Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz

DVD Pile

I can’t claim to a big fan of the Outpost films. I barely remember what happened in the first film and can’t make sense of the second film. This third film is actually set during the Second World War so this is a prequel to others which were set during the present day. This has all the same elements of mad Nazi science that featured in the other two including creation of creatures that cannot be killed.

A special squad of Russian soldiers, the Spetsnaz, come across vehicles from a secret base near the Eastern Front.  They take out the Germans but find themselves facing overwhelming numbers of troops including patrol with a German officer with a zombie like a dog on a chain. The Russians are killed or captured and the prisoners are taken to a secret research lab underground where we can see many mad monsters screaming behind glass windows like some sort of freakshow display.

Three survivors held in a cell are Dolokhov (Bryan Larkin) the leader of the Russian squad, Arkadi (Velibor Topic) and Fyodor (Iván Kamarás) who has been shot.  There’s another prisoner in the cell, an American spy called Captain Rogers (Ben Lambert) who isn’t very useful in fact he’s a bit of a prick. They are being watched by Strasser (Michael McKell), the German officer in charge of the facility who is your typical evil sociopathic Nazi bastard. He wants to use them to test his experimental subjects and we got some impressive fight scenes. Strasser seems pleasantly surprised to see the Dolokhov is more than a match for even the strongest of them, a huge beast they have nicknamed the Childkiller (James Thompson).

Strasser takes Dolokhov and Fyodor deeper into the facility and tells them all about their research in classic villain style while waximg philosophically about the futility of war. In fact he just won’t shut up about their plans to create an army of indestructible super soldiers. The process has still got a lot of problems and we see a headsplodey example of it going wrong with some poor German soldier. Strasser then puts Fyodor through the process which is not really the smartest idea since this time it seems to go right but this just means they have succeeded in creating a super soldier who wants to kill them all.

The film tends to get a bit repetitive with the Russians taking on limitless Germans in narrow corridors but the film did at least seem more coherent than that second film. It has a low budget and this does show in some aspects like the very limited zombie patrol which could have been bigger and used a bit more. The fight scenes are pretty good and I like the physical effects.  The film uses a muted colour palette with a look of mostly grayish green which does give it a dated feel. Overall is it has some decent moments but is a bit draggy.

Rating 6.5/10

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Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero

The DVD Shelf

Disease and flesh-eating parasites are genuinely terrifyingy things which is what this film preys on. Body horror operates at the visceral level taking advantage of our ability to empathize with the pain and suffering of the characters by giving us an echo of the pain in our own bodies. Zombie films seem to fill much of the horror genre’s discussion of these topics while the more serious films tend to be more action thrillers. Eli Roth changed that in the first film by blending the contagion storyline with a slasher movie set-up of a gang of annoying college students in the woods for a party. Then the sequel took it back to high school but was not as successful.

Patient Zero is the name used by epidemiologists for the first person in a population infected with a pathogen or so the movies have told us. Patient Zero for this flesh eating disease is Porter (Sean Astin) and he’s held captive in a “secure” medical facility on a remote island.  He is not a heap of diseased flesh begging to die which means he is immune and potentially can help researchers find a cure. The facility is being run by Dr Edwards (Currie Graham) with a fairly large staff and two assistants Bridgette (Lydia Hearst) and Camila (Solly Duran). Porter is sick of being abused and still traumatised by what he has been through and it is clear Edwards is never going to let him go.

There is a second plot that involves a small stag party taking a boat to remote island for dope, booze and stargazing or whatever. Only in horror films do characters go away from civilization for a stag party. Let’s get the soap opera details of this plot out of the way. Marcus (Mitch Ryan) is getting married to Katia (Claudette Lali), a wealthy young woman. His best friend and business partner Dobbs (Ryan Donowho) is there, as is his embarrassing younger brother Josh (Brando Eaton) who has brought his girlfriend Penny(). Marcus had short passionate relationship with Penny before she was with Josh and of course this is going to come up later.

