature to attack him. Following Zoltan's death, the girl escapes back to the cave with the creature and tries to nurse him back to health, when Hans appears and has them return to the chateau. During the climax, when the creature suddenly starts whimpering in pain for some reason, the girl gives him some wine to try to dull it, but this, instead, causes him to go into a drunken rage that leads to the lab being destroyed and he and Frankenstein seemingly dying, while the girl escapes with Hans.

Prof. Zoltan (Peter Woodthorpe) is a pretty loathsome character, as you've no doubt already grasped. Already pretty shady when Karlstaad's chief of police discovers he's performing his show without a license and is forced to leave town, he's initially reluctant to help Frankenstein when he comes to him for the use of his ability, as he's not keen on going up to the chateau, but when Frankenstein implies he might not be able to pull it off, Zoltan is incensed and takes on the challenge. He almost runs away when he first sees the creature, but is talked into using hypnotic skill on him and does manage to stimulate and reactivate his brain. But, that's when he reveals what a real scumbag he is. He tells Frankenstein that, because of the hypnotic suggestion, the creature will only obey him, and once that's proved to be true, he forces the Baron into a deal where they're to profit off the creature, while Frankenstein goes on with his work. Zoltan becomes an insufferable house-guest due to this arrangement, often getting drunk and gorging down what food he can find. In his drunkenness, he not only cruelly abuses the beggar girl but also decides to take full advantage of his sway over the creature. First, he sends him into town to steal various items made of gold, and after he gets them, he decides to also have some revenge, telling him to next punish the burgomaster and the chief of police for having evicted him from town. But, when the creature goes too far and commits murder (what exactly was Zoltan expecting?), Zoltan tries to flee with his gold, only for Frankenstein to discover what's happened and throw him out. Enraged, Zoltan threatens to kill Frankenstein and, to that end, orders the creature to let him back into the chateau. He then tells him to kill Frankenstein, but when he's repelled by fire and is repeatedly ordered by Zoltan to keep attacking, the creature turns on the professor and kills him with a large, metal spire.

The film also tries to make villains out of both Karlstaad's burgomaster (David Hutcheson) and chief of police (Duncan Lamont), as they're both responsible for Frankenstein's exile and also because the burgomaster has taken all of the valuables from the chateau, but it never quite sticks, as they never do anything outright villainous. For one, it's understandable why Frankenstein was run out of town years before, seeing as how his creature killed and fed on some sheep before being shot down, and the chief of police, who was a constable at the time, was just doing his job, as was the burgomaster. Moreover, Frankenstein is the one who decides to return to Karlstaad and makes trouble for himself by causing a big scene when he accuses the burgomaster of stealing his property, despite the fact that his property was confiscated following his arrest and banishment, which the burgomaster tells him during their confrontation later. And it's also unlucky for him that Prof. Zoltan has his own grievance with the burgomaster and police chief, eventually sending the creature out to kill both of them. Since he knows Frankenstein has returned and remembers his creature all too well, the police chief heads straight for him when the burgomaster and a constable are killed and arrests him. He later forms a hunting party to hunt down the creature after he's been spotted in the mountains, though he doesn't get the chance to confront him, as Frankenstein escapes the jailhouse and futilely tries to save his creation. Honestly, aside from the burgomaster coming off a bit sleazy in how he appears quite proud to have landed a younger and rather voluptuous woman as his wife, there's not much that makes you hate either of these characters.

One look at the creature featured in this film and you know that Hammer was no longer on the shaky legal ground they were with Universal when they first began this series. In fact, he's probably the most stereotypical caricature of their iconic monster you could ever hope to come up with without being intentionally funny. He's got the big, bulky frame and traditional outfit, enormous shoes (which are virtually square-shaped on the front), clumsy, robotic movements, and an overly exaggerated, square-shaped head with clamps all over it, a far receded hairline, and a forehead that's more or less a box. The problem, however, is, intentional or not, the creature is so overdone that he does feel like he belongs in a Frankenstein send-up rather than what's meant to be a serious film. Whether it's his movements or design (seriously, look at his head and tell me that doesn't look like someone wearing a Frankenstein's monster Halloween mask rather than actual flesh and bone), it's nigh impossible to look at him without, at least, smirking.

But, sadly, his look is the only memorable thing about him, as he has little-to-no character to him whatsoever. People often say the same thing about Christopher Lee's monster in The Curse of Frankenstein but Lee was able to bring something to what could have otherwise been a forgettable, one-note performance; as the monster in this film, Kiwi Kingston, a New Zealand wrestler, literally does little more than lumber around and attack people, with an occasional grunt or moan here and there. In the flashback that shows his creation and aftermath, it is somewhat interesting to see him curiously wandering around Frankenstein's lab, exploring this new world he's been born into, and experiencing sensations like a burning flame and the taste of food he doesn't care for, and there's also a point where it's revealed he prefers the taste of raw meat, which leads him to escape the lab and kill and feed on some sheep, leading to his being gunned down. But, after Frankenstein and Hans thaw him from the ice he was encased in, he loses what little interest he had, especially since he becomes nothing more than a pawn for Prof. Zoltan due to his hypnotic suggestion. He is also shown to have something of a relationship with the beggar girl, as he allows her to care for him following Zoltan's death and is reluctant to let Hans aid her, but it's never explored further. And his behavior in the climax is rather left-field, as after he returns to the chateau with Hans and the girl, he starts moping around, holding his cranium in his hands, and moaning, as though he's in pain. He arouses some sympathy, as his whimpers do sound like he's really hurting, but there's no explanation for what's wrong, save possibly something Frankenstein mentioned earlier about having to repair his brain, which caused him immense pain when he was awakened before it could heal. In any case, the girl gives him some wine to try to dull the pain he's in and, while he initially doesn't like it, he quickly changes his mind and starts chugging down other bottles of wine. Now horribly drunk, he goes into a rage that results in him destroying the lab, as well as drinking some chloroform that he thought was more wine, and kills himself along with Frankenstein.

