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Just cause I've wrapped up the Universal Monsters series doesn't mean I'm quite yet done with the classics! Frank Henenlotter takes his goofy and gaudy turn with the FRANKENSTEIN story in his 1990 opus FRANKENHOOKER.
This movie sees Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) as certifiably cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs after the accidental death of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Shelley (Patty Mullen). Obsessed with using his self-taught medical and surgical knowledge to revive her, Jeffrey decides to harvest body parts from the sex workers of New York City, reinventing his girlfriend in his own sexually fantasized image.
Henenlotter is a master of exploitation, crafting disturbed yet humorous stages from which I can't look away nor stifle the naughtiest giggle. However, unlike Elizabeth (and Jeffrey, post a few drill sessions into the back of his skull), this movie is not brainless. Slipped in-between some nasty bouts with explosive super-crack and a tunnel of lady legs lie some sharp commentaries about the exploitation of women's bodies in a patriarchal image and an advocacy for legalizing sex work in this country.
All this while a re-animated Elizabeth goes on a hooking spree, accidentally coursing hundreds of thousands of watts of lightning through each trick she finds. God, it's rarely felt this fun to engage in such bad taste.
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