Cult 101: Frankenhooker (1990)
- Fri, Jan 31
- Sat, Feb 1
Director: Frank Henenlotter Run Time: 85 min. Rating: R Release Year: 1990
Starring: Charlotte J. Helmkamp, James Lorinz, Joanne Ritchie, Joseph Gonzalez, Patty Mullen
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
After making horror history with Basket Case (1982) and Brain Damage (1988), the incomparable Frank Henenlotter unleashed Frankenhooker—the greatest transmutation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that you’ll ever see.
After accidentally murdering the love of his life, Jeffrey Franken decides to reanimate her with the help of a drug named Supercrack . . . and the body parts of a dozen streetwalkers. Feeling like a twisted mash-up between John Waters’s Serial Mom (1994) and Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985), Frankenhooker is a bad taste triumph that revels in sublime camp, gloopy gore, and neon-soaked dreamscapes. Plus an iconic performance by Patty Mullen as the eponymous title character.
About the filmmaker:
Born in New York City, Frank Henenlotter is a writer and director raised on low-budget grindhouse films. Best known for offbeat plots, lowbrow humor and excessive gore in exploitation films like his debut feature Basket Case, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker, and Bad Biology, Henenlotter was perfectly situated to begin filming a series of documentaries on the art of the genre, including Herschell Gordon Lewis – The Godfather of Gore, That’s Sexploitation!, and Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana, a chronicle of the first American artist to be convicted of obscenity which screened in competition at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.
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