The look of the monster is far from the only thing this film borrows from the classic Universal movies. The design and set-up of Frankenstein's laboratories, both in his family chateau and in the mill where he's hiding at the very beginning, are very much akin to what's seen in those older films, filled with electrical equipment that's not unlike what Kenneth Strickfaden created decades before, and Frankenstein brings his creation to life with a bolt of lightning, which is attracted down through the equipment with a special apparatus up on the chateau's roof. Also, the plot-point of the monster being found frozen in ice is akin to when Larry Talbot first finds him in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Frankenstein and Hans thawing him out with fire and bringing him back to the former's laboratory in order to restore him to life is like the main plot of House of Frankenstein (which, incidentally, also featured a fair in one part of its story), and the monster doing what Zoltan tells him is somewhat akin to the relationship between the monster and Ygor in Son of Frankenstein. And the explosive ending, with electricity crackling everywhere as the laboratory falls apart, is more akin to the manner in which the Universal movies often went out. For many, all of this is seen as a negative and contributes to the movie being viewed as the worst in the series, but I'm more mixed about it, myself. Being someone who's always enjoyed those classic Universal movies, I can't help but like how much this film hearkens back to them and I also find it interesting simply to see a Hammer Gothic horror film take this direction. But, at the same time, I can admit that this is an instance of the series, and the studio as a whole in some way, losing the identity it had established for itself as, save for the experiment with the heart during the opening, you don't really have the feeling of crude science and skin-crawling unpleasantness you usually get from Baron Frankenstein's experiments in these films (this is the least graphic film in the series, incidentally), and the familiar elements do make it come off as somewhat uninspired.

Speaking of which, while the movie does seem to have had a pretty healthy budget, at least by Hammer standards, the sets don't have their usual flair. They still look good, mind you, especially both of Frankenstein's laboratories and the interiors of his chateau, the latter of which have a forlorn, empty atmosphere about them due to their having been ransacked and picked clean, and the sets were still done at Bray Studios, both inside and on the exterior lot in the case of the scenes at the fair in town (which managed to involve actual, working carousels), along with some location footage that was likely shot at Black Park, as well as possibly other places for the mountains. But, regardless, they don't jump out like the sets in so many of these Hammer Gothics often do, and there aren't many of them, besides the mill interior and Frankenstein chateau, that are particularly noteworthy, save for maybe the cave the beggar girl lives in, where the monster's frozen body is discovered. Turns out, there's a very simple reason for that: Bernard Robinson didn't work on this film. Seeing as how he was not only the production designer on Nightmare but also The Devil-Ship Pirates, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, and The Gorgon, all of which were also released in 1964, he may have simply been spread way too thin and so, the man put in charge here was Don Mingaye, who'd worked with Robinson many times as art director. I'm sure he did the best job he could, but there was just no substitution for what Robinson himself was capable of.

The film is certainly well-shot by Freddie Francis and his cinematographer, John Wilcox, looking rather slick, lush, and polished, with some very lovely colors (the flashes of lightning in this film have a very nice, deep-blue color), but there's nothing that special about the direction and camerawork, especially after having seen some of Francis' other work as director. Like I said earlier, his use of the camera is pretty standard, with few of the interesting visual cues he put into Paranoiac and Nightmare and which he would bring to some of his later work. He does do some nice, smooth pans to show off a set, sometimes moving the camera off a person to take more of the place in, such as when Frankenstein returns to the chateau and finds it's been completely stripped clean of anything valuable. Francis also uses this technique as an interesting means of transitioning from the main story to the flashback of Frankenstein creating his creature, panning past Frankenstein when he starts relating the story to Hans, going through the door behind him that leads into the chateau's main foyer, and then going around the staircase and to the door that leads down into his lab, before finally dissolving to the scene in question. There's another moment showing the passage of time that's similar to one of the transitions from day to night in Nightmare, where a subtle dissolve is used in conjunction with the lighting in one shot growing dimmer and dimmer. And in the moment when Prof. Zoltan is telling the creature to go into town to punish the burgomaster and chief of police, there's a huge close-up on his eyes and sweat-beaded face. But, besides that, Francis seems to have decided to simply make the film adequate in terms of its look and presentation.

