​By JOHNNY RESTALL

By the early 1970s, Hammer Productions was struggling. Its richly colourful brand of gothic horror, so groundbreaking in the late 1950s, was losing its grip on the market. Competitors such as Amicus and Tigon were snapping at the studio’s heels while increasingly permissive censorship standards made Hammer’s blood-and-thunder style seem quaint. Contemporary American efforts such as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) had successfully forced horror into the modern home – far from Hammer’s usual realm of European period pieces. 

While their financial decline undeniably led to some ill-advised decisions, Hammer still made many fine efforts during this period, even as itsr audience dwindled. The likes of Peter Sasdy’s Hands of the Ripper and John Hough’s Twins of Evil (both 1971) or Brian Clemens’ Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter (1974) are arguably as strong as any of the studio’s earlier classics. However, if any film can be said to fully embody Hammer’s diminishing fortunes in the 1970s (alongside its unfairly overlooked quality), it is Terence Fisher’s ill-fated FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, released 50 years ago in May 1974.

Along with its Dracula series, Hammer’s Frankenstein cycle came to define the studio in popular culture. Although Hammer had dipped its toes into genre film with Val Guest’s The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Leslie Norman’s X the Unknown (1956), it was Fisher’s 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein that established the studio as a unique force in horror cinema. Peter Cushing’s dynamically villainous performance as Baron Victor Frankenstein made him a star, and Fisher’s elegant direction set the studio’s signature style, playing out like a vibrant, gruesome and fast-paced fairytale. 

By the end of 1969, four further Frankenstein films had followed, frequently throwing continuity to the wind but always retaining Cushing in the lead. As the new decade dawned, the company began to fear that the character was growing stale, leading to Jimmy Sangster’s The Horror of Frankenstein (1970),  an uncomfortable reboot that replaced Cushing with the younger Ralph Bates and aimed for a blackly comic tone. The reworking largely failed to please critics or audiences, so in 1972, production began on FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, a conscious attempt to update Hammer’s traditional approach.  Although the film saw the return of Cushing and delivered more grand guignol than ever before, it also proved a swansong for both the series and ailing Hammer stalwart Fisher.

The story opens in familiar territory: A body snatcher (Patrick Troughton) digs up a fresh corpse in a beautifully overgrown and atmospheric cemetery. He delivers the carcass to Simon Helder (Shane Briant), an arrogant young doctor armed with an appropriately blood-spattered copy of Frankenstein’s Collected Works and a burning ambition to recreate the Baron’s grisly exploits. Unfortunately for Simon, the local constabulary takes an interest in his activities, and he is sentenced to five years in an asylum for the criminally insane. He soon finds out that the nominal director of the institution, Adolf Klauss (John Stratton), is firmly under the thumb of the mysterious Dr Carl Victor (Cushing). In reality, Victor is the supposedly deceased Frankenstein, and with a little blackmail, some unethically obtained body parts and the willing assistance of Simon, a terrible new experiment is soon underway. 

Aside from the opening ten minutes, the film is set entirely within the confines of the asylum, lending a claustrophobic intensity to proceedings. Although John Elder’s screenplay retains Hammer’s characteristic briskness, the setting seems to invite the viewer to interpret its enclosed world as some kind of microcosm of society. It almost becomes a kind of purgatory, a forgotten kingdom in which Frankenstein holds sway over the lost souls like a wayward god – or a devil.

While the film never acknowledges any such pretension, its asylum setting recalls elements of Peter Weiss’ 1964 play, Marat/Sade (filmed in 1967 by Peter Brook). Weiss’ work follows the institutionalized Marquis de Sade as he directs his fellow patients in an increasingly volatile theatrical production based on the murder of the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. Similarly, the events of FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL are overseen by the imprisoned but powerful Frankenstein, who manipulates inmates and authority figures like puppets on a stage to “recreate” his own obsessions. Both de Sade and the Baron are indulged by hypocritical asylum directors who underestimate the perverse influence of their aristocratic wards as well as the repressed rage of their downtrodden prisoners. While FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL lacks Weiss’ explicitly political messages, the two share a nightmarish pessimism, ending with their charismatic but dangerous leads unrepentant, despite the destruction they’ve unleashed.