The film cuts between the two plots before revealing how they are connected. The plot of the stag party follows the plot of the first film with one of the friends getting infected and slowly getting sicker. This is where the film does a good job of doing gross-out body horror with impressive make-up and special effects but the soapy drama around it seems just too trivial. The mad science plot seemed more promising until Edwards goes full Dr Mengele crazy. I had no idea that the fourth Cabin Fever film is due to be released later this year and I wonder how much this film is just setting up that film.

Patient Zero has some powerful scenes but a weak storyline with a bit too much wandering through dark tunnels. I only recently found it was a prequel but there is nothing that necessarily suggests this in the film. Sean Astin really does a good job playing Porter but he’s really on his own in a story that doesn’t give us anything new. It is an improvement on the other sequel but doesn’t really match the original film and It takes a bit longer for the flesh to really start falling off on this one. It does have some interesting twists and some really outrageous scenes so may of interest to fans of the first film.

Rating 6.0/10

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Review: The Bride of Frankenstein

 

October Horror Month

I‘m doing short run of the Universal Classics and since I reviewed Frankenstein it’s time for one of the best sequels ever. The director James Whale never wanted to do a sequel but when promised full creative control he agreed and though it has element taken from Mary Shelley’s novel this really is Whale’s film.

The film opens with three infamous libertines Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelly (Douglas Walton) and his wife Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester), the author of Frankenstein and after Byron comments on contrast her delicate nature with the horror she wrote. Percy says that the story left him wanting more so Mary starts her tale where the last one left off.

The villagers are all still at the burning remains of the windmill which was set on fire with creature inside and the Burgomaster (E.E. Clive) is trying to convince the excitable Minnie (Una O’Connor) that the man they called a monster died in the fire. They take the body of Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) back down to town. The burgomaster makes everyone leave until only an old couple are left. The man is called Hans and he wants to make sure the creature is dead because it killed their daughter Marie. Hans is looking for the Creature’s body in the remains of the windmill and he falls into a flooded cellar. The Creature is down there in the mud and when he sees Hans he grabs him and drowns him. Hans’s wife can’t find Hans and she hears the noise of the Creature climbing out of cellar and she thinks it’s Hans and she gives him her hand to help him out of the cellar. When she sees the creature she screams and the Creature throws her down into the cellar. The Creature lumbers through the graveyard and it surprises Screaming Minnie and she runs away.

Down in town they take Frankenstein into his castle and there is a lot of over-dramatic weeping and wailing from the staff as the men lay his body on the table in front of his fiancée Elizabeth (Valerie Hobson). Minnie also arrives and tries to warn the butler about the Creature not being dead but he doesn’t believe her. Anyway they all think Frankenstein is dead until Minnie sees his arm move and she squeals and I will never hear that frequency again. Frankenstein recovers consciousness before Minnie screams again and Elizabeth weeps with joy.

That night Frankenstein is resting in bed and Elizabeth is there with him. Frankenstein talks of being cursed because of what he achieved and this a theme that Elizabeth takes up while Frankenstein goes on to get excited about what he did and speculates that perhaps he is part a some divine purpose. Then just when you think Frankenstein is the crazy one in the room Elizabeth starts raving about seeing the shadowy figure of death approaching. There’s a knock on the door of the castle and Minnie answers it to a very curious old fellow called Dr Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) who insists he has to see Frankenstein on a secret matter of grave importance. He greets Frankenstein as Baron which means that Frankenstein’s father died between the two films in an unfortunate case of death by sequel. Pretorius used to teach philosophy at the university that Frankenstein but he was booted out because he knew too much according to Pretorius. He’s here to try to persuade Frankenstein to work with him. He makes a threat about Frankenstein being really responsible for everyone the Creature murders. What finally persuades Frankenstein to come with him is when Pretorius tells him that he has created life himself.

Frankenstein goes with Pretorius to his rooms and Pretorius pours them both a gin and he makes a toast “To a new world of gods and monsters.” He brings in a box that looks a lot like a small coffin. Inside are several glass cylinders. He brings out the first cylinder and removes the cloth covering. Inside is a miniature humanoid creature that he has dressed up as a queen. His other cylinders contain a king, a bishop a devil, a ballerina and a mermaid. This fascinates Frankenstein but also confuses him because this does not seem to have anything to with science and Frankenstein thinks it’s closer to magic. Pretorius claims that he grew these creatures. He wants to work with Frankenstein to create a woman.

