Stream-And-Run, Halloween Edition: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

            You can never go wrong with Peter Cushing…

             The last of the Hammer Frankenstein series and the last film director Terence Fischer ever made, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is satisfying enough, although there’s certainly an undeniable half-heartedness to the whole endeavor. Shane Briant plays the young Dr. Helder, who is obsessed with the work of the legendary Dr. Victor Frankenstein. His obsession and subsequent attempt to recreate his hero’s work lands him in an insane asylum, where oddly enough the good Dr. Frankenstein is serving as the resident physician. At first apparently removed of his desire to create life, Helder soon discovers that Frankenstein has been secretly been working away at a new project. Cushing is as fantastic as ever as Frankenstein himself, although far more subdued and less evil this time out. David Prowse emotes well enough under pounds of makeup, although the ape-like “Monster from Hell” itself can’t help but look a little goofy. Being a later-day Hammer production, Fischer’s film is filled with the types of gory operations that would have been impossible to pull off in the early films, although the film still can’t help but feel lacking in the end.