Tag: frankenstein
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Horror Cinema: Lisa Frankenstein
I glibly dismissed Lisa Frankenstein because I didn’t think that a “Lisa Frank” take on a horror story would be any good. On the weekend, however, a friend recommended the movie at a dinner party, telling us that it was a modern version of the 1980s Heathers with a Frankenstein monster. Color me intrigued!
My friend’s description was accurate, but not because the story was anything really like Heathers. It was more the overall campy vibe of the film along with the 1980s time period and the funny commentaries on how stupid high school is.
I was pleasantly surprised to truly enjoy this movie. A hybrid of horror and romantic comedy, the movie never took itself too seriously. It was cheesy, funny and gory in all the right ways at all the right times. For me, Lisa Frankenstein joined my list of all-time classics!
Added bonus for those of us romantics who love a masculine and sensitive male love interest. 😍 He was adorable!
Williams, Zelda. Lisa Frankenstein, Universal Pictures, 2024.
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Miniature Humanoids
“You think I’m mad. Perhaps I am. But listen, Henry Frankenstein. While you were digging in your graves, piecing together dead tissues, I, my dear pupil, went for my materials to the source of life. I grew my creatures like cultures, grew them as nature does, from seed.” – Dr. Septimus Pretorius, Bride of Frankenstein
The Homunculi are miniature humanoids artificially created by Dr. Septimus Pretorius. Unlike Frankenstein’s Monster, the Homunculi are grown from organic seeds and kept in jars to prevent them from escaping.
The six known Homunculi created by Pretorius are a Queen, an Archbishop, a Priest, a Devil, a Ballerina (who won’t dance to anything but Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song”) and a Mermaid (described as the result of an experiment with seaweed).
The tiny mermaid in Dr. Pretorius’ bottle was Josephine McKim, a member of the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Women’s Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four members of that team to win the 1928 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay.
Information from Fandom: Homunculi (Bride of Frankenstein) and IMDb Trivia: Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
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Horror Comedy Trivia: Young Frankenstein
When Mel Brooks was preparing for this film, he discovered that Ken Strickfaden, who had made the elaborate electrical machinery for the lab sequences in the Universal Frankenstein films, was still alive and living in the Los Angeles area. Brooks visited Strickfaden and found that he had stored all the equipment in his garage. Brooks made a deal to rent the equipment and gave Strickfaden the screen credit he did not receive for the original films.
Frankenstein, 1931 
Young Frankenstein, 1974 Find more behind-the-scenes facts at IMDb Trivia: Young Frankenstein (1974).
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Frankenstein at work in his laboratory
Etching included in a 1922 edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Devil's Muse 