Thirty-One Days O’Horror: The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)

“Hans, I succeeded once.”

Despite a very strong cast, Hammer’s 1964 release of The Evil of Frankenstein misses the mark. Peter Cushing stars as the brilliant scientist Baron Victor Frankenstein, who we find in exile from his home of Karlstaad with his loyal assistant, Hans. The duo are found to be harvesting remains in a small village and are outed just as the baron is about to reanimate a second corpse. His laboratory is destroyed and he and Hans are forced to flee the village. They return to Karlstaad hoping to find items to sell off at the baron’s chateau in order to get enough funds to build a new laboratory but find the place empty. Then they head into town during a festival and the baron discovers that most of his property has been stolen by the local burgomaster.

The baron and Hans hatch a scheme to steal back some of the property but are chased away by the police into the hills. There they are discovered by a mute girl who helps them hide and unwittingly reveals to them the location of the baron’s first successful creation, frozen in snow. The baron and Hans bring the creature back to the baron’s chateau and manage to revive it with the help of a thieving hypnotist named Zoltan. The hypnotist begins using the creature to steal gold from Karlstaad and it eventually murders the burgomaster and a police officer that it mistakes for the chief of police. When the baron finds this out, he kicks the hypnotist out of his chateau. The crook returns, however, and a climactic battle ensues for control of the creature. Who wins? You’ll have to watch The Evil of Frankenstein to find out.

I wanted to like this film. It has a lot going for it. The visuals are absolutely stunning at times and the performances of Peter Cushing as the baron and Sandor Eles as Hans are brilliant. I also really enjoyed the light touches of humor, most of which involved Caron Gardner who portrayed the burgomaster’s wife. The burgomaster, portrayed by David Hutcheson, was also devilishly fun to watch on the screen. Katy Wild, despite never uttering a word as the mute girl, turned in a very convincing performance. Peter Woodthorpe portrayed Zoltan and he played the primary villain of the piece to perfection.

Sadly the film is weighed down by poor editing, a jumbled plot, and horrible creature makeup. Poor Kiwi Kingston couldn’t do much of anything in the oversized forehead and clunky boots of the creature. It was a poor homage to Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the creature in the classic Universal film. The story dragged for absolutely no reason and many of the scenes felt mashed together. This film is a mess with only slight flashes of brilliance, particularly in the cinematography.

For the visuals and performances of the cast I recommend giving this film a shot. If you can look beyond the terrible makeup and the goofy editing, you might enjoy this film.

Thanks for checking out this post. Hammer misfired with this flick but I plan to review a much better film tomorrow!