The Creature is wandering through the countryside and stops at a pool next to a waterfall and has a drink of water. The creature also sees his own reflection and is upset at how ugly he is. He sees a young shepherdess but when he tries to approach her she screams at the sight of him and falls into the river and gets knocked out. The creature jumps in and rescues her but when she recovers and sees him again she screams and tries to fight him off. A couple of passing hunters hear the commotion and they shoot at the Creature who runs off, so the hunters return to the village to warn the people that the Creature is still around.

Back at the village the hunters tell the Burgomaster about seeing the Creatures he organise an angry mob to chase him down. The mob through run through the woods and chase down the Creature from sheer number they easily overpower him and tie him to a large stake. When they raise the stake with Creature tied to it there’s a momentary Jesus Christ pose before they dump him into a wagon full of straw. They take him back to the village and chain him up in a dungeon. Minnie and other locals stare in the window at him but the Burgomaster chases them. Once he’s alone he pulls at the chain and within minutes he’s got free and he smashes his way through the doors killing several guards. He gets out in to the street and people are feeling in panic and somehow a little girl call Freda is found dead but I really can’t remember seeing her.

The Creature escapes into the woods and he comes to family of Gypsies who are cooking meat over a fire. The Creature tries to indicate that he wants some food but the family flee screaming. The Creature tries to grab the meat but burns himself on the fire and runs off whimpering. Deep in the woods the Creature hears music coming from a cabin and is enchanted by it. The music comes from an old blind hermit who is playing a violin. The Hermit hears someone outside and goes out to find out who it is. He invites the Creature inside. He realises the Creature and cannot speak and he’s injured. He has the Creature sit down and gives him a bowl of food from a large cauldron he has cooking over a fire. After the creature has been fed he speaks with creature and manages to begin communication. The Hermit praises God for bringing him a companion to ease his loneliness.

The Creature really settles in happily with the hermit who has been teaching the Creature to speak and The Creature is having a great time learning the words “food”, “wine” and “friend”. The Hermit shows him how to smoke a cigar and the fire freaks him out a little but he really enjoys the cigar. Both of them are really happy but the creature is not destined for happiness. Those two hunters from earlier appear at the cabin and when they see the creature they attack it and drag the Hermit out of the cottage. Soon the cabin is in flames and the Creature is on the run once more with the angry mob chasing him.

He gets to a graveyard and throws open a tomb and climbs inside to hide from the mob. By an amazing coincidence Dr Pretorius has chosen to raid the same tomb for parts to make his woman and he’s got two criminals with him, Karl (Dwight Frye) and Ludwig (Ted Billings). After he’s got what he wants he send the two men back to his lab with the body while he says behind for a picnic among the dead with food and wine and a cigar. The creature come out of hiding and Pretorius’s reaction is like mild surprise, “Oh, it’s you,” and he invites the creature help himself to the food and drink. Pretorius agrees he is he Creature’s friend and thinks he will come in very useful in persuading Frankenstein to co-operate. Pretorius tells him that he plans to create a mate for him.

Pretorius goes to Frankenstein to tell him that it’s up to him to complete his half of the project. Pretorius has grown a human brain and now he needs Frankenstein to put it in a body and give it life. Frankenstein refuse to do it so Pretorius brings in the Creature and it demands he create a woman for him. Frankenstein is freaked out just by the Creature’s presence never mind the fact that it can talk and refuses to discuss anything while he is there. Pretorius sends the Creature away and continues trying to persuade Frankenstein to co-operate. While he’s keeping Frankenstein talking the Creature breaks into Elizabeth’s room and kidnaps her. Pretorius promises Frankenstein that Elizabeth will be returned unharmed.

Frankenstein and Pretorius go to Frankenstein’s laboratory in the tower and work on creating a woman. Frankenstein is working on the heart but it’s an old organ that’s not up to the job and they can’t get it to keep going. Frankenstein needs a fresh heart and Karl agrees to get one for 1000 crowns. Karl finds a heart in the body of a young woman he murders in the street and Pretorius probably knows how he got it but Karl tells Frankenstein that he bribed a coroner. The heart works fine and since the brain is already in place they are ready to finish. Frankenstein is getting tired but the Creature is impatient and insists he finishes. Pretorius takes the Creature and gives him a drugged drink to keep him out of Frankenstein’s way. Frankenstein is starting to fear that Elizabeth is dead but Pretorius lets him to speak to her over an anachronistically early telephone.

There’s a convenient storm coming and they get the body ready on the table and there’s a lot of messing about with the electrical apparatus with Karl and Ludwig assisting him up on the roof. Frankenstein has a couple of kites that he launches into the storm. Once they are ready he raises the table with the body to the roof. The Creature appears, hoping to see how they are getting on with making him a woman and he goes up to the roof. Karl must remind him of Fritz because the Creature grabs him and throws him off the roof to his death.

The table gets lowered back into the lab and once more Frankenstein has succeeded but his cries of “She’s alive, alive,” doesn’t quite have the same manic passion of his first success. They unwrap the bandages and apart from the scar around her neck she’s a very striking woman with the ultimate in scare hair.

Pretorius calls her the Bride of Frankenstein. The Creature appears to see his woman and he say ‘”Friend” to her softly and she screams in horror at his appearance and ruins to Frankenstein. He tries a bit of tenderness which fails. “She hate like all the other,” he says dejected and the Creature goes to pull a lever Pretorius warns him it will blow them all up which is what the Creature wants. Just then Elizabeth bangs on the door calling for Frankenstein. The Creature tells him to go and live but to Pretorius he says, “You stay. We belong dead,” then he pulls the lever and the whole tower blows up, completely destroying the Creature, Pretorius and the woman.

This film really is fantastic and in many ways it is better than the original. The creature is even more of a victim in this one too, of people prejudices and fears and of certain other people’s despicable schemes. Colin Clive is not as passionate in this film but Ernest Thesiger as Pretorius is outrageously evil and he loves it.

Rating 10/10

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Review: Frankenstein

October Horror Month

There’s a funeral of weepy relatives at a highly stylised cemetery  and from just over mound a creepy strange little face appears. It’s Fritz (Dwight Frye) and he’s with Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) watching, hiding and waiting for the mourners to leave. Then it’s just the gravedigger they are waiting on who fills in grave and he lights his pipe and leaves. As soon as he’s gone Frankenstein and Fritz dig up body and put it on a cart and wheel the cart to a gallows and Frankenstein sends Fritz up to cut the rope. Frankenstein is disappointed to discover that the body’s neck is broken?? Truly he is a medical genius. He tells Fritz that he needs to find another brain

Dr Waldman (Edward Van Sloan) is giving lecture to class of medical students and he’s got two brain in jar a normal brain and abnormal brain of a criminal psychopath and gets them to note the difference in the size of lobes and the depth of the grooves. Fritz is watching this from a window and when the lecture is over Waldman say he will leave the brains out for the students to examine themselves. That night Fritz breaks into the lecture theatre and hobble up to the table with the two brains He startles himself when he knocks into a human skeleton. Fritz grabs the normal brain but drops it when there a sudden unexplained gong so he picks up abnormal brain.

Frankenstein’s close friend Victor Moritz (John Boles) and his fiancé Elizabeth (Mae Clarke) are worried about Frankenstein. He has sent Elizabeth such a strange letter she wants to go see him to check up on him. When Victor recently saw him he was acting paranoid and secretive. They speak with Dr Waldman who used to teach Frankenstein when he was at medical school who thinks he’s brilliant but erratic. Elizabeth asks why left and Waldman say his research took him beyond what they were prepared to tolerate in his insane ambition to create life. They couldn’t help him with the material he needed which was fresh human bodies and he wasn’t worried about how he got them. Elizabeth wants to go see him and she begs Dr Waldman to join them in trying to talk to Frankenstein but Waldman is not confident he would do any good

