Frankenhooker * (1990, James Lorinz, Joanne Ritchie, Patty Mullen) – Classic Movie Review 10,084

Writer-director Frank Henenlotter’s 1990 cult black comedy horror Frankenhooker is a zesty, enterprising and gleeful homage to Mary Shelley, the Frankenstein films and low-budget gore movies, mixing horror, gore and comedy, but it is fairly repellent and largely unfunny.

James Lorinz stars as medical school dropout turned loopy inventor Jeffrey Franken, who is making his weird experiments in his house. Patty Mullen co-stars as Jeffrey’s girlfriend Elizabeth Shelley, who has a horrible accident in a lawnmower incident in which she is decapitated.

Jeffrey is only able to save her head so he needs new body parts to re-build his girl. He heads for the red light district and lures prostitutes into a hotel room and feeds them a powerful drug he develops, causing them to explode so that he can create his own super hooker, the new Elizabeth, from the discarded body parts.

Unfortunately his new purple creature, Frankenhooker, then goes on a bloody rampage on the streets of New York.

Joanne Ritchie co-stars as Mrs Shelley and also in the cast are Charlotte J Helmkamp, Shirley Stoler, Louise Lasser, Joseph Gonzalez, J J Clark, Carissa Channing [C K Steefel], Judy Grafe, John Zacherle and Kimberly Taylor.

Henenlotter shot it back to back with Basket Case 2 at New York City’s Pier 40. Henenlotter recalls: ‘At the time it was a depot for diesel trucks and I was told by everyone that it wouldn’t work because it was too noisy to record sound. But the concrete cinder blocks actually kept things fairly quiet.’

Frankenhooker is directed by Frank Henenlotter, runs 85 minutes, is made by Levins-Henenlotter Productions and Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, is released by Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment (1990) (US) and Medusa Communications and Marketing (1990) (UK), is written by Frank Henenlotter and Robert Martin, is shot by Robert M Baldwin, is produced by James Glickenhaus and Edgar Levins, is scored by Jo Renzetti and is designed by Declan Baldwin.

It is rated R for gore, drugs and sensuality, and for strong language.

It cost $2,500,000, and grossed $205,068 in the US.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,084

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