Fittingly, save for The Horror of Frankenstein, this was the last of the series I saw, having it ordered it off of Amazon along with many of the other movies. As with all of them, I had seen clips of it in The History of Sci-Fi and Horror, specifically a moment where Frankenstein removes a brain and tosses it into a pan on the floor, only to then step on and upend it, before removing another brain from a bubbling jar of water sitting to his side. I also remembered Butch Patrick describing the plot as Frankenstein literally being, "The madman in charge of the madhouse," as well as noting that, shortly before his death, Peter Cushing said he would have liked to have played the role one last time afterward, although he shuddered to think how evil he would have become by that point. In any case, when I saw Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell for the first time, I thought it was enjoyable but nothing amazing, with little that stuck with me, unlike all of the previous movies. Looking at it in retrospect, I would say that it is something of the Frankenstein series equivalent of Scars of Dracula, in that it does almost nothing different and is instead content to tell a very familiar story, one that's cobbled together from various elements of past movies. However, I do think it's a better movie than Scars, coming off as more well-crafted thanks to the welcome return of Terence Fisher in the director's chair and also because Hammer, despite the bad shape they were in at the time, seemed to have managed to up the production values somewhat, as it doesn't look as cheap as some of the films we've looked at recently. Ultimately, it's a middle-of-the-road movie: entertaining, but not awesome. While there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it is a shame that it couldn't have been better given its historical context, as this is very much the end of an era in many ways, most notably as the last gasp of the Hammer Gothic horror film.
(Note: thanks to Blogger doing yet another unneeded and unwanted update that's completely screwed up how I align images with paragraphs, I've had to resort a different, not so neat method to compensate. I hope you don't find it too hard to read, as I tried my best to keep it cohesive. If you do, I apologize, but it's just the way it is.)
Upon receiving a cadaver from a grave-robber, intending to use it in some experiments, young would-be scientist Simon Helder is found out by a police sergeant and arrested on a charge of "sorcery." The judge sentences Helder to five years in an insane asylum, after which he is to be evaluated for release. Upon arrival, Helder runs afoul of both Adolf Klauss, the extremely perverse director, and Ernst and Hans, two abusive orderlies who decide to put him through an initiation ritual that consists of bathing him with a fire-hose. However, the abuse is halted by the arrival of Dr. Carl Victor, the asylum's doctor, who is actually the supposedly dead Baron Frankenstein, having managed to secure his position at the very asylum he was placed in for his experiments by gaining incriminating information on the staff, particularly Klauss. After having Helder's injuries tended to and examining him for any further damage, Frankenstein, learning of his medical experience and not even trying to hide his true identity, makes him his personal assistant. However, it's not long before Helder learns of a secret laboratory hidden behind Frankenstein's office, where the Baron is continuing his controversial experiments. Though initially angry at this intrusion, Frankenstein decides to satisfy Helder's curiosity by showing him his latest subject: Herr Schneider, a brutish, ape-like homicidal maniac who Frankenstein has kept anesthetized and hidden away following an escape attempt that is believed to have killed him. He has grafted onto his arms the hands of Tarmut, a recently deceased inmate who was a talented sculptor, but because his own hands are badly burned and unable to actually do the work, he had to guide his lovely but mute assistant, Sarah, known around the asylum as "Angel," through the process. Being a surgeon himself, Helder offers to help Frankenstein in completing his experiment, which soon involves transplanting the brain of a brilliant but violent inmate into Schneider's body. But, after the creature recovers, it soon becomes clear that the body and brain aren't mixing together, making the man just as potentially dangerous as he once was. Moreover, Helder soon learns that there are no limits to what Frankenstein will do to ensure that his experiment succeeds, as he comes up with a plan that is absolutely appalling, especially given a secret kernel of knowledge he has.
After the failure of The Horror of Frankenstein, as well as that of a number of films where they'd upped the ante in terms of gore and sensuality in an attempt to appeal to the exploitation market, Hammer decided to have one last go at the Frankenstein story, one that went back to basics. Although the film is quite gory, especially in its uncut version, and there is a darkly perverse sexual angle to aspects of the story, it is a movie made very much in the classic Hammer mold, mainly due to both the return of Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Terence Fisher as director. It also acts as a last hurrah for the team that had made so many of the company's greatest films: it would be the last screenplay Anthony Hinds would write for the company under his John Elder pseudonym, the last film longtime editor James Needs would cut for them, and one of composer James Bernard's final scores for them. They would all rejoin Fisher for one final romp before going their separate ways, with their own individual careers winding down shortly afterward. But, most notably, while the company would linger on for the remainder of the 70's before going under, this is the final Gothic horror film Hammer produced, truly putting a cap on a style and approach that had been going on for nearly twenty years.
Following his second traffic accident after shooting Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, as well as growing problems with alcohol, Hammer was unwilling to hire Terence Fisher anymore, and it was only at Peter Cushing's insistence that he was allowed to come back for Monster from Hell. Despite his age (he was pushing seventy at this point) and ill health, Fisher persevered through the shooting, although his wife, Morag, who accompanied him to the studio every day in order to look after him and help him with the little things, knew it would be his last movie as director, and she was right. Sadly, she also said in an interview with author Wheeler Winston Dixon that Fisher enjoyed making Monster from Hell and that he very much wanted to keep on working, but was simply unable to. And this is where I bring the parallels between Fisher's career and that of Ishiro Honda full-circle. Around this same time,when Fisher returned after a hiatus to unknowingly end both his career and the series of movies he'd began nearly two decades before, Honda, after having gone into virtual retirement, found himself in almost the exact situation, as he returned to the Godzilla franchise to direct Terror of Mechagodzilla, the final entry in the Showa era of films, before going into full retirement from active directing. But, while Honda would continue to work in the film industry when he began assisting Akira Kurosawa during his career renaissance in the 80's, and lived to 1993, Fisher died of a heart attack in 1980 at the age of 76.
In his final turn as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Peter Cushing gives what could very well be his best performance in the role, as it is his most nuanced, much more complex than his previous depictions as either an unscrupulous sociopath or a morally ambiguous scientist. His first appearance in the movie doesn't come until over seventeen minutes in, the longest wait for his introduction in the series, but when he does, it's made clear that it is he, not director Adolf Klauss, who is in charge of the insane asylum. Arriving in time to see the orderlies Ernst and Hans abusing Simon Helder by spraying him with a high pressure fire-hose, he immediately puts a stop to it, tells Sarah to tend to Helder's injuries, and admonishes not only the orderlies but also Klauss himself when he finds him attempting to have his way with one of the female inmates in his office. He wields the incriminating knowledge he has about Klauss, which has allowed him to work as the asylum's medical practitioner, with an iron fist, threatening to expose him for both his and the staff's abuse of the patients, as well as for not paying off the last consignment of medical supplies ordered, making him unable to take the latest order. He also uses his influence to force Klauss to officially make Helder his assistant, whom he becomes interested in first as a patient and then as a fellow doctor. As his assistant, Frankenstein intends for him to take some of the workload off him, so he can devote more of his time to "other work... my own, private work." Unsurprisingly, that "private work" is a continuation of the experiments that had him committed to the asylum to begin with. The subject of his experiment is the brutish inmate Herr Schneider, whom he dug up from the prison's graveyard after he supposedly died during an attempted escape, removed much of his eyes which were impaled on a spiked railing below his window, and replaced his hands with that of another inmate who recently died. Now, of course, he's about to move on to the brain.
Frankenstein tells Helder that he will never give up on his work, but when you look at him, you can see the toll his undying devotion to it, coupled with his duties at the asylum, have been taking on him. Peter Cushing's haggard, unhealthy look during this period, along with the wig he wears, helps with the notion that, by this point, the Baron is a very weathered, weary, and tired man who's been put through the wringer. Worst of all for him, his hands are badly burned and covered with sores (possibly
from the climax of
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed), forcing him to guide Sarah in performing the surgery involving Schneider's hands. However, when he learns of Helder's surgical expertise, he allows him to aid in his experiments, which results in Schneider acquiring a new pair of eyes and then, a new brain, particularly that of the brilliant inmate, Prof. Durendel. Conveniently, Durendel hangs himself and Frankenstein takes the opportunity to have his
brain placed into Schneider's body, after which he genuinely thanks Helder for helping him, a sentiment he's never displayed before. He looks forward to the outcome with bated breath, intoning, "If I've succeeded this time, then every sacrifice will have been worthwhile." When the creature regains consciousness, it's clear that Durendel's mind is active within him, but the body and mind don't gel together, which devastates Frankenstein and leads him to do something he's never done
before: doubt himself, referring to it as, "Another failure." Most surprisingly of all, he listens to Helder when he insists he lie down and rest, telling him he's worn out and is probably just impatient with the progress of the experiment. When Durendel then attacks Helder in a manner similar to how Schneider would kill his victims, Frankenstein, after subduing him, figures that the body is actually taking over the brain but believes there is a way to salvage the essence of Durendel, have him be "reborn": mate him with Sarah.
