Frankenhooker
(1990) 85 Min.
Rated: R (Nudity, gore)
Country: USA
Director: Frank Henenlotter
Starring: James Lorinz, Joanne Ritchie, Patty Mullen
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
After his girlfriend dies, Jeffrey brings her back to life using the body parts of dead hookers.
Synopsis:
New Jersey native Jeffrey Franken (Lorinz) and his fiancee Elizabeth (Mullen) are at a birthday party. Jeffrey is busy playing with a brain in a jar and trying to get it to track his movements. Elizabeth, meanwhile, explains to a friend that Jeffrey has been kicked out of at least three medical schools but works at the electric company. Elizabeth presents her father with a large lawn mower that Jeffrey created. Unfortunately when she demonstrates the remote control, the lawnmower attacks and kills her.
Jeffrey hatches a plan to bring her back to life. He keeps Elizabeth’s parts stored in a tank of water.
Realizing he only has two days before a huge electrical storm, he kicks his plan into high gear. He plans on getting a hooker’s body for Elizabeth’s head.
Jeffrey drives to NYC and tries to convince some hookers that he needs a group of them for a party for his brother. A hooker tells him he needs to talk to Zorro, so she leads him through a seedy club into a back room filled with thugs and drug addicts. Jeffrey talks to Zorro and asks him for a sample of crack.
Jeffrey goes home and creates “Super Crack” which he believes will kill the prostitutes quicker and painlessly.
Jeffrey returns and a group of prostitutes meet with him. He examines their body parts closely but he feels like he can’t choose just one girl between them. The girls get annoyed waiting for him to choose and he angrily throws his bag of money at them. Inside the bag they find the super crack. Jeffrey warns them not to smoke it, but they do so anyway. The girls start partying and then suddenly exploding in a burst of fireworks. Zorro bursts in to check on them and gets hit in the face with the head of one of his prostitutes.
Jeffrey quickly gathers the parts in a bag and takes them home. He puts the body together as the storm begins. He places all the extra body parts in the storage tank. Jeffrey raises the body into the sky as the storm rages. Lightening strikes the table as well as the tank of extra parts.
The table is brought back down and Elizabeth is revealed. Jeffrey talks to her and she parrots back phrases like “Need a date?” and “Lookin’ for some action?” like a hooker. When she asks him if he has money he responds in a negative and she slaps him aside.
Frankenhooker goes to NYC and starts to ask random men if they want to have a good time. One small man finally gets excited and she takes him to an hourly hotel where they rent a room. She climbs on top of him in bed and electrocutes him, causing him to explode. He seems to have enjoyed it.
Frankenhooker wanders over to the club where Zorro is. She ends up electrocuting a man harassing her and Zorro sees her. He accuses her of not being one of his bitches, even though her arm has the tattoo of a Z. She hits him and he punches her head off.
Jeffrey finds her in the club and puts her head back on. He pulls her into his car and takes her home, but not before Zorro spots him and realizes he’s the one who made her.
Jeffrey manages to bring Frankenhooker back to life and this time she is Elizabeth in mentality. She is horrified at her body. Jeffrey professes his love for her as Zorro suddenly sneaks up behind him and decapitates him with a large knife.
Zorro explains his plans to make Elizabeth his prostitute since her parts are from the other girls. The tank of extra parts falls over and out crawls heads and arms fused together. They grab Zorro and pull him back inside the freezer/tank.
Elizabeth takes Jeffrey’s head and puts him together. Jeffrey awakens to find that he has the body of a woman. Elizabeth explains that she followed all his notes and points out that the estrogen-based serum used only would work on women parts. Jeffrey screams, horrified that he is now a woman forever.
Review:
Frankenhooker is a fairly fun movie. It’s fairly tongue-in-cheek and silly showcasing Frank Henenlotter’s sense of humor. It’s also a bit of a loveletter to grindhouse sleaze and double feature horror.
The film takes a bit to start and the long monologues by Jeffrey are a bit tiresome and bog down the movie, but once Frankenhooker appears the film picks up and is far more enjoyable.
The amount of nudity is borderline softcore in certain scenes and those hookers sure love to smoke lots of crack in this movie.
Another flaw of the film is that it’s probably a bit too simple a tale and film drags in scenes with Jeffrey talking or hookers standing around topless.
The film has excellent editing and also some really nice special effects for it’s budget. It’s definitely a quirky film and has a certain cult charm.