Rent House of Frankenstein / House of Dracula (1945)

This opinion is for House of Frankenstein - it's a two film DVD and I haven't watched t'other yet! - House of Frankenstein / House of Dracula review by The REAL Film Cricket

Having been unable to remember if the young werewolf/vampire/monster obsessed me had watched this 1944 film I took to watching it again. In all honesty the title did not ring a bell, but I loved Karloff in nearly every film he was in, and I loved Chaney as Larry Talbot so watching this black and white ‘horror’ was not a task.

Truth be told the history behind The House of Frankenstein is nearly as odd as the actual story and film. Originally it was going to have a host of monsters in it, also it seems to be a sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman but this never seems to be mentioned in any writing I could find.

Once the writing and budget had been settled, I’m never playing the monster again Karloff rocked up as Dr Niemann and really wins the trophy for everything in the film. He is believable, evil and nasty without over playing it or even seeming it as he goes along. There are modern writers, actors and directors who could look at that and maybe take a few points. So Mr. Karloff immediately made the whole film watchable.

J. Carrol Naish is also good as his ‘servant’/fellow prisoner Daniel and is also believable as someone who just wants out of his physical problems and sees the exit in front of him.

So, no matter they tale and writing fire in two good lead actors and things improve by 25% immediately.

Being 1944 the film is not full of gore or on score blood and horror and to be frank it is better for it as many modern films could be. The actions of Karloff and Naish build towards unpleasantness and you know they are not going to take any prisoners. Sometimes the nastiness does not have to be upfront on a 10-foot-high banner.

The first strong week point is probably the introduction of Dracula which sort of does not drive the story on and seems to be only getting Dracula into the tale. Truth be told I like the fact he drank blood from his victims as a big old’ bat as that seemed to make sense to me and John Carradine, another experienced and good actor, was okay, not outstanding but okay. The problem was this Dracula was frankly a bit weak and rubbish as an ‘evil vampire’ and he did not last very long.

One of my favourite monsters as a young boy was the werewolf. I loved Lon Chaney Jnr as Larry Talbot it he films he rocked up in and here he walks through role with ease. Considering the amount of stick this late actor has got over the years from horror film aficionados Talbot’s broken heart and utter pressure to not be a werewolf was believable. Which considering the film and period is impressive acting to my mind.

The scenery, stage locations and so forth are impressive for a film that is 82 years old and nothing on the screen stuck out like a glowing in the dark sore thumb. It was good and all of those late folk that were involved can be proud.

Criticisms? Well, there are plenty. The story itself was bit daft, considering the characters, what they were doing and getting up to. A lot of it did not even get within a mile of commonsense even back in those days.

Elena Verdugo as lovely and as good as she is, was entirely unbelievable and seemingly out of place in the story to my mind. It was as if the writer just said, ‘we have to have love interest, and I don’t care how we get it’ and then took his pen up.

The ending wrapped everything up too neatly and easily and finally poor old Glenn Strange jumping in as Frankenstein’s monster for a few scenes at the end, was given pantomime style comic make up and he genuinely looked funny to me. He also was rather easy to defeat to be fair. Everything about the monster seemed to be a poor decision and idea.

Overall, the black and white made during the war horror tale is fun enough to watch. The established actors are very good in odd roles and make the film better than it probably deserves to be. The weakness is most definitely the story