I recently bought a copy of "The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein" on blu-ray, thinking that it was a Jess Franco movie that I had not seen before. However I soon realised that I had already watched it but under the title "Curse of Frankenstein". There are quite significant differences between the two versions. For a start "Erotic" contains much nudity whereas "Curse" is the "clothed" version. "Curse" is a longer film as it features an additional plot in which Lina Romay plays a gypsy girl (in her first movie role). So to the movie itself, Dennis Price plays Frankenstein but he is killed off early on and annoyingly he is dubbed in the English language version! Franco as usual has a small cameo, always fun seeing him in his own movies. The main villain here is a mad cult leader called Cagliostro (the ever reliable Howard Vernon) who plans to use Frankenstein's Monster to create a super race! He has an assistant, a bird woman! The soundtrack features a jazzy score which doesn't fit right with the Euro Goth setting, but then this is a Franco movie where anything goes. "Erotic" has a lot of full frontal nudity, mainly female but one scene does have a naked man too. The Creature has silver skin which looks bizarre, even worse the make up artist clearly missed a few patches! The plot is completely mad but visually the movie oozes Gothic horror, it has a dreamlike/nightmare look to it and for that alone makes it a worthwhile watch. "Erotic" is the better version though "Curse" is far more suitable to any young kids wanting watch it. Prolific film maker Franco made good movies and he also made dreadful ones, this one is hardly good but it's certainly not bad either.
Review of The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein
