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Blackenstein (1972)

Dir: William A. Levey.

A typical example of Drive-In/Grindhouse trash, this film by producer Frank R. Saletri (who also wrote the screenplay) and Director Levey, for Samuel Z. Arkoff, was a quick cash in on the then popular Black exploitation trend and the ever popular horror genre (especially after the successful combining of the two with “Blacula”) that is by turns hysterically bad and mildly entertaining.

We start off with Winifred (Ivory Stone) going to her ex medical teacher Dr. Stein (john Hart), who is an expert in transplants, and has received the Noble Prize for solving the human genetic code (nearly 30 years before Doctors really did) to ask him for help in healing her fiancé Eddie (Joe De Sue) who has had all of his limbs blown off by a landmine in Vietnam! Poor Eddie (who must have been the most overweight soldier in the whole of ‘Nam) is stuck in hospital at the mercy of a bitter, sadistic orderly who (in a great straight to the camera rant) tells Eddie of his rejection by the Army because of a heart murmur.

This has given him a hatred of ‘Nam vets, so he teases Eddie over his lack of limbs and jabs needles in him! Dr. Stein arranges for Eddie to be brought to his house (a truly bizarre, round building with huge pillars and statues everywhere, including the virgin Mary in the lobby) and in a truly bad bit of movie making we can clearly see the shape of his legs under the stretcher sheet! There, with the help of Steins assistant Malcolm and Winifred herself, Eddie is slowly put together (by simply fusing the limbs back on with a few jolts of electricity) and injected with Steins DNA formula to heal the grafts. Patients need to be injected every ten hours. We meet a couple of other patients of the Doctors as well. One of which is a man who has had his legs fused back on and is being given a new RNA formula that Stein says will stop the need for the regular DNA injections.

Unfortunately the RNA makes the patients show animal like traits (here we are treated to a hysterical shot of the mans tiger striped legs) that include savage mood swings. Malcolm (the superbly named Roosevelt Jackson who makes Barry White sound like Mickey Mouse) lusts after Winifred and is jealous of Eddie, so he swaps Eddies DNA formula for the dangerous RNA one! Before you can scream 'Schlock' Eddie’s head has expanded to an Afro covered box top and he escapes to go on a murderous rampage. First stop? Yep, it’s orderly bashing time......

 

Frank Henenlotter (cult Director of, a true legend of the Grindhouse circuit, "Basket Case") said in an interview that he saw “Blackenstein” at a 42nd Street cinema and the crowd was bringing the house down whenever Eddies monster appeared. This enthusiasm must surely have been due to the unique surroundings as there is nothing to make you scream with joy in this flick.

The sets are bland (the strange aforementioned house aside) and cheesy in the extreme. The laboratory is like a colour version of the old Universal "Frankenstein" set without the high camp class. The music is wildly out of place as well. There is a fast moving piece of music that sounds like it should be accompanying a chase scene but all we see is Winifred sitting down in the lobby waiting to see Dr. Stein. The opening titles have a smooth Soul song played over them that sounds too classy to be part of this cheese fest. The strangest bit of music is yet to come though. The film stops for about ten minutes (as Eddie clunks around by a nightclub) to show a comedy act, the completely unfunny Andy C, and a female soul singer (the real life lounge act Cardello DeMilo) who works at the nightclub. DeMilo croons away and we wonder where the movie vanished too!

The acting various from wooden to stodgy (orderly rant aside) and makes none of the characters come to life. Hart (who is one of the only white actors involved) could have had fun with his Dr. Stein role but throws it away with a half asleep performance and De Sue simply mumbles a bit as normal Eddie and simply groans a bit as monster Eddie.
The relationship between Winifred and Eddie is rushed over as well, and we have no worthy scenes of pathos as Winifred sees the change in her true love. I know this is an exploitation quickie but some kind of character build up could be managed surely?

The exploitation goodies are what save this flick from being a complete stiff though. We have a smattering of gore (maybe trimmed in this R rated version that as far as I know is the only version around) as Eddie stumbles around with arms outstretched grabbing unfortunates and pulling off limbs and slopping entrails all over the place.

Only women strangers get gutted though which is a bit of a strange choice for gory violence as we expect the gore to be doled out on the more familiar characters (I give nothing away when I say Eddie eventually decides to deal out some death at Dr. Steins house) but the end killings are boring five second strangulation’s. We, of course, have a bit of gratuitous nudity as female victims have their tops ripped open before being mauled. Eddie may be a cannibal as well. He is seen carrying off an arm (of the ranting orderly who has a great screaming death shown via a shadow) that seems to be near his mouth, but a jump in the picture (this may be a cut or just a bit of print damage) stops us seeing clearly. He also holds up the entrails up to his mouth, but it’s unclear if he eats them or not. Eddie also carries a couple of women off but we are never shown why.

So, what do we have? Well we have a bit of gore, a bit of unnecessary nudity (always the best kind!), an enjoyably wacky looking Monster and a general fun feeling that only U.S Drive-In/Grindhouse flicks of the 70’s and early 80’s could provide. But the film is shoddy in the extreme and fails on too many of the entertaining levels that classic Grindhouse cinema like “Maniac”, “Basket Case” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” excel in, thus it can only be classed as an also ran.