Although he may have more shades to his character than before, there's no denying that Frankenstein is as unscrupulous and sociopathic as ever, despite telling Helder early on that he's not a murderer. Given how he saw to it that he acquired Schneider's body after having pronounced him dead to the asylum officials, we can easily surmise that he, in some way, also contributed to the death of Tarmut, the man whose hands he grafted onto him. It's especially easy to think so since, once
Durendel's brain is removed, Helder discovers that among his belongings is a medical form upon which Frankenstein had written his condition as being incurable. He believes Frankenstein deliberately left it there for Durendel to see, leading to his hanging himself, and thus, solving the issue of the brain for the creature. Frankenstein defends his actions by saying that Durendel was incurable because
he couldn't cure him, and asks Helder if he himself could have done so, either for
him or any of the other patients in the place, which he's forced to admit he couldn't, and Frankenstein then basically says, "Well, then there you are." But, as awful as that is, it's nothing compared to Frankenstein's plan for Durendel and Sarah near the climax, especially when he reveals to Helder that he knows the cause for Sarah's muteness is due to a traumatic shock she suffered when her own father attempted to rape her. He also says that another such shock could bring her speech back but that, "Now, her real function as a woman could be fulfilled," combining his long established misogyny with his cold, scientific detachment. He even admits that Helder is likely right about his being mad but also says that he's never felt so excited about an experiment since he began his work years before. Unable to go along with this idea, Helder intends to turn Sarah over to Klauss for protection, only for Frankenstein to then inform him that Klauss is Sarah's perverse father, whose vile acts are the reason why Frankenstein is able to do whatever he wants there. With that, Helder is only able to stand by helplessly, as Frankenstein plans to use certain drugs to make Durendel more apt to rape Sarah. He also warns him not to do anything stupid while he's in town, though it's more of a threat, with how he taps him with his cane for emphasis.
When Frankenstein returns to the asylum, however, he finds the creature has broken out of his cage after an attempt by Helder to kill him. He's attacked when he enters the lab and, by the time he regains consciousness, the rioting inmates have completely destroyed the creature, and Frankenstein can do nothing but stop their attack and tell them to go back to their cells. But, despite this, when Helder finds him bandaging a nasty wound to his arm, Frankenstein is in high
spirits, talking about what he thinks went wrong. Helder reminds him that his creature is dead now, but Frankenstein's dismissive, absentminded response is, "Hmm? Oh, well, that's of no importance. Best thing that could have happened to him. He was of no use to us, or to himself. But...
next time!" Helder is shocked at this but Frankenstein simply says, "Why, of course!", before beginning to sweep up in order to start over again, pondering about a possible source of "new material," saying, "Herr Abner in 106, perhaps. No? Oh, well, no matter. There's plenty of time to decide that. Plenty of time." And thus, the series ends with the ever obsessed Baron pontificating his next experiment, having now certainly become totally mad. He wasn't kidding when he told Helder that he would never give up.
The last in a long line of assistants to Baron Frankenstein, Simon Helder (Shane Briant) is unique among them in that he's the only one who was trying to follow in his footsteps before he even met him, as he's arrested while attempting to conduct a similar experiment with a dead body delivered to him by a grave-robber. When brought before a judge, he insists that he's a doctor, one engaged in research for "the good of mankind," and the parallel between him and Frankenstein is not lost on the judge, with Helder going as far as to mention that he has all of the Baron's books and lectures. Fittingly, the court, the same that condemned Frankenstein, sentences Helder to five years in the same asylum where the Baron was placed. Upon arrival, Helder tries to assure the orderlies, Ernst and Hans, that he's not violent and there's no need to handcuff him, but they do so anyway. He also makes things even worse for himself when he arrogantly demands to see director Adolf Klauss, and manages to do so out of circumstance when Klauss allows him in, thinking he's someone else. With his hands cuffed behind his back, Helder is able to pass himself off as a doctor who's visiting the asylum and learns of Frankenstein's supposed death, only for the director to then discover when he offers him a drink that he's an inmate. Once Klauss orders Ernst to remove him from his office, he and Hans decide to put Helder through a very brutal and painful initiation: bathe him with a high-pressure fire hose, which knocks him about a back room and causes nasty, bleeding abrasions on his body. But, the arrival of Dr. Carl Victor puts a stop to it, and after reprimanding the orderlies and telling the other inmates to go back to their rooms, he tells Sarah to take him to his office/surgery and to tend to his injuries. Once Helder meets the doctor proper and is given a physical examination to ensure there's no serious damage, he reveals that he knows he's Baron Frankenstein, a revelation that Frankenstein doesn't attempt to deny. Hearing that he's attempted to perform some of his experiments, Helder is then told that Frankenstein is officially dead and that he's to refer to him as Dr. Victor. Also he learns that Frankenstein intends to take him under his wing as his assistant, though he's disappointed to learn it's merely in regards to his practice at the asylum.
After his first day on the job, where Frankenstein introduces him to the various inmates, including his "special patients," Helder starts to suspect the nature of the Baron's "private work," which he alluded to earlier. He spots Frankenstein sneaking into his office late at night; witnesses the burial of the inmate known as Tarmut in the prison yard, with Frankenstein being part of the procession, and see that his hands, through which he was able to make lovely wood carvings, have been removed;
and hears bizarre cries in the night, which lead him to discover a hidden laboratory behind the wall of the office. Caught by Frankenstein, Helder tells him he suspected he hadn't given up his old work, and so, Frankenstein shows him the subject of his latest experiment: the ape-like Herr Schneider. Though impressed, when he examines him, Helder notes the slipshod condition of the grafting of Tarmut's hands onto him and thus, Frankenstein shows him his own, damaged hands and how he
had to guide Sarah in performing the actual surgery. That's when Helder offers to lend his own surgical skill, both in putting new eyes into Schneider's head and removing Prof. Durendel's brain following his suicide, with Frankenstein's guidance. But, while Frankenstein congratulates him on his efficiency and talent, Helder also starts to become aware of just how unscrupulous Frankenstein is in getting what he wants, as he finds he left Durendel's medical report in his room,
with his condition labeled as "incurable," prompting the professor to hang himself. But, when Frankenstein asks Helder if he himself could have cured Durendel or any of the other inmates, he has to admit that he couldn't, and so, the matter is dropped. He also congratulates and celebrates his apparent success when Durendel's mind begins working within Schneider's body, but when the Baron becomes despondent when he believes the body is rejecting the brain, Helder insists he may need to be more patient with the process and advises him to get some rest, offering to do his rounds for him. But then, Durendel attacks him in a manner similar to how Schneider would, leading to Frankenstein's believing that the body is taking over the mind and comes up with his awful plan of capturing the essence of Durendel by mating the creature with Sarah.
This is where Helder draws the line, especially when he learns that Sarah's muteness is a result of trauma from her own father trying to rape her, and intends to stop Frankenstein from carrying out his plan by taking Sarah to Klauss for protection... only to learn that he is Sarah's father. With that little factoid, coupled with Frankenstein's plan to give Durendel certain drugs to make him more apt to go for Sarah, Helder finds himself unable to do anything. He does try to warn Durendel of
Frankenstein's plan but the professor is, by this point, incapable of really understanding anything. In a last ditch effort, Helder attempts to kill Durendel, but he fails and the monster gets loose and goes on a rampage through the asylum, ending with him being torn apart by the inmates. And after it's all said and done, both Helder and Sarah can only stand by helplessly, as the obsessive and undeterred Frankenstein begins planning his next, inevitably doomed, experiment.
Among the number of elements in this film that are taken from the past Hammer Frankensteins is the character of Sarah (Madeline Smith), or "Angel," as many of the inmates refer to her, as she's a mute young woman akin to the deaf-mute beggar girl in
The Evil of Frankenstein. Unfortunately, she's also similar to past female leads in that there isn't much to her, mostly due to her muteness. She is seen as a sympathetic character, one who's kind to the inmates, whom she assists Frankenstein in tending to, with many of them having become quite attached to her, especially Prof. Durendel and Tarmut (who gives her a lovely carving he made), and she's also sympathetic towards Helder when he's being abused by the orderlies. Significantly, before Helder becomes involved, she's the only one who knows that Frankenstein is continuing his past experiments, as she helps care for Herr Schneider when he's being kept in the laboratory behind the Baron's office. It's through her that Helder learns what Frankenstein is up to, as he makes her let him enter the lab and look around. She continues her assisting when Helder and Frankenstein begin working together on the creature, with Durendel's affection for Sarah continuing after his brain is put into Schneider's body. You eventually learn from Frankenstein that the reason why the seemingly gentle and harmless professor was labeled as a dangerous inmate was because he found out Sarah's father, director Adolf Klauss, tried to rape her and thus attacked him in a rage. The trauma from that awful attack by her father also resulted in Sarah's muteness but, when he's considering having Durendel rape Sarah himself in order to preserve his essence through breeding, Frankenstein figures that another such shock would bring back her speech. And, arbitrarily, when she walks in on Durendel attempting to kill Helder when he attempts to do the same to him, Sarah does, indeed, regain her speech. However, this development proves to be of little consequence, as Durendel runs amok in the asylum, kills Klauss, and is ultimately killed himself when he approaches Sarah and the inmates believe he's moving to attack. She and Helder are unable to do anything to save him, and afterward, can only stand by when Frankenstein begins planning his next experiment.
At first, asylum director Adolf Klauss (John Stratton) seems like just another of the many simpering, useless, and comedic authority figures often seen in these films, with how he allows Helder to enter his office upon his arrival, not knowing he's a new inmate, and nervously informs him that Baron Frankenstein is dead when asked. He then becomes exasperated when he finds out he's an inmate, admonishing Ernst for letting him in even though he himself called to him, and, after Helder is escorted out, breathlessly intones, "I am surrounded by fools!" But, when Frankenstein returns to the asylum, stops the orderlies' mistreating of Helder, and goes to confront Klauss about it, we see just how darkly perverted a man he is, as Frankenstein finds him having his way with a female inmate. Truly being the one in charge due to the dirt he has on him, Frankenstein admonishes Klauss, telling him he'll leave him flat if he does it again, and also gets on to him for the orderlies' mistreatment of Helder, prompting Klauss to dock both Ernst and Hans a week's pay and to lose their special privileges. After that, Klauss tries to make nice-nice with Frankenstein by offering him some brandy, only for Frankenstein to tell him that he couldn't return to the asylum with the supplies he intended to get because the last consignment hadn't been paid for. Klauss tries to write it off by mentioning how unusual some of his requested items were, which their state allowance isn't typically used for, but when Frankenstein points out one of his own "collector's items," a book of pornography, Klauss agrees to make the payment. He also suggests that Frankenstein get himself an assistant to take off his workload, which he initially declines but then later informs Klauss he has found one: Helder. Klauss objects to this but Frankenstein forces him to sign a paper accepting his appointment to the position. After that, Klauss isn't brought back into the story until near the end, when you learn just how disgusting and monstrous he is when it's revealed Sarah is his daughter and he tried to rape her, resulting in her muteness, which led to Prof. Durendel attacking him and Frankenstein being allowed the free reign he has over the place. And during the climax, when the Schneider/Durendel creature gets loose and rampages through the place, Klauss, who hides himself in his office, gets his long deserved comeuppance when the monster bursts in and slashes his throat open.
As to the other inhabitants of the asylum, among the most notable are Ernst (Philip Voss) and Hans (Christopher Cunningham), the two rather sadistic orderlies who, from the moment they meet him, decide to make Helder's time there hell, especially after he annoys Ernst by twice telling them that there's no need to handcuff him and when he barges in and meets with Klauss, getting him angry at them. They decide to put Helder through the "initiation," with Hans spraying him with a high-pressure hose, while Ernst brings the other inmates in so they can watch and make a spectacle of it. But then, Frankenstein returns in time to catch them and use his influence to make Klauss dock each of them a week's pay and to revoke their special privileges. After that, aside from Ernst discovering that Prof. Durendel has hanging himself, the two of them don't figure much into the plot until the third act, when the monster gets loose and rampages along the grounds. Seeing him tearing up the graves in the prison yard, they warn Klauss of what's going on when he returns to the asylum with a lady, and Hans is told to send the lady home, while Ernst goes to get the firearms. Ultimately, the monster kills Klauss, but Ernst and Hans fire on him, badly wounding him, before the inmates tear him apart.
Though there are a handful of memorable inmates, like Muller (Sydney Bromley), who believes himself to be God, often seen making Christ-like gestures and talking in a very profound manner, and a hag (Lucy Griffiths), who often acts like a sinister witch, as well as an unnamed transvestite (Michael Ward), two in particular are most significant. One is Prof. Durendel (Charles Lloyd-Pack), who, despite having been deemed as dangerous, comes off as a very kindly, sweet old man, one who's just as benevolent as he is a brilliant mathematician, with the walls of his cell covered in complex problems, and musician, playing a lovely tune on a violin that he calls "The Angel," after his nickname for Sarah. The only visibly difficult part of his personality is when he refuses to take his pills, with Frankenstein having to make sure he puts them in his mouth and swallows them. But Frankenstein assures Helder that there are times when Durendel is, "As savage as a wild cat," adding that he attacked Klauss at one point, the motivation of which you find out later after his brain has been placed into Schneider's body following his conveniently hanging himself when Frankenstein is faced with the issue of a brain for his creature.
The other, even though he has only one scene when he's alive, is Tarmut (Bernard Lee), a craftsman of exquisite talent who carved some very lovely wooden sculptures, but when Frankenstein introduces him to Helder, his brain has deteriorated to the point where he can no longer use his hands the way he did. In a very poignant moment, Tarmut gives Sarah one of his loveliest sculptures as a present before the three of them leave his cell, and it seems that was the only bit of joy he had left in him. The next morning, Helder awakens to see Tarmut's body being taken to the prison yard to be buried, a procession that Frankenstein is a part of, suggesting that, as would be the case with Durendel, he may have had a hand in Tarmut's demise. (Incidentally, I call myself a James Bond fan, and yet, when I rewatched this movie, I didn't pick up on the fact that Tarmut is played by Lee, the original M. I think it's time for me to turn in my fan card.)
Like Peter Cushing and Charles Lloyd-Pack, two other familiar Hammer faces turned up here to work with Terence Fisher for the last time. One is Patrick Troughton, who appears in the opening as the grave-robber who brings a corpse to Helder for his experiments but refuses to enter his laboratory, as he's been in there once before and saw what was in there, and simply wants to be paid. Once he has his money, he rushes to an inn and prepares to get drunk, but doesn't get many
swigs down before a police sergeant he tangled at the cemetery catches up with him. The grave-robber makes a full confession on the spot, leading to Helder's arrest. At his trial, you can see the grave-robber as a witness behind him, having already given his testimony. And finally, Peter Madden, who appeared before in
The Kiss of the Vampire and in
Frankenstein Created Woman, is here briefly as the prison coachman who brings Helder to the asylum. When Ernst and Hans come out to fetch him, they ask the coachman if he's violent and when he says he isn't, Hans reminds him that he said the same thing about the last prisoner he brought to them. The coachman apologizes, saying said person was quiet enough in the coach, but assures them that Helder would be no trouble, which he turns out to be half right about, at least in regards to his not being violent.
Dave Prowse has the distinct honor of not only having played Darth Vader in the original
Star Wars trilogy but also for having played more than one monster in the Hammer Frankenstein series (which is especially amazing, considering how they turned him down for such a role earlier). Moreover, the monster he plays in this film is far more interesting than the one in
The Horror of Frankenstein in every way. He starts out as Schneider, a very dangerous, ape-like inmate whom Frankenstein describes as more animal than human, downright Neolithic, and had a nasty habit of stabbing his victims in the face with broken glass. It's revealed he was unbelievably strong, having bent back the iron bars on his cell's window in an escape attempt and clung onto life for ten days before Frankenstein pronounced him "dead," despite having dropped thirty feet and having been in horrible agony afterward. When Helder discovers Frankenstein's hidden lab behind his office, he discovers that Schneider is not dead after all, but was heavily sedated by Frankenstein before he was pronounced dead and buried, only for Frankenstein to have dug him up again in secret. He also removed a sensory section of his brain in order to lessen his pain, removed portions of his eyes, which were damaged by a spiked railing below his window, and replaced his similarly damaged hands with those of Tarmut following his death. With Helder's help, Frankenstein is able to give Schneider some new eyes, though the first thing he does when he regains consciousness after the surgery is attack them. Frankenstein manages to knock him out with some ether and cage him, preparing to give him a new brain.
The pathos for this particular Frankenstein's monster comes about once Prof. Durendel's brain is in Schneider's body, as he's very similar to two previous creatures in the series. He's most similar to Dr. Brandt in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed in how, when Durendel's mind awakens in Schneider's body, he has a moment where the realization of what's happened dawns on him and he's absolutely horrified and distraught to find himself in this monstrous body. Though he's able to
recognize and verbalize who Frankenstein, Helder, and Sarah are, as well as name himself, he's driven to tears over what's become of him, which is further compounded when he finds he can no longer play his beloved violin with Tarmut's hands. He also finds it difficult to write in chalk with those hands, saying that he can't use them, and while he's able write the mathematical problems he used to fiddle around with on a chalkboard, his writing becomes crooked and slanted. It's really
affecting to see how Durendel, who was such a kind, lovely old man who was able to appreciate beauty in both lovely music and perfect mathematics, has now been rendered unable to enjoy them personally due to being stuck in this brutish body, as well as having to speak in a very low, growling voice. And then, Schneider's form begins to take over Durendel's mind, as he gradually becomes more like the dangerous, primitive man he used to be: being monstrously
hungry, violently attacking Helder and trying to stab him in the face, and degrading to the point where he doesn't comprehend Helder's trying to warn him of Frankenstein's plan to mate him with Sarah. This turn of events makes him akin to Karl in
The Revenge of Frankenstein, whose old deformities eventually returned after his mind was placed in a new body, leading him to become a hideous savage. Eventually, when Helder attempts to curtail Frankenstein's plan by killing Durendel,
he gets loose, digs up his old body in the prison yard, enraging him further, and finally exacts his ultimate revenge on Adolf Klauss for having attempted to rape Sarah, before being torn apart by the inmates when he tries to approach and touch her one last time.
The monster is also notable for his design, which is the last thing you'd expect, as Schneider looks like a big, burly Bigfoot with a case of the mange, as he has big chunks of hair missing from both his torso and his lower back, and once Durendel's brain is placed inside him, he goes from having a spot of hair missing on his head to his entire cranium being bald. Having known what he looked like long before I saw the movie, I figured there would be some sort of explanation for why the monster is so ape-like in appearance, that it would be a direct result of Frankenstein's experiments, but I was not expecting it to simply be that that's just how the man looked before his body was made the framework for the monster. And as I've said, Frankenstein's own explanation is that Schneider was simply a very primitive and brutal man. In any case, he is one of the more memorable monsters in this series from a visual standpoint, and because it was a body suit and a mask rather than a makeup job, Dave Prowse was able to get into it much quicker than he was while making The Horror of Frankenstein. The only thing is, because it's a suit and mask rather than makeup, it's not the most convincing-looking design, coming as rather rubbery and hollow in spots.
Like I said earlier, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is pretty much the last movie made in the classic tradition of Hammer, right down to the very story, which, as Dark Corners Reviews on YouTube put it, plays like a greatest hits of the series as a whole. It's especially reminiscent of The Revenge of Frankenstein, with the plot of Frankenstein working as a doctor in a place that allows him to use bits and pieces of his patients in his experiments, as well as the plot-point of the
monster's body and brain unable to coexist together, and
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, with the asylum setting (greatly expanded upon from that film) and the conflict of a brilliant professor's mind being placed in another body, which causes him nothing but anguish. Also, not only is the character of Sarah a throwback to the deaf-mute beggar girl in
The Evil of Frankenstein but so is her close relationship with the monster, and Frankenstein's hands being burned is taken
straight from
Frankenstein Created Woman. But, what really makes the film the last of its kind is that it was Hammer's final Gothic horror. The style had been slowly but surely falling out of favor for some time by this point but, by the time the movie was released in 1974 (several years after it was actually filmed), it was all but extinct in the wake of movies like
The Last House on the Left and especially
The Exorcist. This was truly the final curtain call for the type of movie that Hammer had
built itself on and knowing that makes watching the film a rather poignant experience, especially with its open-ending that provides no finality. You could almost read Frankenstein's plans for future experiments at the end as both Hammer and director Terence Fisher naively thinking they could go on as they had before, when the harsh truth is that their time had run out.
From a style point of view, the movie is not a bad one for Hammer to have retired its Gothic horror trend on, as it has an atmosphere about it that hadn't been present for some time. A big part of that may be how it kind of feels like it's set in a much earlier period than some of the previous movies, with the design and air of the asylum making it come off as almost medieval, but regardless, this one has a feeling of darkness and grimness about it that hearkens all the way back to
the creeping horror of The Curse of Frankenstein, as well as some of the best of the studio's early Gothics. The fog-enshrouded graveyard that the movie opens on is right up there with the similar setting in the first Dracula, and that asylum, which the film never leaves the ground of once Helder is taken there, with its stone walls, claustrophobic corridors, cramped cells, awful, dank, musty conditions, and the presence of an abusive staff, a
sexually perverse director, and the madly obsessive Baron Frankenstein being in charge of it all, makes it feel as though you've entered hell and there's no escape. The look of Frankenstein himself, thanks to Peter Cushing's ragged appearance, works very well in this atmosphere as well, as though being there has had as much of an effect on him as his obsession with his work. The sense of "crude science" that I've mentioned continually when talking about these films is also here again in the operations, and the extreme gore in the film only adds to the movie's skin-crawling feeling.
Although he'd been out of the loop for a few years and was suffering from ill health and alcoholism at the time, Terence Fisher managed to bring his usual measured, efficient craftsman approach to his final film, with cinematography, shots, and edits that, save for a number of tight zooms (which, as Wheeler Winston Dixon noted in his book,
The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond, were unusual for the director), as well as a strange, shimmering transition in one scene, aren't
particularly showy or overly arty but merely tell the story effectively. In addition, the look Brian Probyn gives to the film is far more appealing than the just plain bland job he did on
The Satanic Rites of Dracula, bringing a murky, muted color palette that manages to give the asylum a rather grimy and uncomfortable feel that fits with the tone I mentioned up above. There's not much in the way of great use of darkness and light, save for the climax, where the monster and the interiors are often illuminated by flashes of lightning from a storm outside, and you see the monster in silhouette shortly before his death at the hands of the inmates, but the day-for-night
photography used during the opening in the cemetery is actually not bad-looking and helps with that scene's atmosphere. Speaking of which, that scene, which is the only one shot on location, at Highgate Cemetery in London, has, as I said, that good old Hammer Gothic feel to it, with the mist and ancient graves, and makes for a nice, last taste of such a setting.
As it was shot several years before its release, the film served as one of the last that art Scott MacGregor worked on, and while he didn't have much money to work with, he was able to make the sets here look more impressive than those seen in The Horror of Frankenstein and Scars of Dracula. He gives us our last glimpse of a cozy inn where the villagers go for a drink, and he also made a suitable homemade laboratory in Helder's apartment and a serviceable big courtroom, but the most
notable work he did was giving the asylum the oppressive, hopeless atmosphere that it has. Klauss' office is the only room in the place that feels comfortable, as everything else is stone, cramped, claustrophobic, dingy, and wet, including the room Helder is given after he's made Frankenstein's assistant, as his "bed" is nothing but a small cot, not unlike what the inmates have to sleep on. Frankenstein's office/surgery room is not as bad as the rest of the place but it's clearly only meant to be
functional, as it's also fairly small, with a cot, shelves of chemicals, a desk and chair in one corner, a small stove in another, and a wall covered with anatomical drawings. One such drawing is placed on a pushed-in section of wall that serves as the door to a secret laboratory, which can be opened by a lever hidden on the wall behind the shelves. The laboratory has a small electrical machine powered by a wheel-like apparatus not unlike what's been seen in past Hammer
Frankensteins, a large, strapped table for performing surgery and amputations, a hidden room behind a couple of drapes where Frankenstein sleeps, and another draped spot behind which is the cage where the monster is kept. Though the only look we get of the exteriors of the actual set on the Elstree backlot are the gates and the prison yard where the dead inmates are buried, the outside wide shots of the place are accomplished by a miniature in front of a painted backdrop that's sometimes shot a little too much detail for its own good, especially in some nighttime shots near the end.