Frankenstein is in his lab getting ready with the body he created out of dead parts. He wants to make use of the electric storm and he has Fritz go up on the roof to makes sure the electrodes are connected. He does one final test, throws the switches and there’s crackling electricity through the circuit and he’s happy. There’s a knock on the door and he sends Fritz to the door to get rid of them and not let them. Outside the door are Waldman, Victor and Elizabeth and they all getting soaked in the storm. Fritz just opens up the hatch inn the door and tells them to go away and wanders off muttering to himself. Victor and Elizabeth call up to Frankenstein who want to know what they want. They ask to be let in out of the storm and he relents and lets them in.

Frankenstein tries to persuade them to go away since his work has reached a crucial point. Victor calls him crazy which seems to be Frankenstein’s crazy button. He invites them up to the lab and tells them to sit and watch. He’s gone beyond ultraviolet and discovered a ray that gives life into the world. He created a new body from bits stitched together from dead bodies

The storm has arrived so he and Fritz get the body ready then raise platform up into the storm which increases in violent intensity and after a few minutes he brings it down again. As the platform reaches the floor he see the hand twitch with life and Frankenstein starts screaming hysterically, “It’s alive it’s alive IT’S ALIVE. In the name of God? Now I know what it feels like to be God.” Now that is just asking for trouble.

Victor and Elizabeth talk to Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr) father of Henry who is worried about the wedding of Frankenstein to Elizabeth and he thinks there’s another woman. Burgomaster Herr Vogel come to talk to the Baron about wedding but the Baron says there’ll be no wedding if Henry doesn’t appear. After Vogel leaves the Baron decides that he’s going to go see Frankenstein himself and bring him back

Back at the windmill Waldman and Frankenstein are talking and the Creature andWaldman thinks it’s dangerous and Henry starts a defence of the need to take risks for truth, for science. Waldman thinks he’s become arrogant because of his success and he’s not seeing things clearly. This thing he’s created will get out of control. Frankenstein insist that the Creature’s brain just needs time to develop and that’s it’s a perfectly normal brain. That’s when he tells Waldman he got it from Waldman’s office and Waldman tells him brain stolen was not normal, it was criminal brain. This shakes Frankenstein for a moment but he just dismisses it as not important, it’s just raw material.

The Creature (Boris Karloff) comes into room backwards then turns revealing that dead face and dead eyes. It slowly walks, its feet dragging, and it sits down when Frankenstein orders it to. Frankenstein opens a skylight and the creature stands up and reaches up to the light. When Frankenstein closes the skylight the creature is sad and wants know where it went. The Fritz appears with a torch and the fire freaks out creature and Frankenstein tells him to take it away. The three of them manage to get the panicking Creature tied up and then chain it in the cellar

In the cellar later Fritz is amusing himself by whipping the Creature. Frankenstein tries to get him to leave it alone but Fritz doesn’t stop and starts taunting it with a torch. Upstairs Frankenstein hears Fritz screaming. He rushes down with Waldman to find the Creature has killed Fritz and is still angry. Frankenstein and Waldman get it locked back in the cellar but it’s only a matter time before it breaks out. Waldman says that they have to destroy it and Frankenstein prepares a hypodermic needle of sedative to inject the creature and gives it Waldman who gets knocked out after injecting the Creature. It tries to choke Frankenstein until the drug takes effect and it falls unconscious.

There’s a very insistent banging on the front door. It’s Victor who has come to warn Henry his father is on the way with Elizabeth. Waldman and Victor get the Creature hidden away while Frankenstein gets cleaned up. The Baron and Elizabeth arrive and they go upstairs t the Lab and Frankenstein greets them then collapses and they take him home and Waldman promises to get rid of creature. Later after they are gone Waldman has the creature on the table in the lab and he gets surgical instruments ready but he doesn’t see that the creature is conscious and its choke life out of Waldman and escapes

Next day Henry is at home relaxing with Elizabeth and he’s much more relaxed and rational. They talk about when their wedding should be and Frankenstein says it should be as soon as possible. The scene cuts to the wedding day itself and the Baron drinks a toast to a son to the house of Frankenstein. Village all singing and dancing it’s a big happy celebration