Visual effects-wise, there are some nice-looking matte paintings here and there, such as the wide shot when Frankenstein and Hans leave after the priest destroys their experiment and similar shots when they take shelter up in the mountains, as well as some good miniature work whenever you see the chateau sitting up on a clifftop, with a foreground lined with trees as the camera pans by it in the first shot. However, there's also some rear-screen projection that hasn't aged very well, like when Frankenstein commandeers a horse-drawn wagon after escaping from jail near the climax and when you see the chateau exploding in the background behind Hans and the girl at the very end. And, as I said, this is the least violent entry in the series, so there isn't much bloodletting to speak of. The only trace of that notion of grisly dissection that was so present before is in the opening, where you see severed limbs and body parts in containers, while Frankenstein removes the heart from the stolen body and uses it in his experiments, putting it in a tank of water and trying to get it to pump by itself, which he succeeds in doing. Other than that, and aside from the creature killing and eating a bunch of sheep (which you only see the immediate aftermath of), the burgomaster and constable dying at the hands of the creature, and Prof. Zoltan getting impaled when the creature turns on him, this is another fairly bloodless flick in Hammer's catalog.

Like Hammer's The Phantom of the Opera and The Kiss of the Vampire, there were additional scenes filmed for The Evil of Frankenstein's TV version, most significantly giving the beggar girl more of a backstory. The girl, whose name is revealed to be Rena in these scenes, is said to have been badly traumatized by a childhood encounter with Frankenstein's creature, which led to her being deaf-mute, and that her father seeks revenge on Frankenstein, although he's told psychiatric treatment might be able to help her. There's also a small subplot about a reporter who's asking around about Frankenstein but, as with the other subplot involving the girl's father, nothing ever comes of it and their only purpose is to take the place of material that was deleted for being too shocking for television at the time.

The film opens on the image of a forested area on an overcast, windy day, the camera panning over to a small cabin beside a lake. A couple of people, an elderly man and woman, walk out of the cabin and down the path leading away from it, the woman quietly sobbing. Unbeknownst to them, they're being watched by an unsavory-looking man who then turns his attention to the cabin, smiling in a sinister manner. Inside the cabin, the body of a recently-deceased man lies on a wooden slab, a crucifix placed on his chest. A young girl walks through a door and peeks around at the body, only for a gust of wind to blow through an open window, blowing out a candle and plunging the room into darkness. The girl is startled by this and then screams when she sees the body dragged off the slab and through the window by the man who was lurking outside. Terrified, the girl runs for the front door and, after some struggling, rips it open and runs outside, into the dark woods. She becomes lost and all the more frightened by her dark, wind-swept surroundings, until she runs into a man who reaches for her. This scares her further and she runs back the way she came, as the man is revealed to be Baron Victor Frankenstein. The body snatcher, meanwhile, heads down a path to an old mill by the lake, while the couple from before return with the local priest to find the young man's body has been taken. The priest, crossing himself, grabs the discarded crucifix on the slab and asks, "Who could have done this evil thing?" At that moment, the body snatcher arrives at the mill and knocks on the door, where he's greeted by Hans. Frankenstein himself arrives and has the man bring the body inside the mill, which he sees is filled with all sorts of scientific and electrical equipment, including severed body parts in containers. Per Frankenstein's instructions, the body snatcher lays the corpse on a table, and the Baron has Hans pay him, while he prepares to get to work. The body snatcher comments that the head isn't too good due to how he accidentally banged it while pulling the body through the window but Frankenstein says he doesn't need the head. He marks a spot on the chest where he plans to cut, while Hans tells the curious body snatcher that he's going to remove the heart. Frankenstein then grabs a set of surgical instruments and begins the task, the opening credits playing over him doing so, and once they've concluded, he's shown placing the heart in a large jar of water and taking it over to a small tank where Hans is standing, placing it inside. The two of them then exchange glances and Frankenstein smiles confidently.

Elsewhere, the little girl from before identifies the body snatcher for the priest, who then confronts him in the nearby village. Meanwhile, Hans dumps the body through a hatch in the mill's floor that leads down into the water. Frankenstein, who's been making some attachments to the heart in the tank, tells Hans to start the mill's wheel, but he finds it hard to pull the lever. Frankenstein helps him in pulling it but, when that doesn't work, he pushes the large gears as Hans continues with the lever and they finally manage to get it running. That done, Frankenstein goes back to the heart and, as Hans does some fine-tuning, he squeezes the heart in rhythm as the electricity generated by the mill flows into it. It takes a little time but the heart soon starts beating and pumping by itself, the two of them exchanging triumphant glances. Someone starts pounding on the door from the outside and Frankenstein tells Hans to get rid of whoever it is. Hans goes to the door but, before he can say anything, the priest pushes his way inside, calling Frankenstein a blasphemer and desecrater. Frankenstein barely pays him any mind, telling him he's trespassing and interrupting his work. Proclaiming his work to be that of the devil, the priest shoves away Hans when he tries to lead him back outside and smashes a piece of electrical equipment and the tank with his walking cane, spilling the heart onto the floor. Enraged, Frankenstein lunges at the priest and puts him into a stranglehold, but Hans forces him off, allowing the priest to escape. Hans then shuts down the equipment, warning Frankenstein the priest will be back, and with others, meaning they'll have to get away; Frankenstein, however, is more preoccupied with how his latest experiment has been destroyed, just like everything else he's ever attempted.