As it stands, the film is very deserving of its R-rating, as it's the goriest entry in the series, but there's also an uncut version with more footage that's never been released in the United States, even when Scream Factory brought the film to Blu-Ray in 2020 (they also didn't port over the extra features that were present on a previous, 2014 UK Blu-Ray release). I myself have never seen this uncut footage but, from what I've read, it includes close-ups of a pair of severed hands, a notorious
moment where Frankenstein grips the arteries in the monster's arm with his
teeth while Helder restiches them, a side view of an eyeball being pushed into the monster's socket, blood gushing out of Klauss' ripped open neck, and extra material of the monster being ripped apart by the inmates, including them stomping on his parts. For now, the only way to see that deleted material is to get your hands on that UK Blu-Ray, but even without it, the blood and violence in the R-rated cut
is pretty gnarly. You see plenty of severed body parts in containers in Helder's home laboratory in the opening (including an eyeball in a jar of them that turns and looks at the police sergeant who inspects the place), wince-inducing bruises caused by the fire-hose Helder gets sprayed with that turn into bleeding abrasions as the abuse goes on, Tarmut's corpse missing his hands, Schneider without any eyeballs in his head, close views of the severed arteries in his wrists during the aforementioned operation and the eyeballs that are
pushed into his sockets, a closeup of Prof. Durendel's bleeding throat after he hangs himself with his violin strings, very detailed closeups of brains during the transplants, particularly Durendel's, a brief shot of Klauss' bleeding throat and blood splattering on the monster's chest when he kills him, his internal organs and body parts being tossed around when the inmates tear him apart (one of them mimes feeding a bloody chunk
to her doll), and a final, grisly shot of his ripped open corpse. You also see close-ups of a handful of pale corpses throughout the film, as well as a skin-crawling look at Frankenstein's burned, sore-covered hands.
The movie opens in a graveyard, with a man digging up a corpse, unaware that a police sergeant is making his rounds nearby. Reaching the coffin, he opens the lid, exposing the body within, and tosses the lid away, but the sound of its clattering gets the sergeant's attention. As the grave-robber drags the corpse out of the coffin and towards a wagon, the sergeant heads to investigate and spots him just as he puts the body on the wagon and covers it. He shows himself to the robber, who
panics and tosses his shovel at him. The sergeant tries to run at him but gets discombobulated and falls into the open grave, as the robber quickly hurries off with his cart. He reaches the home of Simon Helder and rings his bell. When he comes to the door, he tells Helder he's got the body and asks him to help carry it in. As they lift it off the cart, through the door, and up the stairs to Helder's apartment, the grave-robber tells him he'll get caught sooner or later and will be in for it. Helder
ignores what he says, and then finds that the man refuses to follow him into his apartment, as he's afraid of something he saw in there once before. He asks for his money and rushes off as soon as Helder gives it to him, telling him that once he's spent it on drinks, he might have another job for him. As predicted, the grave-robber runs to the nearest inn and asks the landlord to give him a schnapps. The landlord is hesitant to do so, until the man proves he's got the money to pay for it. He
pours him a drink, which he eagerly chugs down, and pours him another, when the sergeant the man tangled with walks in. Realizing who he is, the grave-robber tries to take his second drink, when the sergeant grabs his right shoulder. Fearing jail-time, he tells the sergeant he has something to confess. Meanwhile, Helder is working on the corpse delivered to him, referring to a book entitled
The Collected Works of Baron Frankenstein. He removes an eyeball and drops it into a jar full of
them, when he hears the sound of approaching footsteps outside. Looking out the window, he sees the sergeant approach the building and enter the door downstairs. Knowing the grave-robber ratted him out, he works to cover up the apparatuses and jars containing body parts in his room.
The sergeant heads upstairs and down the hall to Helder's room. He pounds on the door, demanding he open up, but when he gets no response, he wonders if there's anyone in there. He forces the door open, as Helder hides in a draped corner off to the side of the room. The sergeant looks around, lighting the lantern he finds on the table in front of him, and then pulls back the cover on the form lying on the table, seeing that what the grave-robber told him was the truth. He then spies the jar
of eyeballs on another table next to him and picks them up to have a closer look at them. Already horrified by what he sees, he's further startled when one of the eyeballs turns and looks right at him. Unable to risk losing these specimens, Helder comes out from where he was hiding and asks the sergeant to give him the jar. The sergeant, however, refuses to do so, and the two of them wrestle with the jar, causing the eyeballs to spill out onto the floor. Helder admonishes the sergeant for this and
proceeds to pick them up, telling him how hard it is to get such specimens. The sergeant demands an explanation and Helder tells him that he's going to stitch the body parts in the room together in order to, "Create a new man." Hearing this, the sergeant tells him he's under arrest for sorcery, as he's attempting to resurrect the dead. Helder, incredulous at the charge, is reluctant to go with the sergeant when he orders him to but does, and in the next scene, is on trial. The judge is
appalled at how a young man of his education could get mixed up anything so horrific, whereas Helder insists that he's a doctor who's doing research for the good of mankind. Unswayed, the judge, comparing him to Baron Frankenstein, tells Helder he's to be sentenced to an asylum for five years and will only be released if, after his time, a medical board examines him and deems him suitable.
The prison coach transporting Helder to the asylum arrives outside its gate and the coachman, upon knocking on the door, is met by Ernst and Hans. The two orderlies, after asking the coachman if Helder is violent, handcuff the new inmate behind his back when he's let out of the coach. Helder tells them it won't be necessary but Ernst tells him that he decides what's necessary and he's then led inside, the coachman wishing him good luck. Pushing him through the entrance and leading him
down the hall, they pass by the director's closed office door and Helder asks to see him, much to Ernst's surprise at his audacity. He loudly repeats his request, saying he's not moving until he does, and goes to enter the office. Though he's prevented from doing so, director Adolf Klauss tells him to come in from the other side of the door and the orderlies reluctantly allow him. He walks in to find Klauss wheezily laughing over a book he's looking at, only to surprise him when he turns out
to not be the woman he thought he was. Helder introduces himself as a doctor and Klauss takes him for an official having been sent there. Helder says he wants some information, specifically about what became of Baron Frankenstein, who was sentenced to the very asylum. Klauss becomes quite nervous upon hearing that name and tells Helder that Frankenstein is dead, insisting that he can see his grave if he wants. Helder says it's not necessary and Klauss then offers him a drink of
brandy, only to then realize that Helder's hands are handcuffed. It dawns on him that he's an inmate and becomes absolutely furious, yelling for Ernst and, admonishing him for letting Helder in, breathlessly orders for him to get him out. Once he's alone again, Klauss, on the verge of collapsing from how worked up he got, laments how everyone around him is a fool. Irked at Helder for causing them trouble, Ernst suggests they put him through the "initiation treatment," which starts with them giving him a "bath."
The orderlies assemble the other inmates into a large, open room in the back of the asylum; among them is the mute girl Sarah, or "Angel," as she's more commonly known. Once they're all there, and as Hans prepares the fire hose (which is a purely modern day invention, I might add), Ernst goes and drags Helder into the room. He strips his shirt off him and tells Hans to give him his bath. Hans opens up the hose, hitting Helder in the face with the water, causing him to recoil up against the wall
behind him, only to then slip and fall to the floor. As the inmates laugh, Hans hits Helder in the back with the high-pressured water, and he tries to crawl away, but gets trapped up against the wall. He tries to take cover behind and then in a trough but is unable to escape the relentless assault, and his back becomes more and more bruised when he gets caught on the corner of a wall. During all of this, Sarah is the only one of the spectators who has pity on Helder, as she can see the pain he's in.
He then slumps down along the wall and collapses to the floor, the abrasions on his back now bleeding. But then, everyone's attention is gradually drawn to offscreen, as Ernst exclaims, "Doctor!" Helder himself turns and looks to see Baron Frankenstein standing in a doorway across from them. Frankenstein tells the inmates to go back to their rooms, that there's nothing more to see, and as they do, he tells Sarah to take Helder to his surgery, dry him, and put some salve on his
wounds. He then tells Ernst and Hans to come with him and he leads them down the corridor to Klauss' office. Reaching the door, he sees a sign that reads "Engaged" and, telling the men to wait, knocks on the door with his cane before barging into the room. Klauss is taken aback by his entry, and as the sound of a crying woman is heard from offscreen, Frankenstein tells him he will not tolerate him acting so beastly towards his patients. He then tells the woman, an inmate named Gerda, that she can
go and leads her, holding her clothes, out the door, telling Hans to take her back to her room. While he does, he orders Ernst to stay there, and heads back into the office, telling Klauss he'll leave the place if he catches him assaulting another inmate in that manner again. When Klauss questions how he could, Frankenstein reminds him that the two of them "killed" the Baron and that he can come and go as he pleases. Klauss tries to make an excuse for what happened but
Frankenstein doesn't want to hear it, instead bringing up their maltreatment of Helder and that he'd warned him about it before. He brings Ernst in and Klauss, hearing that they bathed Helder with the fire hose, fines both him and Hans a week's pay, before ordering him out.
