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The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein

Original title: La maldición de Frankenstein
  • 1973
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
5.0/10
949
YOUR RATING
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1973)
HorrorSci-Fi

Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant Morpho are killed just as they bring their creation to life. The monster is taken by Cagliostro and he now controls the monster and plans to have it mate a... Read allDr. Frankenstein and his assistant Morpho are killed just as they bring their creation to life. The monster is taken by Cagliostro and he now controls the monster and plans to have it mate and create the perfect master race.Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant Morpho are killed just as they bring their creation to life. The monster is taken by Cagliostro and he now controls the monster and plans to have it mate and create the perfect master race.

  • Director
    • Jesús Franco
  • Writers
    • Jesús Franco
    • Mary Shelley
  • Stars
    • Alberto Dalbés
    • Dennis Price
    • Howard Vernon
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.0/10
    949
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Jesús Franco
    • Writers
      • Jesús Franco
      • Mary Shelley
    • Stars
      • Alberto Dalbés
      • Dennis Price
      • Howard Vernon
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    • 30User reviews
    • 30Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos45

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    Top cast14

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    Alberto Dalbés
    Alberto Dalbés
    • Doctor Seward
    • (as Alberto Dalbes)
    Dennis Price
    Dennis Price
    • Doctor Frankenstein
    • (as Denis Price)
    Howard Vernon
    Howard Vernon
    • Cagliostro
    Beatriz Savón
    • Vera Frankenstein
    Anne Libert
    Anne Libert
    • Melisa
    Fernando Bilbao
    Fernando Bilbao
    • Monstruo
    Carmen Yazalde
    Carmen Yazalde
    • Madame Orloff
    • (as Britt Nichols)
    Luis Barboo
    Luis Barboo
    • Caronte
    Daniel White
    • Tanner
    • (as Daniel Gerome)
    Doris Thomas
    • Abigail
    • (as Doris Tom)
    Lina Romay
    Lina Romay
    • Esmeralda (in version "La maldición de Frankenstein")
    Jesús Franco
    Jesús Franco
    • Morpho
    • (as J. Franco)
    Eduardo Calvo
    Eduardo Calvo
    • Dr. Frankenstein
    • (Spanish version)
    • (voice)
    • (uncredited)
    Eduarda Pimenta
    • Asistente de Vera Frankenstein
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Jesús Franco
    • Writers
      • Jesús Franco
      • Mary Shelley
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews30

    5.0949
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    Featured reviews

    8mido505

    Jess still has a lot to teach us.

    To all of you out there who think that the likes of Steven Soderbergh and David O. Russell epitomize independent film-making: go rent this film and let the scales fall from your eyes. Made during director Jess Franco's amazing early 70's period, post Harry Alan Towers and pre-porno, The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is a surrealist masterpiece, poetic, perverse, comic, and mesmerizing. Shot for next to nothing on location in Portugal, the film is full of evocative, wide-angle, hand held imagery that must have appeared jaw-droppingly innovative at the time, and still astounds today. Daniel White's atonal, experimental score skillfully enhances the film's nightmarish languor, and the roles, particularly Anne Libert's blind cannibalistic Bird Woman, and Howard Vernon's strangely sexy Cagliostro, are performed with aplomb and conviction. You won't soon forget the scenes of white-shrouded undead gliding through a mist-laden forest, the strange, red-lit shots of Cagliostro's acolytes blithely staring at cruel tableaux orchestrated for their perverse amusement, or a shrieking, silver-skinned Frankenstein's monster relentlessly whipping a man and a woman tied together over a bed of spikes. Anyone who doubts Jess Franco's talent should rent this DVD, and then ponder the pettifogging morass that independent cinema has become.
    4ma-cortes

    Below average Monster movie co-produced by Spain and France and badly made by prolific Jesús Franco

    Dr Frankenstein : Dennis Price and his assistant Morpho : Jesús Franco, are attacked by the giant monster : Fernando Bilbao , as soon as he is brought to life. Then the monster is taken by the immortal magician Cagliostro : Howard Vernon , and his helper , the witch Melissa : Ana Libert . Cagliostro's goal is to create a new master race and turn over the World. Then Dr Stewart : Alberto Dalbes to do battle against the forces of evil and once again decides it's time to wipe them off the Earth , unfortunately his is attacked by Frankenstein monster .They have awakened .. and they are the sound of terror!