The two of them quickly leave the area in a horse-drawn carriage and, by the next morning, Frankenstein awakens Hans to tell him they've nearly reached Karlstaad. Hans is shocked that Frankenstein is even considering going back there, given his exile, but the Baron tells him he has no choice, saying his old chateau has valuable items such as paintings and furnishings he can sell for money to continue his work. He's also confident he won't be seen, saying the village will be practically empty, as everyone will be working in the fields. But, when the film cuts to Karlstaad, it's revealed that the place is anything but empty, as there's a fair in town. A young beggar girl is shown trying to get some money, and appears to come across a group of good samaritans, only for the one guy who was acting like he was going to give her some money to knock the bowl out of her hand and initiate a cruel game of keep away with his buddies. They meanly taunt and tease the girl, until she manages to wrestle one of them to the ground, biting his hand to make him let go of the bowl, and runs off with it. The one guy and another follow her, as she runs to the village's outskirts and right in front of Frankenstein and Hans' carriage, tripping and falling to the ground near a mud puddle. Hans disembarks and tries to see to the girl, but when she spots two of her tormentors nearby, wearing masks, she runs off into the woods. Hearing the sounds from the village, Frankenstein realizes it's a fair and declares it a stroke of good luck, telling Hans that, with so many people about, they won't draw any attention. Sure enough, when they travel through the village, no one gives them a second glance and they're able to pass through without any hassle.

The two of them drive on through the woods beyond the village and spot the chateau past the tree-line. When they arrive at the front of the building, Frankenstein sees that the place looks as if it's been vandalized. He walks across the bridge leading to the front door, while Hans grabs their baggage and follows after him. When he opens the ivy-covered door and steps inside, he sees it has, indeed, been ransacked, and walks into a room across from the foyer to find it's been stripped bare. He then heads out and around the bottom of the staircase to a door in a corner that leads down to his old laboratory to find it broken down and filled with cobwebs, as well as an effigy of him hanging from the ceiling. He solemnly intones, "Why can't they leave me alone? Why can't they ever leave me alone?" Once he's back upstairs, Hans asks Frankenstein to tell him what happened that caused him to be forever banished from Karlstaad. Deciding to satisfy his curiosity, Frankenstein tells him he decided long ago that, in order to succeed in his goal of disproving the long-held theories about life and the origin of the life-force, he had to create a living creature in his laboratory, adding that he once managed to succeed. He admits that the creature he made was of a crude sort but that he believes he was successful in what he set out to do, although he didn't have much time to really prove if he succeeded, as his creature was destroyed. He goes on to tell Hans that he brought his creature to life through the energy of a powerful electric storm that had been building for days, which he found a way to harness.

The movie then flashes back to that fateful night, as Frankenstein is shown lowering a big, bandaged body in a glass casing down from the ceiling and onto the bed of an electrical apparatus. Once he puts it into place, he walks over to the wall and turns a wheel that gets the electricity sparking between two poles, activating the equipment. He then walks over to a lever and throws it, raising up several apparatuses on the other side of the room, and throws a couple of more that opens up the roof and lifts the device meant to catch and channel the lightning up through it. He lowers down a large device that connects the tops of the two poles on either side of the body, and a few seconds later, lightning strikes and a powerful electrical current is sent through the equipment, creating sparks and flashes throughout the lab and energizing the poles around the body. Another flash of lightning adds even more electrical energy and sends it into the body. Frankenstein eagerly watches the body's face and is thrilled when he sees a flash of consciousness, as the one visible eye blinks and scans the room. Frankenstein disengages the equipment, moves the casing containing his newly-animated being into an upright position, and opens it. The creature slowly but surely starts to move his limbs, reaching forward and grabbing the edge of the case with his left hand, which sparks from the electrical energy coursing through him, and steps out of the casing. Not used to his limbs yet, he falls to his knees when he steps out onto the floor and Frankenstein sees to him. After a dissolve, the creature is shown wandering about the lab, looking at everything around him, as Frankenstein watches from nearby and writes in his notebook. The creature proves to still be uncoordinated and clumsy, knocking over a chair behind him and stumbling down a small flight of stairs leading down to a lower part of the floor. Getting up and shaking it off, he notices a flame flickering out of the end of a gaslight in the wall and curiously approaches it. He then reaches out and touches it, only to recoil and snarl in pain. Angered, he rips the pipe out of the wall.

Later, as the creature sits in a small, straw-covered corner of the lab, Frankenstein brings him some food, which includes a plate of small chunks of meat and a bowl full of grue. The creature first goes for the grue, scooping up a handful and putting it to his mouth, only to decide he doesn't like the way it tastes and promptly spits it out. He then tries the meat, but decides he doesn't like it either. Sitting up back in his corner, he surprises Frankenstein when he rises to his feet, shuffles over to a large slab of prime rib on the table, and tears him off a piece of it. Some time passes and Frankenstein is shown to have fallen asleep on a cot near the stairs leading out of the lab. When he awakens, the first thing he does is head over to where the creature sleeps, only to find no sign of him. Realizing he wandered outside, Frankenstein rushes out to find him. Searching the fields near his chateau, he comes across the bodies of slaughtered sheep strewn about and sees the creature feeding on one near the edge of the woods. Unfortunately, his actions have attracted the attention of the sheep herder and the authorities, who arrive and promptly fire at the creature, hitting him in the head. Frankenstein rushes to his creation's aid, only for a following rifle shot to clip him in the arm and render him unable to keep the men away from the creature, whom they try to restrain. A police constable informs Frankenstein he's under arrest, when the creature flings the men off him and stomps into the woods. The constable draws a gun but Frankenstein knocks the weapon out of his hand. The others chase the creature through the woods and up onto a cliff, where they fire on him again, sending him toppling over the edge. That's where the flashback ends, and Frankenstein tells Hans he was charged with assaulting a police officer, as well as working against God, and ordered to leave and never return. He adds that he worked and saved until he could start again, and insists he hasn't been beaten yet.