Once he's gone, Klauss tries to placate Frankenstein by offering him a brandy, but the Baron instead mentions how he wasn't allowed to bring back the medical supplies he went to get because the last batch of goods hasn't been paid for. Klauss mentions how unusual some of the items are, but when Frankenstein notes how the government money they get is also not meant for books of pornography, such as the one Klauss has, the director promises to pay the fee off by noon the
next day. Frankenstein then turns down Klauss' offer to advertise for an assistant for him, and grabs his bottle of brandy, but refuses to drink it with him. Instead, he leaves the office with it, saying he has work to do. With that, all the agitated, trembling Klauss can do is drink his own glass of brandy. Meanwhile, in Frankenstein's surgery, Helder is being tended to by Sarah, but finds she won't answer his questions about how she learned to mend wounds or say how she came to be there.
Frankenstein arrives and tells him that she can't speak at all, before pouring some of the brandy into a glass and having him drink it. He then tells Helder to sit in a nearby chair and cross his legs. He gives him a short physical, testing his reflexes, how he responds when he puts his hands on his eyes and then swipes them off, and seeing if he can follow his fingertip with his eyes. When the examination is done, and Sarah leaves the room, Frankenstein asks Helder why he's at the asylum.
He answers that he's there for the same reason Baron Frankenstein was, and asks him to confirm if he is the Baron, which he does. But, he tells him that, officially, Frankenstein is dead, buried in the prison yard, that he's not worried about being revealed because of certain secrets he learned of before his "death," and that he is known as Dr. Carl Victor. He also tells him he intends to have him work as his assistant in his medical practice at the asylum, saying he may turn the entire practice
over to him if he finds him to be reliable enough, as it would leave him time to devote to his own, private work. Frankenstein then goes back to Klauss' office to tell him that he found an assistant for himself, but the director is taken aback when he says it's Helder. He then gives Klauss something to sign that would make Helder's position official, and though Klauss is reluctant, Frankenstein confidently presses him to it.
The next morning, Helder joins Frankenstein and Sarah in their rounds, as Frankenstein intends to show him everything once before sending him out on his own. They head into the area where the inmates are kept, with the first one being Herr Muller, a man who Frankenstein says is under the delusion that he's God, adding, "He's not the first man to hold that opinion, and I don't expect he'll be the last." (Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?) Inside, they find Muller up against the wall, his
arms spread out in a Christ-like pose, as he intones that he created man. He then complains of a painful wound on his arm and they see to taking care of it. Following a transition, Helder is shown trying to give an old woman a spoonful of medicine, only for her to fling the medicine aside. He gets another spoonful and manages to put it in her mouth, only for her to spit it back in his face; Frankenstein comments that he should have warned him about that habit of hers, and suggests he let Sarah give
her the medicine. Later in the day, Frankenstein leads Helder to a corridor that he says houses his own special patients, adding that they're "special" because they interest him. Helder asks to see them just once and Frankenstein decides there's no harm. He leads him to a door with a red disc on it, saying it indicates that the patient is dangerous. When he opens the door, Helder finds that there's no one in the cell, and that the bars on the window are bent back. Frankenstein explains that the patient, Herr
Schneider, mortally wounded himself by falling thirty feet while trying to escape and then, clung on for many days afterward, despite being in agony. He goes on to describe Schneider as having been primitive and animalistic, and was institutionalized for a nasty habit of stabbing people in the face with broken glass. Helder suggests that exhuming Schneider's corpse may be valuable but Frankenstein suggests, "Let him rest in peace." They next go to a cell from where they can hear lovely violin music emitting; Frankenstein says
this patient is Prof. Durendel. Inside, he introduces Durendel to Helder, who mentions admiring his music, which the professor is happy to hear, though he says it's a shame when Helder admits he's unable to appreciate the mathematics he has scribbled all over the wall. After a little bit of a tussle where Frankenstein has to make sure Durendel takes his meds, they leave the room. Helder tells Frankenstein that Durendel doesn't appear to deserve to be an inmate but Frankenstein mentions that the professor once attacked Klauss and that he can be absolutely savage when provoked. He also says it's unlikely he'll ever leave the place alive.
They walk to the door across from Durendel's, which Frankenstein says houses Herr Tarmut, who he says isn't dangerous anymore, despite the red disc, which he takes off the door. Inside, they find Tarmut sitting forlornly at the end of his bed. Frankenstein has Sarah give Tarmut his medication, while he points out to Helder the lovely wooden carvings on the desk near the bed. Helder admits to being impressed, but Frankenstein says that Tarmut's brain has deteriorated, now rendering him
unable to do so. Once Sarah has given the man his medicine, they're about to leave, but Tarmut motions for them to wait and lovingly gives Sarah one of his carvings. The two of them share a sweet moment, before they leave Tarmut alone in the dark with his thoughts. Looking at his watch, Frankenstein tells Helder he must leave him and gives him instructions as to what to do next, saying he'll be on his own the next day. That night, Helder is sitting in his room, reading, when he
hears the sound of footsteps heading down the outside hallway. Peeking out the door, he sees Frankenstein enter his office, carrying what looks like a bowl. Though curious, Helder ultimately doesn't think much of it and heads back to his cot. The next morning, he's awakened by the sun and the sound of a ringing bell. Getting up and looking out the window at the yard below, he sees a priest leading a small procession carrying a wooden box among the graves. One of the inmate pallbearers
suffers some sort of attack and they drop the box. As the one inmate is restrained, the box's lid falls open to reveal Tarmut's body, missing his hands. Frankenstein then appears and quickly closes the lid back, as they try to get the box buried. Seeing this, Helder remembers the comment Frankenstein made about Tarmut's hands the day before and smiles, figuring he knows what's going on. That night, Durendel is, once again, playing his violin, when what sounds like
the grunts and howls of an angry wild animal echo throughout the place. Helder is among those who hears it and heads down the hall to find that it's coming from Frankenstein's office. He walks inside but finds no one in there, although he does see splotches of food on the floor, leading to the wall where an anatomy drawing is hanging. He walks over to the spot and pushes on the wall behind it, removing the drawing to find a pushed in section of the wall. Unable to find any sign of a secret entrance, he walks out the door and closes it behind him.
Then, when the room is empty, the hidden door behind the drawing opens and Sarah walks out with a pot. Helder watches from the cracked doorway, as Sarah removes some bottles from the shelves on the wall, revealing the lever that opens the door from that side. She's about to close it, when Helder stops her, saying he merely wants to know what's in the hidden room. He guides her inside with him and he begins looking around, finding various books, a strange apparatus on a table, a large table
with straps, a box containing surgical instruments, and two draped off sections on the wall. He pulls back one to find a small, hidden space that turns out to be where Frankenstein sleeps. Helder comments as much to Sarah, only to find that she's no longer standing in the doorway like she was. Seeing that she's not in the office anymore, he mills around a little more, looking at some papers on Frankenstein's desk, one of which he drops on the floor. He goes to pick it up, when he sees the same
grue that was on the floor in the office, leading to another draped section next to the table with the apparatus. He walks over to it and, hearing a growl from behind it, is about to yank it back, when a very angry Frankenstein appears in the doorway, stomping up to him, ripping the paper out of his hands, and demanding he explain himself. Helder says he heard animal-like cries and tells him not to be mad at Sarah, before saying he knew he had a laboratory and that he hadn't
give up his experiments. Frankenstein's anger eases down and he admits that Helder is right, before pulling back the drapes, revealing the monstrous, ape-like form of Schneider, rocking back and forth in a cage while growling and snorting like an animal. Helder realizes it must be him, given how he looks, and Frankenstein explains that he gave Schneider a massive dose of sedatives to render him unconscious, pronounced him dead, had him buried, and then dug him back up. He also says that
he removed a section of his brain's sensory area to lessen his pain, and that his cries merely mean that he's hungry. Examining Schneider carefully, Helder recognizes the hands on his body as Tarmut's, admitting that he witnessed his burial that morning. When he also notices that his eyes are all but missing from his sockets, Frankenstein explains his eyes and hands were impaled on a spiked railing below his window and that he intends to replace them at some point. But, though
he's very impressed, Helder notes how ugly the scars on Schneider are, considering Frankenstein is supposed to have been a brilliant surgeon, and Frankenstein removes his gloves, revealing his burned, scarred hands, which he says are useless for surgery and that he had to guide Sarah in the operation. He says he now fearsSchneider will gradually disintegrate, when Helder chimes in and informs him that he himself is a surgeon.