The Creature wandering through countryside and it meets a little girl called Maria at the lake who is picking flowers. When she sees Creature she introduces herself and invites him play tossing the flowers into the water. The Creature is delighted and she gets the Creature to try tossing in flowers. When they run out of flowers he throws the little girl into water but she drowns instead of floating and creature runs off in a panic

Back in the village there’s all sorts of happy slappy dancing and the street party is in full swing. Elizabeth needs to talk to Henry before wedding. She is worried that they haven’t heard from Waldman. She senses something dreadful is coming and Frankenstein tries to calm her. There’s a knocking on door. It’s Victor who tells Henry that Waldman been murdered. They hear the creature in the house and search for him in cellars. But the creature is outside the window of Elizabeth’s room. It breaks through the window and when she sees it she screams and it mocks her and leaves her passed out and hysterical

The village are all still singing and dancing and Maria’s father arrives with is child’s limp body in his arms as a he passes the celebration stops. When he reaches the steps of the town hall to see the burgomaster Vogel the partying village has became an angry mob and Vogel promises them justice

Frankenstein wants to destroy the creature or there will be no wedding. Vogel organises three groups to search for the creature, alive if possible. With flaming torches held aloft they hunt the creature in mountains. Frankenstein gets separated from the rest of the and of course he finds the creature and tries to use the torch to frighten it but its not scared of fire anymore and attacks Frankenstein and knocks him out

The rest of the search party spot the Creature and release the hound to chase him. It carries Frankenstein all the way back to the windmill with the mob on his tail. They try to break in. Frankenstein wakes up and crawls away but the creature sees him and they struggle and it throws Frankenstein down to the mob below Frankenstein is still alive and broken and they carry back him back to the village. They set fire to the windmill and the creature screams as the flames grow. It has nowhere to run and it gets trapped by a falling beam as whole windmills burns

There’s is an epilogue. A large group of servants come to Frankenstein’s room with a glass of his Grandmother’s special wine. The Baron comes to the door and he looks back to see Frankenstein and Elizabeth kissing so he discretely closes door and drinks the wine himself.

This film is one of the most famous horror films and its influence in popular culture is so pervasive that many familiar tropes of horror began here. It made the career of William Pratt or Boris Karloff with an effective performance as monster that is more to be pitied than hated. It was still the early days of talking films so a lot of the performances are very stagey, especially Colin Clive as Frankenstein and Dwight Frye as the hunchback assistant Fritz. No matter how many modern adaptations have appeared the image of Karloff’s Creature is the one that comes to mind when Frankenstein is mentioned.

Rating 10.0/10

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Review: Frankenhooker

October Horror Month

For the second film of my October horror special I’ve gone for a very different tone of film. Anyone who is a fan of low-budget 80s horror will probably have heard of Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case films or exceptionally strange Brain Damage. He makes low budget exploitation horror films that stick in your mind because of the compelling weirdness he includes in his films. This film sees him adapt the classic story of Frankenstein to modern-day America and give the story a twist of his own

Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) is a young amateur mad scientist and surgeon and before the titles we see him working with a brain with an eye and we see his casual approach to brain surgery to get the creature to respond. There’s a big birthday party for his girlfriend Elizabeth’s (Patty Mullen) dad in the garden and his gift is a remote control lawnmower designed by Jeffrey. This leads to a tragic accident and Elizabeth is killed. More than killed she chopped up into pieces and sprayed over the shocked party guests.

Jeffrey was hardly the most stable person before the accident but he seems to have gone crazy. His mother is worried about him and it turns out that he’s worried too. He’s lost any sense of what’s right and wrong and thinks he’s becoming dangerous. His mother offers him a sandwich. Jeffery has been working on a way to bring Elizabeth back to life but all he has left of her is her head. So he needs parts to make her a body. He tries to think of a way to gather parts and uses a power drill right into his brain to help him think. He comes up with the idea of going for hookers since they are selling their bodies.