Though Hans thinks it a bad idea, he and Frankenstein head back into the village in order to eat at the inn. To placate his assistant's worries, Frankenstein stops by a booth and buys a couple of masks for themselves. They then head inside the inn, take a table in the back (on the wall behind them, you can see the mask that was featured in The Kiss of the Vampire), and give the harried and grouchy landlord their order. Frankenstein then looks into the room to his right and is surprised to see the burgomaster sitting at a table, having a drink with his wife and the chief of police, who happens to have been the constable he encountered that day years ago. The burgomaster puts his arm around his wife's shoulders and suddenly, Frankenstein becomes enraged, telling Hans that the ring he's wearing on his hand is his. His outburst catches the attention of a couple of constables, who inform their chief, while Hans tries to calm Frankenstein, who becomes irate and stands up, declaring the burgomaster stole the ring. The police chief shows up and is taken aback when Frankenstein demands he arrest the burgomaster, calling him a thief. At first, he thinks the man is merely drunk, but when he looks closer at what little of his face he can see due to the mask, he realizes he knows him. With that, Hans flings a tray at him and he and Frankenstein rush out of the inn. They take refuge in a tent where Prof. Zoltan, a hypnotist, is giving a performance, making a hypnosis subject cluck like a hen and then shows how far under hypnosis he is when he takes a needle and sticks it into his arm, the man not reacting at all, even when he twists it around. Frankenstein and Hans move to the back of the crowd, as Zoltan tells the man to act as though he were the Baron's creation, causing him to stomp around stiffly. After that, Zoltan awakens the man from his trance and has him rejoin his friends in the audience. He next asks for two volunteers and, spotting the two masked men in the back, asks for them to join him on the stage. With no other recourse, the two of them do as they're told and walk onto the stage with him. But, before Zoltan can begin, the police chief and his constables enter and stop the performance, forcing the audience to leave by the back entrance. Zoltan angrily protests, but when it's revealed he doesn't have a license to put on his show, he's placed under arrest. By this point, Frankenstein and Hans have ducked out of the tent.

Later that night, the burgomaster is preparing to join his wife in bed, when he hears a commotion outside his bedroom door and is shocked when someone barges in. He's all the more shocked when the person slams the door and turns around, revealing himself to be Frankenstein. The Baron announces that he's come for his property, noting that all of the furniture and carpeting in the bedroom, including the bed itself, belongs to him. Opening up the wardrobe, he sees that the clothes are his as well, and accuses the burgomaster of stealing everything from him, while the burgomaster argues that his property was confiscated. His wife begins screaming hysterically in the next room and Frankenstein yells at her to be quiet and shuts the door. The burgomaster threatens to send for the police but the chief is already there, now knowing that Frankenstein was the man he dealt with earlier. He prepares to enjoy arresting him and making him regret he ever returned to Karlstaad, when Frankenstein shoves the burgomaster away, quickly bolts through the double-doors to the bedroom, and shuts them, placing a chair under the handles. As the burgomaster and police chief attempt to break it down, Frankenstein opens the bedroom window, creates a makeshift rope by tying the bedspread and sheets together, and then ties that to the foot of the bed. He then bids the burgomaster's wife, who's been sitting in bed, watching him with an excited interest, good night and uses the rope to make his way down to the ground below the window. The force of him doing this pulls the bed across the floor, but the woman is more excited and giddy than anything else. The men manage to break down the door but, by this point, Frankenstein has rendezvoused with Hans at the fair and the two of them head up to the mountains, the only place Frankenstein believes they'll be safe.

They hike up the mountains all night long, and by the next morning, they're so tired and sore that they decide to stop and rest for a little bit. Across the way, they spot the beggar girl from before, who motions for them to follow her. With a storm coming, they need to find shelter in case of an avalanche and decide to do as she asks. She leads them to a cave in the rocks, one which has plenty of straw on the floor for warmth. The storm starts to build up and Frankenstein figures they'd best get some rest, as they might have to stay there for some time. The girl offers them both a piece of bread, but when Hans asks her if she has enough for herself, she motions to her ear and mouth and mumbles, indicating she can't hear or answer him. She then takes a spot across from them, as they all bed down and wait for the storm to pass. Some time later, when the storm is over, the girl gets up and quietly slips away to another part of the cave. Frankenstein then awakens and sees the girl is gone, only to hear her mumbling nearby. He follows the sound to another chamber and sees her crouched at a corner, seemingly talking to someone on the other side. Walking over there, he's not really expecting to see anything, but is shocked when he looks up. He calls to Hans, who quickly joins him, and he then sees why Frankenstein is so excited: the "person" the girl is talking to is none other than the form of his creation, frozen in a wall of ice. Seeing he's perfectly preserved, Frankenstein decides to restore life to him by taking him back to the chateau, and they build up a large fire in order to thaw him out and use a makeshift stretcher built out of logs to remove him from the cave and carry him down the mountain.

