Spawn Of Frankenstein

Review by boon23 — December 22, 2008 @ 6:02 am

First of all, let me say “thank you, Jorge” for bringing back such beautiful classics and creating a fanedit from them.
It was well worth the watch.

Contains heavy spoilers.

Please note that this review is just my personal opinion.

video editing: As usual for Jorge’s edits, the editing was done perfectly. The sepia coloring adds to the atmosphere.

An incredible lot was done to both movies and I can only assume how long it must have taken to create them. The reformatting to 1.85:1 was masterfully achieved and the movie looked as if it had always been intended to look like that.

The new opening with the green titles was first a bit of confusing, as it presented the movie a lot more modern than it actually was, because the sepia effect made it rather appear older. Still it looked really great. The trimming was done really well, one very long blending transition in the Pretorius speech felt a bit artificial as did a few others, as they were too perfect, when the actual movie comes with loads of what was common for that time: too fast movements, stuttering, artificial backgrounds, artificial objects (like the cemetery in the beginning that is stuffed with ridiculous objects).

The actor change of Elisabeth was about as confusing as the actor change for the oracle in the Matrix sequels, but Jorge could not do anything about it (why did the producers not at least let her have the same hair style and color one might wonder).
The story flows really well and it even kind of makes sense that a mad scientist like Dr. Pretorius could tame the creature a bit. The passing of time was a bit confusing though, as I never really knew how many days, weeks, months had actually passed. The movies were very well joined and especially “Bride” was edited to the better in my opinion. The all destructive lever is one of the most stupid ideas I have ever seem in a movie, yet it kind of did the job: no happy ending. (btw. as for the cast: Elsa Lancaster as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is The Monster’s Mate).

The original Frankenstein on the other hand was missing the emotional depth by making the monster just a monster without any other feelings but hate and the wish to destroy. For the later character development in Bride this part would have still been worthy to include. As it is now, the characters are a bit too one-dimensional. Besides that the story was well development and left no plot holes. The landscape that is shown when the monster is killing Little Maria was a bit not fitting to the style of the movie, even though it was repeated for one shot in Bride and from my feelings it reminded me a lot on what I felt in Jorge’s Kill Bill X fanedit, when Beatrix shoots the little girl (which is actually a nice trademark for an editor to have a consistent style over the years).

So, even though it was not 100% consistent to me, I cannot give anything else but: 5 of 5 stars for editing.

video quality: perfect. I noticed 2 times slight interlacing stripes though. 5 of 5

audio editing: consistency is an issue here to me. Sound levels, transitions, synchronicity were all perfect. The choice of additional music though was in my opinion not, but most of all just for the Frankenstein part. Bride was perfect. In the first 50 minutes of the movie, the styles of music change quite drastically from classic to almost modern. But the problem is more the technical quality. The new music came crystal clear, whereas the classic music was scratchy, overdubbed and lacked bass. Same goes for a few added sound effects that were crystal clear, while all the original ones were scratchy and old. Now don’t get me wrong, it was great to see the monster hunt to Bram Stoker’s Dracula score, but it was inconsistent. If it had been possible to keep to one style or quality the audio would have worked better for me.

Resulting in a 4 of 5 for audio editing from me (3 for Frankenstein and 5 for Bride).

entertainment: Was it better than the original? No. But that was not what this edit was made for. It was an all new watching experience of Frankenstein and as that it worked really well and kept me well entertained for most parts. I do not at all regret watching it and might even watch it again sometimes.
4 of 5 for entertainment.

presentation: The presentation is simply put: Awesome. Great menus, fantastic trailers. Nice cover art. The scene selection is the usual Jorge DVD style and pretty boring and not informative at all, as you get just numbers without any further clue. Still: I wish all fanedits could be presented as nicely as this one.
5 of 5 stars for presentation.

resulting in a 5 of 5 stars from me for this fanedit. Mission accomplished. Really well done.

Epilogue:
This is not the best fanedit I have ever watched, but it is great for what it is: a revival of the classic Frankenstein. I like it and can recommend it to anyone who has a heart for the good old stuff. To me it is an addition to the original Frankenstein, which I still find unsurpassed. And a definite improvement over “Bride Of Frankenstein”, which I will probably not watch again, but rather this one.

Review by Rock Savage — December 27, 2008 @ 6:15 pm

Spawn Of Frankenstein – Remixed by Jorge

Unfortunately, after much anticipation this FanEdit simply failed to work for me on any level.

Contains Spoilers!!!!

First, the opening credits are completely out of keeping with the feel of the original source material. Bright green text over a sepia montage just feels odd and plainly wrong…. And why the need for the axing and mutilation of a cow's head? What does that have to do with the creation of a monster or any of the themes presented in Frankenstein? To me this felt gratuitous in the extreme and totally out of keeping.

Also the music was poorly selected and integrated. Mostly it consists of music cues that are obviously from a more modern era and so they feel far too clean when compared with the later Franz Waxman score that dominates Bride Of Frankenstein in the second half. These new cues are also too low in the mix when compared with the later original score and no effort has been made to distress them. I think sticking to the same composer’s works or at least the same era would have helped with over-all continuity of the FanEdit.

The sepia look of the film works well but I did notice quite a lot of inter-lacing particularly in the action scenes or with fast movement.

The new editing during the creation of the Monster during the electrical storm was done very well but feels too frenetic and MTV when compared with the pace of the editing that proceeded it. Less rapid cutting would have again helped with an over-all continuity of the FanEdit.

Another concern was that the FanEdit appeared to be flipped horizontally. With my DVD’s of the originals the action takes place in the opposite direction. I am not sure if this was done purposely by the FanEditor or is a fault of different DVD versions but it feels like looking at a photograph of a loved one but seeing that familiar mole on wrong cheek.

I can tell a lot of work went into this FanEdit and I am sure that some will enjoy the anachronistic update but it utterly failed for me. It is distracting, awkward and disappointing almost on every level. I will stick with the originals and all their raw naivety.

The DVD is well presented visually but I was put off by the cheesy 80′s type rock music selected for the opening menu. A total misfire for creating any atmosphere for the feature FanEdit that follows. The scene selection menu looks unfinished.

Entertainment 2 – Editing 2 – Audio 1 – DVD Presentation – 1

1/5