    Typical Jesús Franco of the Seventies , this time revisiting Frankenstein creature . This is the follow-up to "Dracula versus Frankenstein" 1972 with similar techinician and artistic team, adding Paca Gabaldon and shot in same scenarios from Sintra , Lisboa , Portugal . Here shows up ordinary actors of the Jess Frank factory , giving lousy interpretations , such as : Howard Vernon, Dennis Price , Anne Libert , Britt Nichols , and film debut of Lina Romay , Jesús Frank's future wife and his muse.

    It packs an atmospheric and passable cinematography by Raúl Artigot . Being shot on location in Barcelona, Alicante, Murcia and Sintra, Lisboa , Portugal. As well as atonal and weird musical score by Daniel White, Jesús Franco regular . The motion picture produced by Franco regular producers Arturo Marcos and Robert De Nestle who financed him several movies in the Seventies . The flick was lousily directed by Jesús Franco in his usual style . This La Maldición de Frankenstein or Erotic adventures of Frankenstein was one of a multitude of terror films directed by the hack Jesus Franco, such as : Miss Muerte or The Diabolic Dr Z , Gritos en la Noche , La Mano del Hombre Muerto, Count Dracula , Jack the Ripper , Vampyres Lesbos , Dracula versus Frankenstein , The erotic rites of Dracula , Los Demonios , Mansion of the Living Dead and Doctor Orloff Saga that includes : The Awful Dr Orloff , Secret Dr Orloff , Sinister Dr Orloff , Orloff's Invisible Monster , Faceless . Rating 4/10 . Inferior and below average horror movie . Exclusively for Jesús Frank completists .
    4Witchfinder-General-666

    The Weird (But Tedious) Rites Of Franco

    I am generally a big fan of the highly prolific exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco, yet it is undeniable that his impressive repertoire includes ingenious films as well as big time stinkers. While this "Erotic Rites Of Frankenstein" of 1972 is not one of the most awful films Franco has ever brought to screen it definitely ranges among his lesser ones. The film has its positive aspects, including a certain delightful weirdness, but it is overall a bit too messy, and often quite boring. Still, for my fellow trash fans, there are some reasons to see the film. This is the first film ever starring Lina Romay, who subsequently became a Franco-film-regular and sleaze-queen. Romay was only 18 when this film was made, and she became director Franco's wife some time later. The film's storyline is weird and very absurd, and basically typical for a Franco flick. I will not go into detail, but I'll say this much: The story revolves about an insane scientist/sorcerer named Cagliostro (regular Franco-film star Howard Vernon), who has a cult of devoted freaks in his castle, and wants to create a human 'masterrace' by crossing beautiful women with Frankenstein's monster. Or whatever. Sounds like a lot of weird fun, I know, but sadly the film gets quite tiresome at times. There are two versions of the film, one of which is a lot sleazier. They basically shot the whole film twice, with the exact same things happening, only that the women are mostly clothed in one version and mostly fully naked in the other. My DVD contains the more prudish version, with the more explicit 'alternative' scenes as a bonus feature. I strongly recommend to watch the sleazier version, of course, since the sleaze factor is arguably the most recommendable thing about the film. The female cast is lovely to look at and mostly naked (in the interesting version). Also, there are some ridiculous and amateurish, but delightfully weird outburst of violence. The cinematography and settings are also very good. Howard Vernon enjoys a certain cult status among many of my fellow exploitation fans, and rightly so, if I am considered. The guy was certainly not the most brilliant actor ever, but he fit very well in the trashy Eurohorror roles that he played. Vernon's repertoire ranges from some excellent films (such Jess Franco's very own masterpiece "Miss Muerte") to god-awful (such as Jean Rollin's dreadful "Zombie Lake") and his presence actually makes films like this one a lot more worthwhile. This film of many aka. titles (such as "La Maldición De Frankenstein") is watchable (in the explicit version) for its weirdness, but one shouldn't expect too much. Among the Franco films I've seen (and those are quite many by now) this one doesn't rank at the very bottom, but it certainly ranges in the lesser half.
    2The_Secretive_Bus

    "The Curse of Frankenstein" - sequel to a film even worse than this one...

    More hot hacienda action the ol' Franco way, featuring many of the sets, actors and characters from "Dracula: Prisoner of Frankenstein". "Curse" does in fact exist in two versions, as the "proper" version is called "The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein" and is roughly the same as "Curse" aside from that fact that in several scenes the characters have miraculously lost all of their clothes. Curse is the censored and "clothed" one, which also unfortunately includes an additional number of scenes not present in "Erotic Rites" which depict a gypsy girl called Esmeralda wandering around a wood and talking to an under-acting old woman who doesn't even appear to realise that she's being filmed. Needless to say these scenes have absolutely sod all to do with anything else and, in an act of pure sadism, Tartan Video decided to release this longer version onto DVD.