It's another stormy night when they manage to get him back to the chateau and repair the laboratory equipment as best as they can, with Frankenstein surgically repairing his brain from where it was damaged by the bullets. By the time the storm reaches its peak outside, they've placed him in the same casing in which he was originally brought to life and connect the wires to him. Forced to do everything manually, Frankenstein throws a turning wheel on the wall and sends Hans up to the roof to aim and activate the apparatus meant for catching the lightning. He returns back down to the lab and Frankenstein, again, turns the wheel on the wall. The two of them see that electricity is surging down into the creature, but when the surge becomes too strong, Frankenstein has Hans switch it off so he can remove one of the wires and then has him switch it back on. As the beggar girl watches from nearby, it appears to be working, as the creature's hand convulses and grips a couple of times, but once the storm has passed, it's apparent all is not well. The creature doesn't react when Frankenstein waves his hand in front of his face or when he puts a lit candle to his hand. Frankenstein becomes frustrated, knowing that it's due to the damage inflicted upon his brain from the bullets and that, while he repaired it, he hasn't recreated the life spark. Being so close, he refuses to give up, and heads upstairs to try to come up with a solution to the problem. Hans follows him, while the girl remains behind, forlornly looking over the creature's body and rubbing his chin. Upstairs, Frankenstein tries to figure out a way to reactivate the creature's brain. Hans suggests a physical shock but Frankenstein believes that a mental shock is needed, and then remembers Prof. Zoltan.

At that very moment, Zoltan is packing up his show, as he's being forced to leave Karlstaad, and when he hears someone knocking at the door, believes it's the authorities trying to hurry him along. The knocking persists until he answers, and it turns out to be Frankenstein. Zoltan remembers him from the other day but is shocked when he reveals who he is, as he knows all about him and how he was exiled from the area. He tells him that he's been run out of town as well and he's to be out of town by sundown, showing disdain for the burgomaster and writing off the trial he received as a joke. Frankenstein then tells him that he has a challenge for his hypnotic skills and that he'll be allowed to live safely in his house if he succeeds. Though Zoltan is initially reluctant to head up to the chateau in order to perform the hypnosis, when Frankenstein suggests he might not be up to the challenge, he insists he is. With that, he accompanies Frankenstein back to the chateau and is led down to the laboratory, where he's introduced to his subject. The minute he sets eyes on the creature, he recoils in terror and nearly runs away, but Frankenstein stops him. Though reluctant to cooperate, saying the creature isn't human, Frankenstein insists he has a good brain and excellent eyes, adding that he wants him to stimulate a reaction in his brain and get it working again. Zoltan decides to take up the challenge and asks for a light and a mirror. In the next scene, he shines a light back and forth across the creature's eyes, telling him to sleep and to do as he says when he awakens him. He again tells him to sleep and takes the light off his eyes, his head drooping forward. Zoltan smugly proclaims to them that he told them he could do it, but is surprised when Frankenstein tells him to awaken the creature immediately. He leans in close to the creature's face and tells him to awaken. The creature suddenly bolts up, screaming in agony while grabbing at his head and flails around the room. Frankenstein tells Hans to stop him, afraid he might hurt himself, and while Hans struggles to grab onto and subdue him, Frankenstein pours some chloroform on a rag and puts it on the creature's face, knocking him unconscious. He explains that he was in pain because his brain hadn't yet healed from the surgery and offers Zoltan some brandy in celebration for his success. Zoltan follows Frankenstein and Hans upstairs, leaving the girl alone with the incapacitated creature.

Upstairs, as Frankenstein and Hans have their brandy with Zoltan, the professor mentions how Frankenstein will make a fortune off the creature by putting him on exhibition in various venues across the world. Frankenstein says he means to use the creature in his research, but Zoltan says that's not good enough, at least not for him. Not understanding what he means, Frankenstein demands Zoltan explain himself and he tells him that, while the creature will understand him, he won't do as he says. He offers to show him when he awakens, in the meantime asking for another brandy. Later, when the creature has regained consciousness, Frankenstein tries to get the creature to perform the simple task of standing up from the chair. The creature doesn't react at all to this, but when Zoltan adds, "Do as he says," he immediately stands up. Zoltan then tells him to walk across the room and he does, and he stops when Zoltan orders him to, as he's about to fall over the edge of the raised section of the floor they're on. Further obeying Zoltan, he turns around, walks back to the chair, sits down, and closes his eyes. Frankenstein, now seeing that Zoltan does, indeed, have him by the throat, asks what he wants. Zoltan proposes a partnership wherein they profit off the creature and split the money among himself, Frankenstein, and Hans. Reluctantly, Frankenstein accepts, despite Hans' objections. Zoltan asks that they shake hands on the agreement but Frankenstein says he's given his word and that's good enough. Zoltan, however, continues to get progressively drunk on brandy, delighting in the pickle he's created for the Baron.

