Frankenstein Unbound

Roger Corman's last and most expensive directorial work is a wonderfully wacky homage to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and at the same time a rather cheeky meta-tampering with the original material. A far too little talked about gem in Corman's filmography!

New Los Angeles in the year 2031: scientist Dr Joe Buchana (John Hurt) has been commissioned by the president to create an unbeatable weapon. The result is a laser that transports its targets out of the space and time continuum, but also opens a gateway to another world. The inventor is then pulled into one of these and soon finds himself with his AI car in the year 1817, where he meets Dr Frankenstein near Lake Geneva...

Corman's love of the Frankenstein myth is evident in every scene of this campy adaptation. He simply declares the Mad Scientist and his iconic monster to be historical truth and allows our protagonist to meet not only them, but also the writer Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda!). The fact that things start to sizzle between them is just one of many cheeky ideas that make ROGER CORMAN'S FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND an unpredictable and fun experience for (not just) Frankenstein fans.