    Being fair to it, "Curse" is a lot better than "Dracula: Prisoner" and with some alterations could even have made a tolerable 70s horror film in its own right. Its core plot isn't too far removed from the Hammer films being churned out at the time and there's some vaguely interesting stuff going on in it. However, that doesn't mean to say it's any good. Mercifully, Franco has vastly cut down on the number of crash zooms though still seems to have problems in focussing the camera a third of the time, and most exterior footage seems to suggest that every building in Spain is situated on an ungodly ground subsidence. The musical score is also questionable, giving us some nicely eerie tunes here and there and then assaulting us with jazzy percussion tempos during key action scenes, such as when Frankenstein's monster breaks into a poor young lady's bedroom and leaps on her on the bed. Ah yes, there's some naughty hijinks going on in this film – including a truly nasty whipping scene that goes on for too long (and is even worse in the "Erotic" version, simply because one of the people being whipped is a nude 50 year old man – urgh…) – but certainly nothing to get heated about. Then again, Franco's idea of erotica seemed to be to just point a camera at a naked woman and stay there for 30 seconds a throw. Ho hum.

    Dr Frankenstein (Price) is reanimating a somewhat shinier version of his monster, with help from his assistant, Morpho (what is Franco's fetish with the name 'Morpho'???). Despite playing the title character, Price is killed approximately two minutes into the film. Now, poor old Price's characters often have a run of bad luck. I've seen him getting throttled, impaled, drowned, drained of blood, tipped into acid and "excited to death", but I think I wouldn't be wrong in saying that Curse gives us the most novel method of Price dispatchment: bitten and bled by a blind and cannibalistic bird woman. Mmm. There's something to write home about. The bird woman and a gurning helper steal Frankenstein's monster and take him to the true villain of the piece, Cagliostro: a ranting nutter who doesn't blink (yes, it's Howard Vernon again, far better playing some bloke we've never heard of than the legendary Count Dracula). Cagliostro initially seems to want the monster to steal lots of virgins for him but then decides that he wants to create the ultimate woman as a bride of sorts for the monster. Quite why I don't know but I'm sure if he had the chance he'd list his reasons. Frankenstein's daughter, Vera, comes to pay her respects at her dad's funeral, following which she steals the body and reanimates it back at the "castle" to learn who did the poor bugger in. Eventually she reasons that the best way to get her revenge on Cagliostro is to let herself get captured by his monster and… um, get hypnotised into being his completely willing slave. Yes. Erm, not quite sure what she was getting at, there. In any case, that's the status quo and it's not even including the activities of the good Dr Seward, wandering around the plot and chatting to people (probably looking for Bram Stoker for an explanation as to what on Earth he's doing there).

    I said it wasn't as bad as "Dracula: Prisoner" and that's true. For a start, it can only tarnish the memory of one horror staple rather than three, but aside from that it at least seems to know where it's going half the time. Most of this is thanks to the dialogue, in stark contrast with its prequel; yes, this time characters actually talk to each other, a revolutionary concept if ever I've heard one. Dr Seward actually gets stuff to do here and even comes across as a decent enough hero character (even if he does try to chat up Vena at her dad's own funeral – yes, really), having a hand in the baddie's downfall as opposed to his spare part status in "Dracula: Prisoner". Dennis Price appears several times throughout the narrative despite the seemingly overwhelming drawback of having been killed but spends most of the time lying on a bed, twitching spasmodically and rambling about his monster and Cagliostro. From what I can make out, Price seems to be giving an… interesting performance (in other words, going over the top to exceptional degrees) but as it's dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles I can't really tell. Eventually Frankenstein dies after one ramble too many, only to come back from the dead as a (somewhat mincing) zombie who staggers into the next room to have a go at strangling Dr Seward. Price's demise is finally made certain when a police inspector chucks a container of acid over him, which seems to disintegrate Price's head in 0.5 seconds. Golly.

    And then, 20 minutes later, it sort of... stops. I ought to be grateful that it ended at all.
    Chris-773

    Frankenstein as told by the Marquis de Sade

    Once upon a time, I viewed a copy of Jess Franco's Virgin among the Living Dead. I thought the movie was slow, boring and utterly pointless. Henceforth, I made it my firm resolution to avoid any movie directed by Jess Franco again. However after catching "the Awful Dr Orloff" on tv I have over the years become an admirer of his unique filmic style and now suprisingly claim that Jess Franco can be considered an Auteur of Euro-trash cinema.