That night, while Frankenstein and Hans are sleeping, Zoltan, now so drunk that he's almost staggering, comes downstairs to the laboratory. Showing just how cruel he truly is, he walks into the space near the stairs where the beggar girl sleeps and scares her by shouting in her face. Laughing drunkenly, he walks over to the creature, taking a swig straight from the bottle, and, making him look at him, into his eyes, he orders him to go down to the village and steal gold. He also tells him where to find it and, in the next scene, the creature heads down to the village and breaks into a house. At that moment, a drunken man is evicted from a pub and told to go home. Reluctantly, he starts to do as he's told, stumbling into the street, but is horrified when he sees the creature coming down the street ahead of him, his arms filled with golden items. Panicking, the man runs back to the pub and bangs on the door, yelling to be let back in. The bartender, naturally, thinks he's being stubborn about going home and refuses to let him in, and the man stumbles up against the wall, watching the creature walk past him. Fortunately for him, he ignores him and continues on his way, the man passing out once he's gone. The creature returns to the chateau and to the lab, where Zoltan has fallen asleep. His clomping around wakes Zoltan and, when he faces him, the creature shoves the golden objects into his arms and returns to his space in the lab. Zoltan, needless to say, is ecstatic that his plan worked so well. The next morning, Hans comes downstairs and is told by Frankenstein to have Zoltan see him when he wakes up. They both admit that they don't like the stranglehold Zoltan currently has over them but Frankenstein says that, as long as Zoltan is of use, he intends to keep him around. Not too long afterward, Zoltan does come down and Frankenstein gives him a list of tests he wishes to perform on the creature. Stupidly, Zoltan mentions the creature may be tired after the previous night, and when Frankenstein notes he should have had a good rest, the professor quickly evades suspicion by agreeing with him. At that very moment, the drunken man is talking with the chief of police about what happened, and though his constable laughs when he mentions having seen a man he says was ten or twelve feet tall, he listens intently and tells the man to continue with his story.

Come nightfall, the girl, again, stumbles across Zoltan giving instructions to the creature and quickly ducks and hides. Zoltan tells the creature to punish some "bad men" in the village, specifically the burgomaster and the chief of police, and tells him to do so without being heard or seen. He then sends the creature out, as the girl watches from her little nook, only to be found out by Zoltan. Commenting that it's fortunate she can't hear him, he notes how pretty she is and traps her up against the wall, saying she won't complain if he touches her. But, just as he's about to have his way with her, he decides not to, saying, "Why should I waste my time on trash like you? I'll be able to take my pick soon." He walks away, leaving the severely shaken girl shivering in the corner. Meanwhile, down in the village, the creature bursts through the burgomaster's bedroom window, stomps over to the bed, grabs him, lifts him up, and tosses him across the room, as his terrified wife watches. Struggling to his feet, the burgomaster grabs a large vase and tries to use it to fend off the creature when he comes around the bed, but it bounces off his massive chest like a rubber ball. He tries to run for it but the creature grabs him and smacks him to the floor with a powerful blow to the face, before trapping him against the wall and slamming him against it until he's totally lifeless. He tosses his body aside and leaves the house, while the burgomaster's wife has passed out on the bed. The film then switches to the police station, where the constable on duty inside is shown to be bored from having nothing to do. There's a guard outside as well, but he hears the sound of the burgomaster's wife screaming and leaves to see what's going on. Inside the station, the constable fools around, seeing how the police chief's uniform looks on him and mocks how the chief does everything the burgomaster tells him. But then, the creature sneaks into the police station, appearing behind him in the mirror's reflection, and grabs his face from behind. After a cutaway showing Zoltan tossing around in a drunken sleep at the chateau and awaking with a start, the creature is shown leaving the station, the constable dead on the floor. While Zoltan grabs yet another bottle of booze, the police chief is shown talking to the burgomaster's hysterical wife, who describes her husband's murderer as a monster rather than a man.

When the creature returns to the lab with bloody hands, Zoltan is horrified, saying that he didn't mean for him to kill them. Panicking, he grabs the golden items he's been hiding and tries to wipe the blood off the creature's hand with the straw, when Frankenstein enters the lab. Seeing the gold in Zoltan's arms and the blood on the creature's hands, he realizes what's happened and chases after the professor when he tries to run for it. Hans inadvertently blocks Zoltan's path, allowing Frankenstein to grab and punch him in the nose, before shoving him and telling him to get out. He angrily chases Zoltan upstairs, flings open the door, and forces him to leave. Zoltan, wiping his bleeding nose, growls, "I'll kill you. I'll kill you for this!", before ducking outside. Frankenstein heads back down to the lab, where the girl is now cleaning the creature's hands and tells Hans that they need to pack up and leave. Once they leave the girl alone with the creature, Zoltan appears above the grating in the ceiling above his section of the lab and calls to him. Slowly but surely, the creature hears him and looks up. The girl does so too and runs off upon seeing Zoltan, who commands the creature to open the grating in order to let him in. The girl runs to Frankenstein and tries to warn him about what's happening, but then, the creature appears in the doorway, brandishing a spire he broke from the grating. Frankenstein pushes the girl aside and jumps over the table behind him when the creature comes at him, stabbing the spire into the table. He quickly grabs an oil lantern, removes the glass from its top, and cranks up the wick to the point where it's basically a small torch. He forces the creature back with the flame and sends him out the door. Zoltan, ignoring Frankenstein's warning not to get in the creature's way, orders him to go back and kill the Baron, but when the creature again recoils from the lantern, he impales Zoltan with the spire instead. After Zoltan collapses, the creature walks out the door and Frankenstein sends Hans after him, while he goes back down into the lab and grabs some chloroform. But, when he heads back upstairs, the police arrive and charge him with the murders. Restrained by a constable, he tries to warn the chief that the village is in danger but is knocked out with a blow to the back of the head and is taken away.

