#freddiefrancis

★★½ Watched 12 Oct 2025

Of all the Hammer Frankenstein films, The Evil of Frankenstein feels the most like a Universal movie. That’s no coincidence. This one was distributed by Universal, meaning Hammer could use the classic Frankenstein look without risking lawsuits. The result? Peter Cushing’s Baron builds a new creature that looks closer to the 1930s version than anything Hammer had done before, with a flat head, blocky brow, and greenish skin.

Though it’s part of Hammer’s continuity, tonally, Evil is a strange hybrid of both studios’ sensibilities. The storyline and characterization are closer to Son of Frankenstein or Ghost of Frankenstein than Hammer’s psychopathic approach to the character. Victor is still ruthless, but less monstrous. He’s in hiding after being driven out of town. The real villain is Zoltan, a drunken carnival hypnotist who manipulates the newly revived Creature into committing robberies and murders.

This is the first time in the Hammer films that the Baron is shown as something other than a pure sociopath. Aside from stealing a heart in the opening, he’s largely reactive; trying to stop Zoltan, protect the mute woman, and salvage what’s left of his life’s work. The police and burgomaster come off as more antagonistic, gleefully looting his laboratory once it’s seized.

Meanwhile, Victor’s relationship with the mute beggar girl adds a flicker of compassion rare for this series. She’s a stand-in for the blind hermit from Bride of Frankenstein, another outcast who sees the humanity in the monster. The Creature, for his part, is far more sympathetic than Hammer’s previous version: he protects the mute woman, never kills without reason, and even turns on Zoltan when ordered to harm innocent people.

For all Universal’s influence, the creature’s design doesn’t resemble the skeletal, waterlogged look Jack Pierce created for Karloff in 1931. It’s an approximation of cultural ideas of what the Karloff monster looked like rather than trying to look like a corpse, which is what the Karloff design was actually going for. Up to this point in film history (1964), Karloff’s original makeup was still the closest we’d gotten to Mary Shelley’s description: a sickly, jaundiced face, watery eyes, and the appearance of a body preserved in water. Even in Bride of Frankenstein, when Karloff looked healthier, those sunken cheeks from ’31 gave the impression of something truly dead. By the time Lugosi took over the role, the creature had become a Halloween mask caricature of itself. Hammer continues that trend here.

The pacing is uneven, and generally, The Evil of Frankenstein feels cheaper than the Universal films it imitates. You can see all the right pieces: the icy revival scene recalling Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the hypnotist dynamic mirroring Ygor from Son of Frankenstein, and that classic Gothic revenge setup. But it never quite comes alive.