Cushing’s Frankenstein is perhaps more chilling than ever in this final entry, even though he is encumbered by an unexpectedly curly new wig. If he is less directly vicious than in Fisher’s Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), he makes up for it in blithely callous calculation and unnervingly calm insanity. At first, he seems surprisingly honourable compared to the corruption around him, ending Simon’s ordeal at the hands of the guards and rebuking Klauss for his predatory sexual abuses. In truth, he is simply exploiting the venality of others to entrench his position. It’s telling that he never removes Klauss or the guards despite knowing of their depravity. They are too useful to him as human shields to be discarded over mere moral scruples. 

Frankenstein uses his hold over the spineless authorities to ensure undisturbed access to his “special” patients. These unfortunates are ruthlessly selected for their body parts rather than for any benign medical benefit – despite the Baron’s performative show of concern. He thinks nothing of reanimating the tormented Herr Schneider to create his new creature (David Prowse) or of driving the gentle Professor Durendel (Charles Lloyd-Pack) to suicide only to rehouse his unwilling brain in a hideous new “home.” He cheerfully confesses to feeling “elated” by his plan to force his faithful assistant Sarah (Madeline Smith) – already mute following an attempted rape – to mate with his forsaken monster. This grotesque scheme proves too much even for his disciple, Simon, but Frankenstein shows no such qualms, clearly feeling that the end entirely justifies the means. 

Gaunt, commanding and icily beautiful, Cushing’s sharp, ascetic manner and cadaverous appearance suggest a barely living body driven entirely by willpower. In previous entries, flickers of sexuality and even mild affection occasionally seem to cross his mind (even if they were soon disregarded); Now, he is animated solely by a deranged desire to complete his neverending “private work.” Past films reveled in the irony of Frankenstein’s need to cause death to create life. FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL twists this further by implying that the experiments are now the only thing rousing his own desiccated husk into action. He is effectively a walking corpse, presumed dead by the world at large and trapped within his own insane netherworld. 

Unlike Universal Studio’s Frankenstein series, the design of Hammer’s monster changed completely from entry to entry, leading to perhaps the most criticised aspect of Fisher’s film: the ape-like appearance of the titular “Monster from Hell.” Though the mask and furry suit are not entirely convincing, it remains a striking creation. At its best, it recalls William Blake’s unsettling painting The Ghost of a Flea (c.1819-20) and anticipates Jeff Goldblum’s mutated humanity in The Fly (1986) – albeit on a shoestring budget. Prowse’s underrated performance helps to further overcome the outfit’s limitations, successfully evoking sympathy with the aid of the more mournful sections of James Bernard’s strident but thoughtful score. 

The monster’s Neanderthal appearance also hints at a regression in Frankenstein’s work that reflects his increased cruelty and monomania. The Baron barely cares anymore whether he creates a noble life form. Instead, he is content to butcher beasts together, far from Mary Shelley’s original misguided aesthete. His degeneracy is matched by the film’s gleeful embrace of gore, with more eyeballs, cranial surgery and slit throats than ever before. While the decision to increase the violence was probably taken with commercial demands in mind, it is wholly in keeping with the story’s bleak and genuinely macabre tone. 

With a superb lead, stellar supporting cast and a startling setting, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL should have been a triumphant return to form. Sadly, it instead languished in the vaults for almost a year and a half before its eventual release in 1974, thanks to disinterest on the part of UK distributor Avco Embassy. It was a sign of things to come. Always dependent on external partners for funding and distribution, Hammer found its efforts struggling in the face of industry indifference and changing public tastes, eventually abandoning film altogether in the late 1970s. Regardless, Fisher’s final film deserves rediscovery. It stands as a fitting farewell to an entire era of gothic cinema that both retrenches and refreshes the genre – even if, like the Baron’s doomed experiments, it could not sustain the revival for long.