Hans follows the creature's trail up into the mountains and back to the cave where the girl was hiding and where he was frozen. He's none too happy to see Hans when he shows up at the mouth of the cave but the girl manages to talk him down when he motions to Hans in a threatening manner. Hans then tries to make the girl understand that they're to follow him back to the chateau. At the jailhouse, a constable brings in a man who's raving about having seen an enormous, man-like monster climbing up the mountain. Having heard his description, the police chief now knows that Frankenstein's creation is the one behind the killings and tells Frankenstein that they're going to hunt him down and burn him alive. Then, while Hans leads the girl and the creature back to the chateau, Frankenstein watches the party form in the village square and depart. It seems hopeless, given how he's locked in his cell, but then he remembers the chloroform he brought with him and, seeing that the man left to guard him is sitting in the chief's chair, smoking a cigar, and not paying much attention, he comes up with a plan. He makes a sound that gets the guard's attention and, when the guard looks in the cell, he sees that Frankenstein is apparently asleep on his cot. He also sees a valuable coin lying on the floor next to the bars and reaches down to get it. Frankenstein then grabs his hand, pulls his arm through the bars, and puts a cloth doused with chloroform over his mouth and nose. As Hans guides the creature, who's carrying the girl, down into the lab and has him place her in her little nook, Frankenstein manages to escape the jailhouse and spies a small, horse-drawn wagon that pulls up nearby. After the driver disembarks and walks away, Frankenstein climbs into the wagon and pulls on the horse's reins. He rides out of town and into the path leading into the woods, roaring right through the hunting party and forcing them to scatter, though they immediately start chasing him.

At the lab, something is going wrong with the creature, as he's walking around, holding his head, and moaning, as though he were in pain. The girl, seeing this, grabs a bottle of wine from one of the crates and brings it over to where the creature is slumped down against the wall. At first, when she pours it in his mouth, he knocks the bottle away and spits it out, but then, when he really tastes it, he crawls over to the puddle of wine on the floor and picks up and sips some more of it. He gets up and stumbles over to the metal bands that once held him, pushes past the wires that brought him to life, and grabs another bottle out of the crate and starts downing it. Frankenstein arrives at the chateau and rushes inside. Hans leads him downstairs, where the creature is now in a drunken rage, throwing bottles and crates about the room. Seeing that he's out of control, Frankenstein orders Hans to take the girl and leave, which he does reluctantly. He carefully approaches the creature, who's stomping around and smashing everything he can lay his hands on, including the electrical equipment, which is now sparking and flaming everywhere. Spying the bottle of chloroform from earlier, Frankenstein tries to go for it but the creature, thinking it's more wine, lunges for and grabs it. Frankenstein tries to stop him from drinking it but he shoves him away and downs it. He immediately tosses it away and groans in pain, stumbling forward and angrily throwing a bale of hay, smashing large bottles of liquor in the corner. Frankenstein rushes at the creature and tries to subdue him, but gets tossed aside, as the liquid streaming across the floor heads towards a couple of wires connected to an electrical panel. As the creature stumbles up to the lab's door, grabbing onto one of the chains hanging from the ceiling, Frankenstein tries to splash the alcohol away from the wires but the panel shorts out, and wooden boards from the ceiling fall in from the creature's yanking on the chains. The panicked creature falls over the railing lining the top of the stairs and Frankenstein rushes up to the door, trying to clear away the debris that's fallen in front of it. Hans calls to him from the other side but Frankenstein, again, tells him to escape with the girl. He sees the creature stumbling towards the fire that's now out of control in the back of the lab, all while yelling in both pain and terror, and he uses a chain to swing over to him. He tries to find a way to help, but at this point, they're both clearly trapped, and the creature yells as the flames engulf him. Hans and the girl rush out of the building, as Frankenstein himself is overcome by the flames, and by this point, the hunting party has arrived as well. When Hans and the girl reach a safe distance, they look back at the chateau and watch when the lab explodes and the building collapses in on itself. Hans laments that Frankenstein was beaten after all, and the film ends on a shot of the burning wreck of the chateau.

In stark contrast to the totally forgettable score he did for Nightmare, Don Banks' music for The Evil of Frankenstein is, without question, one of its strongest aspects. It's a magnificent, sweeping score, with a really memorable main theme, made up of screeching strings and a rhythmic pounding that pops in occasionally, that manages to sound both powerful as well as quite poignant and even tragic, alluding to how Frankenstein is doomed to fail in his experiments, no matter what. It also has low, horn music that fits well with the creature's big, plodding, and clumsy nature, eerie, warbling music for the scenes involving Prof. Zoltan's hypnotic control of the creature, and the music for the action scenes, particularly the climax in the laboratory, is really thrilling and rivals some of James Bernard's best work for the studio. The movie itself may be flawed but I dare anyone not to see that it has a great score working for it, if nothing else.

The Evil of Frankenstein is definitely not one of Hammer's absolute greatest movies, as it has more than its fair share of flaws: a problematic story with character motivations and portrayals that don't always work the way they should, a reliance on past iconography and plot elements that does cause both the series and the studio itself to lose a bit of their identity, a monster that's laughable in design and shallow in characterization, and a lack of the usual flair you get from the production design in these films and from the director. But, all that said, the movie is also hardly one of the studio's worst, as it has the always reliable Peter Cushing, good acting from most of the rest of the cast, high production values and sets that do serve their purpose well, elements that could make this more appealing for those who aren't the biggest fans of the Hammer aesthetic, some exciting and well-done sequences, and a really superlative music score. All in all, it is a mixed bag of a movie, but one where I think the good outweighs the bad just enough to make it worth a watch.