TheRetroCritic

Before Tom Cruise battled it out with Universal's latest Mummy, James McAvoy was Victor Frankenstein in this 2015 Frankenstein reboot. The film was a flop and another failed attempt at building some kind of new monster movie franchise or universe. Daniel Radcliffe plays a hunchbacked circus clown (need I say more?) who suddenly develops a passion for medicine (don't ask) and becomes mad genius Victor Frankenstein's colleague under the name Igor. They first attempt to make a living being out of various dead animal parts then move on to bigger, and more familiar endeavours. There's something consistently unclear about this movie: is it a prequel to the original classic or is it a prequel to a reboot Frankenstein movie that doesn't and will never exist? Of course it's the latter but the film's early claims that we all know Frankenstein's story along with various references to the iconic original constantly clash with the new interpretation of thes

Previously a Halloween-themed video for 1MoreCastle.com , here's my review of Dr. Franken for the Nintendo Game Boy.

The first in the classic series of Universal monsters/Abbott & Costello crossover comedies, Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein was the duo's first attempt at making a respectful homage to classic horror films while putting together a good, original comedy AND not taking the piss too much of the source material. I mean, this is a film in which Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi reprise their respective roles of The Wolfman and Dracula so making a straight-up spoof would have been a faux-pas to say the least. Somehow I don't see Lugosi making a mockery of Dracula... without Ed Wood, that is. This movie is certainly a crowd-pleaser in that both fans of the old monster movies can enjoy it and fans of Abbott and Costello as well. It walks a fine line between homage and parody but makes it work both ways admirably. Unfortunately, the title is a bit of a lie: they never meet Frankenstein. They meet Frankenstein's Monster, played by Glenn Strange, but never Doctor Frankens

Remaking genius cult B-movie Death Race 2000 was either going to end up being a very bad idea or a very good idea. The film (think Wacky Races with gore, Sylvester Stallone and boobs) said pretty much all it had to say it seemed. But here we are with a Jason Statham B-side actioner that's... Neither bad or good, really. More the latter than the former, though. The film opens with a cool car chase involving masked driver Frankenstein (played by David Carradine in the original film and rocking a cameo here), a really good start: the cars look great, the action's fine... That is, until the character is killed off! Yeah, then it becomes a prison movie for some reason with Jason Statham getting locked up after being wrongfully accused of killing his own wife. It's like Steven Seagal came in and rewrote the movie! It's not bad but it's not quite what you expect walking in, frankly. Thankfully, though, things finally get down to business and the movie gets bac

Tim Burton's own short Frankenweenie certainly had potential so a remake sounded good but risky. After all, Burton is being criticized these days for doing the same type of thing over and over and his work gets it in the neck for lacking originality altogether so an adaptation of his own short was always going to provoke critics. Not this time, though. Dark Shadows was enjoyable enough but there really wasn't that much to it, Alice In Wonderland did really well at the box-office but the feedback wasn't exactly positive. Well, it's Disney time again and, believe it or not, they finally got it right! And the irony is they got it right with a film based on a short they rejected back in the day for being too dark. If anything, this slick new stop-motion Frankenweenie is darker and infinitely more twisted than its low-budget little brother. Burton has assembled a vintage Burton cast this time with the likes of Martin Short ( Mars Attacks! ), Catherine O'Hara ( B

Man the critics were rough on this one... Now I'm one of the first to bash whatever new tired kid-friendly animated flicks come out these days: Madagascar 3 , Ice Age 4 , The Lorax ... not for me. That said, there are the occasional ones that slip through the cracks and actually end up being pretty good ( ParaNorman , The Pirates ). Hotel Transylvania I found to be in-between. On the one hand you've got its gorgeous animation, its clever premise, its fun winks to old horror movies, its colorful characters and on the other you have... ...the singing. Actually you have an Adam Sandler Dracula RAP. I'll let that sink in. ... Theeeere it is. Ok, so that sounds like hell but trust me: Hotel Transylvania is worth a go. For one thing it's a lot of fun. It's pretty darn relentless and certainly never wastes any of its time: it's fast, punchy and nuts going for a Tex Avery-style random toon-craziness we haven't seen achieved quite this well sinc

The RetroCritic needs YOU ! So yeah, I'll be making a new short next February/March: think Ed Wood's Bride Of The Monster meets Bride Of Frankenstein . The short will be a springboard to my first feature Dr Vornoff vs The Martians! which I'm looking to shoot next Summer. So if you're at all interested in either film, check out the link below and contribute however you can, loads of rewards on offer! More info on the project itself on the Razorhead Films blog: http://www.razorheadfilms.blogspot.com And, as ever, if you want to help out in other ways here's the email: razorheadfilmsltd@gmail.com Thanks guys!

As many of you know, Mr Tim Burton is currently hard at work on an animated adaptation of his very own short Frankenweenie . It sounds fab with Martin Short playing no less than 5 characters, former Burtoneers Winona Ryder, Martin Landau and Catherine O'Hara all back in the game and the whole thing resembling Burton's animated short  Vincent . Here are some early stills: Looks pretty great indeed: Sparky's adorable. It's all in black and white. It's Frankenstein with a dog. I'm sold.

Had I known as a kid that one day a Young Frankenstein musical would ever exist I think I would have gone through the roof with pure geeky giddiness. Well, I wasn't a kid but when I heard Gene Wilder say in an interview that Mel Brooks was working on that show but I can honestly say that I creamed a tiny bit. Now it's 2011 and...you know what? I completely missed the damn thing! Living in London sucks. I did get to check out a filmed performance though so at least I got to see it eventually. Thoughts? This is one big, expensive musical indeed. Hell, the Overture itself is like 4 minutes long! But I guess seeing as this is based on what is essentially Mel Brooks' best film and follows a huge hit like The Producers it's bound to be big and expensive. From what I understand critics were mixed upon its release but from my side of things, I loved every minute of it. Roger Bart, originally cast as Igor, turns out to be the perfect choice for Dr Frankenstein (read: F

You know those old B movies where you don't see the monster until the last 10 minutes and until then you're made to sit through a slow-moving narrative and endless shots of people walking around in dark rooms looking perplexed? Well, The Reptile is one of those movies. But is the payoff worth it? Almost. There is fun to be had throughout this Hammer horror thriller: Noel Willman is great as the troubled and decidedly odd Dr Franklyn, the Reptile looks the business and there are enough anomalies in the film itself to keep fans of bad movies nitpicking and entertained. The lighting is all over the place: with a single candle lighting a whole house and day turning to night back and forth without rhyme or reason. The continuity is often questionable, the locations cheap-looking and some scenes are clearly either missing entirely or awkwardly there to fill in a gap. Overall, The Reptile is one for the more patient viewers: it's not particularly exciting and t

Frankenstein Created Woman indeed...or rather...a man within a woman. Yes, don't be fooled by the straightforward title, this is as random as a Frankenstein film can get. Not really actually, there's always Frankenstein Conquers The World . One of Hammer's last films, this is also one of its best. Peter Cushing has never been cooler, the whole thing looks fab, Thorley Walters is a lot of fun as Frankenstein's bumbling right-hand man and the villains are a positively odious lot and not too dissimilar from the Clockwork Orange gang or the nasty fox-hunters from Plague of the Zombies . The real strength of the film is that it introduces us to a young troubled couple we actually get attached to only to turn everything upside down as Frankenstein's well-meaning (or not) experiment once again backfires. As tragic as the story is, the film never forgets to be fun and, indeed, as preposterous as it all is, the silliness feels essential. Besides, those ann