Frankenhooker (1990)

Studio: Synapse
Theatrical Release: June 1st, 1990
Blu-Ray Release: November 8th, 2011
Rating: Unrated!
Review by Craig Sorensen




For some reason pretty Elizabeth Shelley (Patty Mullen of um, an episode of The Equalizer) is engaged to nerdy weirdo Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz who played “Upset Driver” in Robocop 3), even though he grows brains with giant cyclopian eyeballs and plays with them during her father’s birthday party.  Anyway, for said birthday party, Jeffrey invents a remote control lawnmower which Elizabeth promptly uses to kill herself.  Grief stricken, Jeffery does what any self respecting medical school dropout would do, saves the pieces worth saving.  Jeffery then pulls a “Brain That Wouldn’t Die” and sets out to build Elizabeth a new body out of 42nd street hookers.  Also, he invents super crack.

I always tend to think of the 1990’s as a kind of wasteland of genre filmmaking.  This was the height of Full Moon laziness and shitty post Scream slasher dreck (if there was one thing that didn’t need a revival in the 90’s it was the slasher).  Tucked away in the corners of this mess though, there are a few gems.  Frankenhooker is one of those.  Now, when you’re going into a film like Frankenhooker, you kind of have an idea of what you’re going to get.  And to a certain extent, it delivers exactly what you would expect.  The film is filled with dumb, gross-out humor and copious nudity (and in that respect alone Frankenhooker succeeds where other films of the era fail miserably).  But beyond the expected gore and tits there is a cleverness and almost sweetness to the film.  Frankenhooker could have easily become some sub-Troma level bullshit (the subject matter definitely lends itself to that).  But the thing is, it’s made by people who give a shit.

It never condescends to it’s characters and in my mind that helps a lot.  Director Frank Henenlotter loves his freaks and street people.  And it’s refreshing to see that in a film about prostitution and drug use.  The film never really condemns any of it’s fringe characters.  That’s unusual for hooker characters.  I mean, they aren’t particularly realistic portrayals or anything but it never really stops to let the audience know that this lifestyle is “bad news and good christians don’t do that kind of thing”.  It doesn’t go out of it’s way to put pimps in a positive light but that would be a little harder to pull off.  And it’s treatment of the use of crack cocaine is kind of sad in a strange way.  When Jeffery goes to see Zorro the pimp (Joseph Gonzalez, “Guy In Shower” from Brain Damage), we get a scene in a dingy bathroom filled with crack heads.  It plays out almost like a scene from Shock Corridor or Titticut Follies.  It’s just depressing.  Of course the next scene is Jeffery inventing super crack so maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Anyway, this new Blu-Ray from Synapse looks fucking fantastic.  I guess you really should just expect that from the company at this point.  I’d be more surprised if they’d screwed it up somehow.  There is a decent amount of natural looking grain present and there is a significant bump in detail over the previous home video versions.  I didn’t notice any kind of noise reduction or edge enhancement so if they’re there they are very minimal at best.  Sound comes in the original stereo and a new 5.1 track.  Both sound great.  Most of the extras seem to be ported over from the last DVD release.  You get a fun commentary track with Henenlotter and effects man Gabe Bartalos, a nice interview with Patty Mullen, two short featurettes with actress Jennifer Delora, another featurette about the make-up effects and of course, the trailer.