In the next scene, Schneider is lying on the operating table, as Helder first attempts to correct the grafting of Tarmut's hands onto his arms, under Frankenstein's watchful eye. Examining the spot where the left hand is connected, Helder notes the peripheral artery and Frankenstein confirms the connection has severed and must be restitched. There's then a cut to Sarah and a close-up of the sedated Schneider's face, before it suddenly cuts to Frankenstein and Helder having now completed the
task, the former commenting that it can be done (Frankenstein now has blood on his vest and is wiping his mouth, confirming that this is the spot where the moment he holds the artery with his teeth would have been). It then cuts to morning, where Frankenstein selects an eyeball out of a tray of them, and when Helder walks in, comments that he thinks the color would suit Schneider well. The implant is then shown, with a gruesome shot of the eyeball hanging just out of Schneider's left socket.
After he makes some last minute adjustments to the socket, which Frankenstein enthusiastically approves of, he pops the eyeball in. The operation done, Frankenstein checks his watch, noting that, within one hour, "We shall see." Helder comments, "Let's hope it's he who sees," which Frankenstein doesn't get at first but, when he does, laughs delightedly, saying he likes it. Helder comments that it wasn't that funny.
Some time later, Schneider comes to and sits up on the cot in Frankenstein's sleeping space in the lab. His vision starts out blurry but quickly comes back into focus, and he sees Frankenstein, Helder, and Sarah working about in the lab. He lets out a snarl, getting their attention, and stomps off the cot towards them. Despite Frankenstein's trying to stop him, Simon rushes Schneider but gets shoved to the floor. Frankenstein grabs a container of ether he'd been working with and throws it at a corner
near Schneider. Seeing the broken glass, Schneider goes for it and grabs a big piece to use as a weapon, but is quickly overcome by the fumes, coughing repeatedly until he passes out. As they watch him sleep, Frankenstein excitedly exclaims that Schneider can, indeed, see. In the next cut, they have him back in his cage. Helder asked why Schneider tried to attack Frankenstein and he says he fears him because he kept him alive when he wanted to die. Frankenstein then mentions that
Schneider needs another brain, preferably one of a genius, but Helder notes that the only genius around is Prof. Durendel, who's likely to live another ten years at least. Helder wonders if Frankenstein would go as far as to kill Durendel for his brain but he insists he's not a murderer. The film cuts to the very next morning, when Ernst walks into Durendel's room, only to find that he's hanged himself with his own violin strings. Helder, in turn, tells Frankenstein, and he offhandedly says,
"Then the question of the brain has been settled for us. We must work fast." After a grisly close-up of Durendel's chalk-white face, with a bleeding neck, we cut to the lab, where they now have his body propped up and his head kept level, with Sarah shaving his hair off. When she's done, Frankenstein draws a mark around the cranium where Helder is to cut into the skull. He then does so with a small blade, with Frankenstein dabbing up the blood that flows out, before taking a small saw to the skull, all
while Schneider stands nearby, out of it from sedation. Once Helder finishes sawing, Frankenstein gently removes the top of the head, exposing the brain. He lifts up the frontal lobes, instructing Helder to cut the six optic nerves, and when he does that, he lifts up another part of the brain and instructs him to cut the cranial nerves. That done, he lifts up the opposite side of the brain, has Helder cut some more, and then lifts up the entire brain, allowing him to cut the spinal cord with one snip. Frankenstein finally removes the brain from the skull and places it in a container of water for preservation.
Afterward, as Frankenstein examines the brain more closely, Helder is looking through the personal effects taken from Durendel's room, when he finds a slip of paper and confronts Frankenstein with it. Frankenstein is so caught up admiring Helder's handiwork that he initially doesn't register his question until he repeats it, asking if he left the professor's medical record, which has the prognosis of "incurable" written on it, for him to see. Frankenstein explains, "Prof. Durendel was sent to
this place because of a simple nervous disorder. Then, something happened here, and he made a homicidal attack on the director...
I was unable to cure him. Could
you? Could you have cured him? Or any of the others that you've seen? If so, then please tell me how. I should like to know." Helder admits he couldn't, but still believes it was wrong to let Durendel find out about his prognosis in such an awful manner. Sarah brings them some food and Frankenstein suggests they eat, then
transplant the brain. We then see the operation in progress, with Helder removing Schneider's brain in the same manner he did Durendel's. Once it's out, Frankenstein drops it in a pan at his feet, only to then step and turn the pan over, sloshing the brain on the floor, before taking Durendel's out of the jar of bubbling water and preparing to do the reverse of the procedure. Some time later, they've done it, but are totally exhausted. Frankenstein tells Helder they should know in ten days and sends him off to get some sleep. Once he's left the room, Frankenstein, after finishing writing down some notes, looks ahead to the future, to see if his experiments will finally come to fruition.
Ten days or so later, the creature, now with Durendel's mind, awakens in the lab. He sits up on a cot, not knowing where he is, and then, looks at his hands, which he doesn't recognize, and feels his way up his now massive, hairy arms and his big chest. He especially becomes distraught when he feels his face and stands up, looking around in a bit of a panic. He staggers through the room, overturning a table filled with equipment, the sound of which awakens Sarah nearby, and sees
himself in a mirror. Sarah comes through the door behind him and he turns around and asks her to help him. She heads back out the door and brings Frankenstein and Helder to the lab. There, they find Durendel sitting on the edge of the cot, looking at his hands and sobbing softly. Frankenstein calls to him, but he has to say his name twice more before he acknowledges their presence. When asked, he's able to name each one of them, as well as himself, though he has some
trouble with the latter. Frankenstein then explains to him what happened and he, Helder, and Sarah see it as a scientific triumph, one that will completely exonerate Frankenstein. They go to drink to the success, not realizing that Durendel is anything but happy; when he's left alone, he lies down on the cot and forlornly moans, "Why?" In the next room, they have their drink, with Helder naming Frankenstein as "Creator of man," a title the Baron himself ponders favorably, while
Durendel, spying his violin on the floor, clumsily picks it up. Realizing he can no longer play it with the strange hands he now has, he crushes it in frustration and cries hysterically on the cot. Later, Frankenstein tries to get Durendel to exercise his brain with some mathematical problems. Helder puts up a small chalkboard for him, but when he offers Durendel some chalk, he grabs some of it and crushes it into dust, saying he can't use these hands. Frankenstein
insists he must learn to use them, saying he's now gifted with a brilliant mind and the hands of a craftsman, which he must coordinate. In a dissolve, Frankenstein watches Durendel writing the problems on the chalkboard, only to see that his writing is slanting off and becoming crooked. He asks him what's wrong and Durendel says he's hungry. Frankenstein tells him he'll eat later, but when Durendel smashes the chalkboard in a rage, Frankenstein, watching him huff and puff while glaring at him, reluctantly tells Sarah to give him his food, while he leaves the room.
When Helder joins Frankenstein in his office, he tells him they've failed, that Schneider's body is rejecting Durendel's brain and it will eventually decay and decompose. He laments it as another failure, but Helder tells him he thinks the brain may just need more time to adjust itself. Seeing that Frankenstein is exhausted, Helder tells him to lie down while he does his rounds and Frankenstein, too tired to argue, acquiesces, lying on the cot in the room. Helder then walks into the
lab, finding both Sarah and Durendel asleep. He calls to Sarah, but when she doesn't respond, he walks over to her and lightly kisses her on the forehead. Sarah awakens and jumps to her feet, visibly troubled by that, and Helder apologizes; little does he know that Durendel saw the kiss but is feigning to still be asleep. Helder tells Sarah to go and get some rest, while he looks after Durendel. He leads her out of the room and closes the secret door, but when he turns around, a large,
glass jar smashes against the wall to his left. Enraged, Durendel bounds towards the glass, forcing Helder to the other side of the table, and grabs a large, broken section of the jar, with sharp, jagged pieces on the end. He chases after Helder, cornering him up against a wooden cabinet, and goes to stab him. Helder manages to duck out of the way and the points stick into the cabinet. Frankenstein enters the room and yells at Durendel, getting his attention. He grabs a bottle from the
shelves next to him, wraps it in his coat, and smashes it against the wall. He then climbs up onto the table, throws the broken pieces onto the table, and jumps on Durendel's back, covering his face with the coat. (Peter Cushing, despite his frail condition, actually did that stunt and comes off well. You can see him nearly slip off Dave Prowse's back but he manages to grab the edge of a table and keep his balance.) Durendel struggles a little bit but is quickly overcome by the chemical in the coat and collapses to the floor. Once he's passed out, and after Frankenstein himself recovers from having breathed a bit of the chemicals, he tells Simon they should get him into the cage.
