Horrorthon 2018 Day 8 - Victor Frankenstein (2015)

  You guys, I am not finding a lot of horror films to go in my Horrorthon.  This is billed as a horror comedy but I think it might just be because they used the story of horror icon Frankenstein.  Fun fact:  I took two (two!) whole classes covering Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in college, both the original 1818 version and the more widely known 1831 published version.  I have also seen all the Universal films featuring Boris Karloff.  It's safe to say that I know what I'm talking about here.

This bears almost no resemblance to Frankenstein except for the shared use of the name.  It's like the screenwriter went around and asked a room full of people what they remembered about Frankenstein and then added dialogue.

That being said, it's still a fun movie.  But it could really have been called anything.

Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) is reviled as a hunchback in a traveling circus but when a beautiful trapeze artist (Jessica Findley Brown) plummets from the sky, his ability to correctly diagnose and correct the problem wins him the attention of Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy), a medical student at the circus to hopefully score some dead exotic animals for his experiments.  Frankenstein frees Igor, fixes his back (in probably the grossest scene in the movie), and makes him his assistant.  Things look to be going well for the pair until a police detective (Andrew Scott) becomes convinced Frankenstein is a tool for Satan and charges them with murder.

There's only one scene that might qualify as horror and that is "Gordon's" escape and rampage through the college.  If you are easily put off by a rotting chimp head, maybe cover your eyes during that scene.  But that's really all there is to it.

The most serious flaw in this film is its attempt to add villains to try and distract viewers from how monstrous Frankenstein himself is.  Victor Frankenstein is the villain.  Always has been.  Always will be.  Trying to make his brand of destructive hubris seem normal or even endearing is disingenuous at best and diabolical at worst.  Victor is by turns a friend and abuser to Igor, constantly placing conditions on their relationship, attempting to restrict Igor's involvement with others, and punishing Igor by withholding affection.  Adding a fanatical cop and an unscrupulous financier (Freddie Fox) just seem like desperate attempts to find characters that make Frankenstein look good by comparison.

Pumpkin rating:  3.6/5