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Frankenstein

2004, Movie, NR, 88 mins

Frankenstein: Review

And now for something completely different — a modernized, made-for-TV fright flick that's more CSI than MWS (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley). New Orleans detectives Carson O'Connor (Parker Posey) and Michael Sloane (Adam Goldberg) are used to encountering dead people, but not when they're the suspects rather than the victims. A most recent in series of mutilation murders in which the killer robs his victims of organs forces them to re-examine many of the basic assumptions they bring to their work: He has two hearts, and may not have been born with them. Meanwhile, Dr. Helios (Thomas Kretschmann) — who's abandoned his family name, Frankenstein, but not his ghoulish hobbies — entertains the city's movers and shakers in order to finance his stem-cell research clinic. After a hard day of fund-raising, the immortal Dr. Helios relaxes at home with his re-animated wife. Father Beaufort (Gordon Catlin), Helios' priestly stooge, lends the doctor's clinic an undeserved air of legitimacy and does much of the dirty work. But Helios' most successful experiment, Deucalion (Vincent Perez), surfaces to clue Detective O'Connor in on what Helios is really up to, and shares his belief that one of Helios' compromised creations has turned to murder to fill the emotional void inherent in all artificial men. O'Connor is simultaneously being pressured by a rogue detective named Harker (Michael Madsen), who keeps trying to usurp of her investigation. Aware that the authorities are on to him, the mad scientist chooses to protect his research by killing Father Beaufort and destroying victims' bodies and autopsy reports rather than close up shop. Deucalion may be O'Connor's only hope of stopping Helios' homicidal progeny. Intended as the pilot for a series that never came to fruition, this enterprising crime/horror hybrid wanders down a few too many talky scientific corridors but gets a welcome jolt in the arm from the chemistry between Posey and Perez, easily the sexiest monster-man of all time. leave a comment --Robert Pardi