FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN (1973)
aka Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein
Article 3204 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 3-27-2010
Posting Date: 5-23-2010
Directed by Paul Morrissey and Antonio Margheriti
Featuring Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren, Udo Kier
Country: USA/Italy/France
What it is: Over-the-top horror and sex black comedy

Baron Frankenstein is in the process of creating a man and a woman in his lab in the hopes that they will mate and produce a race of perfect Serbians. His wife/sister has the hots for the oversexed stable boy and brings him into the house as a “personal servant”. Their two children sneak around the house and observe everything.

Though IMDB doesn’t classify it as a comedy, I think that’s the only way to interpret this ultra-gory sexed-up version of the Frankenstein story. We have a Baron Frankenstein whose extreme sexual repression has manifested itself in some truly outrageous ways, which are unfortunately picked up by his impressionable but stupid assistant. We have the oversexed wife/sister who is only disgusted with sex when someone else is getting it, and the stud of a manservant who actually seems a little bored with it all and has other things on his mind. You have a case of mistaken identity; the doctor is searching for the head of a man for his monster who is sex-obsessed and ends up with the head of man who aspires to be a monk. If you think about it, this is all pretty amusing, and the over-the-top gore is just part of the joke. It was originally shown in 3D, and even watching it flat you can see how it made some interesting (if occasionally disgusting) uses of the gimmick. I remember that I first saw this one on the USA network (NOT a pay channel); I’d actually like to see it again having seen the unedited widescreen version, if for no other reason than to marvel at the ingenuity they must have used to edit this into anything that could have actually been shown on the channel. Andy Warhol was one of several producers, but you can ignore the Antonio Margheriti credit; he was credited for quota reasons in Italy, but had nothing to do with the movie.