After that, Frankenstein and Helder reconvene, Frankenstein hypothesizing that Schneider's body is actually taking over Durendel's brain, citing the way he attacked with the broken glass. Rather than meaning they failed, Frankenstein believes they can succeed by capturing the essence of Durendel tuned with his strong body, proposing they have him be reborn through the process of mating. Much to Helder's shock, Frankenstein suggests they use Sarah, and rationalizes his choice
by saying there's nothing wrong with her physically or mentally, that her muteness is the result of a traumatic shock. That's when he reveals he knows her own father tried to rape her, which makes his plan all the more awful to Helder, who says he now believes Frankenstein is insane. He prepares to go to Sarah and place her in the director's custody to keep her safe, when Frankenstein drops the second bombshell that Klauss
is her father, which is why Durendel
attacked him, as well as why Frankenstein is able to do as he pleases at the asylum. Knowing that he's beaten on that score, Helder says that Durendel wouldn't go along with Frankenstein's scheme but Frankenstein says he intends to use certain drugs to make him more apt. He puts on his coat and hat, saying he has to go into town, and asks Helder not to do anything stupid, emphasizing his point by tapping his shoulder with his cane and saying, "I'm sure you won't." Once Frankenstein is gone, Helder
goes to Durendel as he sits in the cage and tries to warn him of Frankenstein's plan. But, it's clear that Durendel is so far gone that he doesn't understand at all what Helder is trying to tell him. He then says that he's hungry and Helder, forlornly, goes back into the office and takes a pot of stew off the furnace. Spying the shelves of chemicals, he takes a small, green bottle and drips some of the liquid into the stew. He takes the pot to Durendel, who reaches through the bars and guzzles the stew
down straight from it. But, he then suddenly tosses the pot away and starts coughing and retching, at one point reaching at Helder, before collapsing to the floor. Helder goes back into the next room, grabs a large, surgical knife, enters the cage, and prepares to kill Durendel, when he's distracted by the sound of someone walking in. Durendel grabs his arm, but is himself distracted when Sarah, standing in the doorway, screams at the sight of what's going on. As Frankenstein predicted, this shock restores
her speech and she orders Durendel to let go of him. He does so and Helder rushes out of the cage, pushes Sarah back into the office, and closes the door, as Durendel stomps towards it. Helder is taken aback by Sarah's suddenly speaking, but she tells Helder to go and get help, as Durendel can be heard tearing the lab apart on the other side of the wall.
Durendel's roars and cries echo through the asylum, disturbing the inmates, with one old hag noting that he wants revenge. Frankenstein then returns, only to find the door to his office ajar, and, knowing that something's up, he cautiously enters and closes the door behind him. He spots the surgical knife on his desk and, taking his coat off, opens up the door to the lab and rushes in. That's when Durendel jumps out and gets between him and the door. Muller is then shown intoning about
how the creature is defiled and shall dwell alone, and then, Ernst and Hans are doing their rounds, when they hear Durendel roar out in the prison yard. They look out the window to see him digging up a grave with one of the large, cross-shaped grave-markers, as lightning from a storm up above illuminates him. The two of them rush back down the hall and move the inmates to the back of the asylum, only to panic them when they say there's a monster at large. At that very moment,
Klauss returns to the asylum with a lady friend and prepares to take her into his office to have a drink, when he hears Durendel's roar. Ernst and Hans come running and warn him of a monster that's tearing up the grounds. Klauss unlocks his office and runs to the window to see Durendel smash his hand through the coffin he's just uncovered and find his old body lying within. Shaking with fear, Klauss closes the drapes on the windows and tells Hans to send the woman home.
He then tells Ernst to round up the other members of the staff, arm themselves, and destroy the monster. He's so freaked out that he has to be reminded to give Ernst the key to the armory, and when he does, he tells him not to come back until the monster is dead. Ernst rushes out to the other orderlies who are trying to get the inmates under control and tells them of what they're to do. Back in his office, Klauss tries to calm his nerves with a drink, when he hears Durendel roar right outside
his window. He starts to open the drapes, only for the monster to smash through the window and stomp into the room. Klauss collapses into a chair while trying to escape and, glaring at him, Durendel snarls, "You!... Angel..." Grabbing a broken glass on the floor, he stomps towards Klauss, grabs his face, and slices his throat open with the shrapnel, his blood splashing onto Durendel's chest.
His task done, Durendel makes his way to the asylum's backroom, where the inmates are being housed, easily ripping through the iron bars between him and them. As he makes his way towards them, Ernst and Hans show up, armed with handguns, and each fire on him. He's badly injured by this and staggers about, clutching his wounds, when Helder and Sarah show up. Durendel becomes calmer when he sees Sarah and he reaches his hand out to her. She walks up to him and he
gently caresses her hair, but when the inmates see this, one of them yells, "He's gonna kill her!" and they converge on and swarm him. Helder keeps Sarah from getting caught up in the carnage, as the inmates rip the monster apart with their bare hands. Frankenstein, having suffered a nasty wound to his arm from his offscreen confrontation with Durendel, staggers out of his office and rushes to the backroom, hearing the commotion going on. Sarah shields her eyes from the hideous
sight of the inmates ripping out and tossing Durendel's internal organs, while Ernst and Hans watch with expressions of amusement on their faces and exchange smiles. Frankenstein then comes rushing in and yells at them to be quiet. The noise instantly ceases and the inmates back away, and when they do, he sees the monster's horribly mutilated corpse lying on the floor. As he did in his introductory scene, he tells them, "Go back to your rooms. There's nothing more for you to see. It's all
over, now... All over." He turns to Ernst and Hans, sneering at them, "Now, you can use your hose," and storms out. The inmates file out after him, going back to their rooms, as he ordered, and Helder and Sarah join him in his office, as he binds his arm wound. He asks Helder to help him with it, saying, "We've a lot of work ahead of us. I've been thinking about what went wrong: too much reliance on surgery, too little on biochemistry." He alludes to what's written about the latter in a book,
when Helder reminds Frankenstein that the monster is dead. That's of little concern to Frankenstein, though, as he happily looks ahead to "next time," and begins tidying up the place, suggesting possible candidates for body parts, as Helder and Sarah look on. The ending credits play over one last shot of the asylum. (This open ending may ultimately prove to be the saddest thing about the movie in retrospect: the genre and, specifically, the series that put Hammer on the map has no definitive conclusion but rather, just kind of stops.)
What really sucks is that I don't get much out of James Bernard's final score for Terence Fisher, mainly because this music is so "meh" that I hardly even notice it when it's playing. There are a couple of noteworthy pieces, like Prof. Durendel's violin composition called "The Angel," which becomes a very poignant leitmotif for him after his brain is put into Schneider's body and he slowly loses all sense of himself (the moment where he tries to play the violin upon first awakening as the monster is especially affecting through its use, as well as when you hear a distant, tragic-sounding version when he tries to reach out to Sarah). The other is the theme that plays over the ending credits, which is made up of a string piece that's then followed by a blaring horn, the latter of which increases in volume and emphasis each time it's heard, before ending on an extended horn bit with some drums. But other than that, even though there are parts of the score that definitely have Bernard's distinctive style, particularly the action and suspense scenes, I can't call it one of his best scores.
Unlike the last two Hammer Dracula films, I can recommend
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, despite how it hardly brings anything new to the series, as there are so many elements borrowed from past movies. It benefits greatly from Terence Fisher's direction, the always assured perfection that was Peter Cushing, other good actors like Shane Briant, an interesting monster, better than average production values for Hammer's late period, and a well done grim, dark atmosphere that's complimented by a hellish setting, some truly grisly violence and gore, and disturbing sexual aspects of the story. But, again, there's little here that you wouldn't have seen many times over by this point, Madeline Smith's character of Sarah doesn't amount to much in the end, the music score is so-so, the ending isn't likely to satisfy anybody wanting true finality, and as the final Hammer Gothic, it's a shame that it couldn't be more than just one last trip to the old well. Still, I would recommend it, if only for its truly being the last of its kind.
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