FRANKENSTEIN: A Not-See-Again Movie

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A friend of mine mentioned the other day that he had seen a “crappy movie” about vampire zombies. And, no, that isn't a typo. I didn't mean to write "vampires and zombies" and omitted the conjunction. What my friend said was "vampire zombies," meaning vampires that are also zombies, or vice versa. Heck, and I didn’t even know there was such a creature. Goes to show just how much I know. 

Anyway, speaking of crappy movies, just the other night Chet and I watched one that certainly deserves that moniker. Then again, to be honest, it took us three nights to watch this particular crappy movie because we never sit down to watch anything until around 3:00 in the morning, and when we do finally park our behinds on the sofa, we're constantly jumping up to go to the kitchen to replenish our drinks (Me, wine; Chet, beer), so that's why it takes so long for us to view a movie.

Okay, now back to my point: This crappy movie is called .................Hmm, it's so crappy I forgot the title. Wait a minute, now I remember: the title is FRANKENSTEIN, with all caps for some reason I haven't yet even begun to grasp. It stars Parker Posey as the female detective; Adam Goldberg, who looks like a young Elliott Gould, as the male detective and her partner; and Michael Madsen as another detective, albeit one who is also a nut-case/monster. There’s also Vincent Perez, who is really good looking, especially for a 200-year old made of other people's assorted body parts, in the role of the original creation of Doctor Frankenstein; and Thomas Kretschmann, who resembles a young Richard Thomas (John Boy on "The Waltons”), as the mad scientist..

The movie was made for cable, which is all right. I've seen some good made-for-cable movies; but trust me, this isn't one of them. What did I dislike about this movie? Well, since you asked, for one, the lighting is so dark (I think it's for atmospherics) that you can hardly see what's happening, and even though what's happening might be totally stupid, as it is in this case, I prefer to see what’s happening in a movie. Two, the storyline is totally, completely, absolutely unbelievable; and while I think, to borrow from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that a "willing suspension of disbelief" is necessary when reading a story or novel or watching a dramatic performance, there's a point where only an idiot is able to suspend his or her disbelief, and contrary to what my ex-husband thought and probably still does, my daddy didn't raise no idiot.

If you need a third reason for why this movie is crappy, the acting is pretty darn bad,  well that is except for the performance by this African American woman, whose name I didn't catch, as a rather spooky old woman who lives in this rundown house where the 200-year-old good-looking guy tends to hang out. Then again, maybe it's an old theater; you can't tell what it is since the movie's so dark. Oh, and this movie is set in New Orleans, but it sure the heck isn't the New Orleans that folks have come to know and love. It's not only dark; it's wet, dirty, rundown, and filled with rats.

My rating for this move is "Not see again even if someone threatens to extract all my fingernails one by one with a pair of rusty pliers." It's that crappy.