Generally agreed to be the very worst film in the original blaxploitation cycle, BLACKENSTEIN is too dull and uninteresting even to laugh at.
Doctor Winifred Walker (Ivory Stone) comes to her mentor with a slight problem; her fiance Eddie (Joe DeSue) has lost all his limbs in Vietnam. Luckily Dr. Stein (John Hart) recently won the Nobel Prize for his work in putting limbs back on the limbless, and together they make Eddie a whole man
again. But Dr. Stein's assistant Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson) wants Winifred for his own, and switches the bottles of something-or-other before the operation, turning Eddie into a murderous monster with a square afro.
One night after his usual late-night snack of eviscerated neighbor, Eddie returns home to find Malcomb putting the moves on Winifred. He kills Dr. Stein and saunters off to attack another neighbor, who escapes and runs as fast as she can. Eddie lumbers at a snail's pace, managing to stay right
behind and eventually kill her. Luckily the Los Angeles police have dogs trained to deal with such emergencies. They track down Eddie, rip him limb from limb, and eat his intestines.
Liz Renay (DESPERATE LIVING) is among the victims, and the turgid, plodding film takes a breather toward the end with scenes of an unfunny comedian (Andy C) and untalented R&B singer (Cardella DeMilo), but likely the scenes you'll remember from BLACKENSTEIN will be the ones that repeat endlessly,
incessantly, interminably: Eddie galumphing along with arms extended; the exterior of the doc's mansion as clouds pass by or lightning strikes; and the doc and Winnie working in the lab as electronic devices spark and arc. Sadly, Kenneth Strickfadden, the man who put the spark and arc in the sets
for the original FRANKENSTEIN (1931), was reduced to working on this barely animated rehash in his waning years. (Graphic violence, nudity, profanity.) leave a comment