He goes to New York and quickly finds a hooker who takes her to see her boss Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez). Jeffrey tells him that he wants about six women for a party. He also buys crack from Zorro. That night he creates his own lethal super-crack in his lab  and tests it on a guinea pig which explodes. He reasons that he’s not killing anyone if they take the super-crack and die since he’s not forcing them to take it. Another drill into the brain helps him with his “reasoning”.

Next night Jeffrey is in a hotel room with a bunch of Zorro’s women and he’s dressed up in a comedy doctor outfit. He measures all the women and takes notes but he can’t decide on any one woman. He also starts having doubts about what he plans to do and just gives them the money in a bag. Also in the bag is a load of his super-crack. Jeffrey tries to stop them taking the crack but I wonder how sincere he is considering that earlier scene. Soon the women are smoking super-crack and dancing around semi-naked.

Zorro has gotten bored waiting in the hotel lobby for his women so he heads upstairs. Meanwhile in the room the woman all start blowing up and within minutes Jeffrey is alone in a room full of body parts. When Zorro hears the noises of the women blowing up he tries to get in. Jeffrey puts the parts into black bags and loads them into his car promising them that he’ll put them back after he fixes Elizabeth.

Back in his shed/laboratory he selects the parts to make a body for Elizabeth and puts the leftovers in the nutrient bath in a freezer. He assembles the parts, putting Elizabeth’s head on last and then he activates the Frankenstein-style electrical apparatus that includes a platform that rises with the body right up into the storm.

The is mad science so of course it works and when he brings the platform back down she’s standing up under the sheet she was wrapped in. She has purple hair now and instead of talking like Elizabeth she speaks like one of Zorro’s women. She demands money and since Jeffrey doesn’t have any she throws him aside knocking him out and she leaves. No-one notices that the lightning also hit the freezer full of nutrient with the spare parts and things inside started to move around

The Elizabeth creature heads back to New York where she keeps repeating the last things the women said before they blew up. She picks up a customer who is very excited. When she has sex with the man her pussy electrifies the man and his head blows of with a smile on his face. She takes money from the man’s wallet and leaves happy. She meets a man in the street who forces himself on her but when kisses her he gets electrified and his head blows off.

Back in his lab Jeffrey comes round and sees Elizabeth is gone. He remembers Elizabeth talking like a hooker and figures she’s gone to New York so gets in his car and races off to find her. Elizabeth has got to Zorro’s club where she is getting chatted-up by a rival pimp but she just keeps repeating things the women said and Zorro hears it. The pimp pawing at her goes under the table and the implication is having oral sex when he gets electrified and blows up. Everyone starts panicking and running from the club. Zorro confronts Elizabeth demanding to know what she knows. She pushes him away and he hits her knocking her head almost completely off but it’s still hanging on with some skin and sparks are flying out of her neck. Jeffrey comes into the club and finds Elizabeth. He puts her head back on and then leads her out to his car

Jeffrey fixes Elizabeth’s neck with large metal fasteners and gives a dose of mains electricity. This brings her around but this time she is Elizabeth and she’s not very happy with what Jeffrey’s done. Jeffrey tells her she was dead but he brought her back and she realises that it is a great breakthrough. Just then Zorro arrives and he creeps up behind Jeffrey and cuts off his head.

The freezer full of nutrient suddenly breaks open and all sorts of strange combinations of body parts come out. They attack Zorro and drag him screaming back in to the freezer. Elizabeth picks up Jeffrey head that is soaked in nutrient and promises she’ll fix him.

Next scene Jeffrey is alive and we see his head in close up. Elizabeth has managed to transplant his head onto another body. Earlier Jeffrey had mentioned that he was only half successful with his technique but because he uses oestrogen in his nutrient solution it only work on female body parts and so Elizabeth has given him a woman’s body.

This film is just perfect Henenlotter, with the mad outsider protagonist and the sleazy urban settings. James Lorinz is perfect as Jeffrey with his constant mumbling delivery of Jeffrey’s increasingly insane inner monologues. This is not a film for everyone but if you like low-budget 80s exploitation horror you’ll probably enjoy this one

Rating 7.5/10

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