    The Erotic rites of Frankenstein is a very hard movie to track down. As far as I know it has never been released in the UK or America. Therefore, I was lucky enough to obtain a good widescreen copy on VHS from a car-boot sale. (These thing's always turn up in carboot sales!) The movie is a very imaginative and bizarre reinterpretation of Shelley's classic horror tale with and overtly sexual subtext.

    Dr Frankenstein finally bestows the gift of speech upon his creation. Unfortunately his triumph is short lived when he is attacked by a weird naked vulture woman who tears him to shreds in his laboratory. Vera Frankenstein investigating his death reanimates her fathers corpse and discovers that his murderer is none other than Cagliostro the Wizard who has stolen the monster to aid his plans for world domination. Vera sets out to revenge her father but alas falls into the clutches of the wicked and very perverse Cagliostro....

    This film contains many odd scenes and speeches from the characters. The oft mentioned scene of a bare chested and silver skinned Monster mercilessly whipping a naked couple over a spiked floor is suprising to say the least. The naked vulture woman's attack and slaughter of several naked men too is unexpected. As is the appearance of zombies at Cagliostro's castle. For once in a Frankenstein film it is the Doctor himself who is reanimated not less than three times and eventually becomes his own monster.

    I enjoyed this movie - Franco's obsessions with S&M and naked women provide a spice to a very tired tale.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Film debut of Lina Romay.
    • Goofs
      Vera asks Dr. Seward if her father could have been killed by mountain lions. An odd question to ask, given there are no mountain lions in Europe.
    • Quotes

      Melisa: Melisa speaks to you on behalf of her great master Cagliostro. Cagliostro created me and half of me is a bird. He meant for me to be his own daughter, but I am blind and therefore unworthy. Cagliostro now transmits the words he wishes you to hear through the fabulous creature that I am. Listen to the master speak these words to you: "I have accorded you the privilege of rising from your graves. But I cannot prevent your flesh from rotting. Originally, I started creating with nature's materials, but I was mistaken. I brought corpses back to life, only their bodies kept on rotting. To create the creature through whom I talk, I contrived to impregnate an egg with human semen. It was the beginning of my research. Now I use only living ingredients. Different elements of various women served to engender this composite woman and through her a new master race will arise. You are now going to witness the melding of this creature with the monster of Frankenstein. The monster has entered the crypt. He will perform Cagliostro's commands. Witness the miracle, the holy covenant between these two: the creature of Cagliostro and... the monster of Frankenstein. Cagliostro's magnetic power steals into their bodies. It is taking hold. Now they are about to procreate. Their procreation is perfection. They are fabulous creatures. They are divinities. Their most marvelous bodies will mate and remain united."

      Cagliostro: The time has arrived. The monster will begin his work. Enjoy it, Melisa. I want you to enjoy it most particularly.

    • Alternate versions
      Two (if not more) versions of this film exist La Maldicion de Frankenstein and The Curse of Frankenstein. The main difference between the two is that Curse is the 'hot' version containing male and female full frontal nudity, Maldicion is the 'cool' version with the same scenes but with the actors clothed. Maldicion is the version released in Spain in the General Franco era hence the lack of nudity although several topless scenes briefly remain. There are however many other differences between Maldicion and Curse, neither can be called definite since both contain footage the other doesn't. Both contain different beginning and end credits, Maldicion has nominal black and white titles, Curse opens it's credits to footage in Frankenstein's lab not found in Maldicion and ends with the credits set against a blue painting of the sea with more lyrical credits 'Robert De Nesle has presented'. Maldicion adds another character Esmeralda the Gypsy (played by Lina Romay) completely alien to Curse who appears throughout the film in a trance under the influence of Cagliostro, while impressive scenes of Cagliostro's zombies dressed in white robes walking though a misty forest can't be found in Curse. However Maldicion is lacking several scenes important to the narrative that curse can boast, noticeably Cagliostro and Melissa the bird women's first meeting in the film.
    • Connections
      Edited into Dr. Wong's Virtual Hell (1999)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 31, 1973 (France)
    • Countries of origin
      • Spain
      • France
    • Languages
      • English
      • Spanish
      • French
    • Also known as
      • The Rites of Frankenstein
    • Filming locations
      • Av. Rei Humberto II de Itália Parque Marechal Camona, 2750-319 Cascais, Portugal(Cagliostro's castle)
    • Production companies
      • Comptoir Français du Film Production (CFFP)
      • Fénix Cooperativa Cinematográfica
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 34 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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