The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Frankenhooker (1990), directed by Frank Henenlotter

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Let's Talk About Sex", by Salt N Pepa

       There are some films out there that exist more as a concept or an idea than they do as actual films. Waterworld, for example, is almost never discussed in terms of how it works as a film, but rather in terms of how much money it didn’t make. Similarly, there was 2 or 3 times more people screaming about the idea that the 2016 Ghostbusters was primarily cast by women then who actually saw the film, and despite all that vitriol barely any even talks or thinks about that movie these days. Chalk it up to societal decay I suppose, and not every film needs to be gone over with a fine tooth comb, but it is unfortunate how quick we are sometimes to reduce something that is meant to be art, the cumulative effort of dozens or even hundreds of people across months or even years, into an abstraction. Not even an object, but a couple of words or a brief thought. Pretty wild.

       Such was the case for with today’s film, Frank Henenlotter’s 1990 film Frankenhooker. Literally the only thing I knew about this movie was the infamous quote by Bill Murray, “If you see any film this year, make it Frankenhooker’ (I might be paraphrasing). Given that this is SNL alum Bill Murray, beloved comedic actor of the silver screen, you couldn’t ask for a more loaded statement. Was he saying that it was a good movie? A funny movie? A movie that was so bad that it was good? There’s no real way to tell, especially when you’re talking about a movie called Frankenhooker, except to watch the damn thing and figure it out for yourself. So that’s what I did, and that’s why we’re here. What a journey.

       Anyway, Frankenhooker. James Lorinz stars as Jeffrey Franken, some mook who lives in New Jersey with his mom, works for the electric company, and has a passion for mechanical engineering and amateur surgery. When his girlfriend, the slightly plain Elizabeth Shelley, dies in a freak remote controlled lawnmower accident, Jeff becomes desperate to bring his lady love back to life. Unfortunately for Jeff, the lawnmower didn’t much of Liz left to work with, besides a head that Jeff keeps in a cooler of estrogen-based preservative fluid in his shed. Jeff needs some female body parts, but how on Earth is he supposed to get his hands on those? Why it’s simple! Just head on over to Times Square, hire a couple women, and then murder them in order to raid their corpses! What could possibly go wrong?

       With a name like Frankenhooker, you might expect that film’s humor leans towards the raunchy, crass amd low brow, and you’d be entirely correct. A character who drills into his own brain with a power drill in order to relax, ‘super crack’ that makes people explode when you smoke it, and plenty of naked breasts, for all you 13 year old boys out there that don’t have access to the internet but do have access to obscure movies from the 90s. If you’ve seen a Troma movie, Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke’em High, and so on, then you’ve got an idea of what Henenlotter is shooting for here. Which could be a point against it, depending on your preferences, but here and there amongst the grime there’s a wit to Frankenhooker’s writing that manages to shine through, propelled by James Lorinz’s performance. The scene between Jeff and his mother is arguably funnier than the entirety of some Troma movies that I’ve reviewed in the past, and yeah I mean you Tromeo and Juliet, but engenders the same atmosphere of morbidly cartoonish sleaze that you don’t really see in movies anymore without the bare-bones budget that a lot of those movies work under.

       Not that it’s without its flaws, obviously. The man who plays the drug dealing pimp Zorro’s acting, for instance, is perhaps the most Tromalike aspect of the entire film. Frankenhooker also feels...stifled, in its execution. It doesn’t ever get as wild as you think it could be (or maybe I’m just desensitized at this point), and at the same time Henenlotter never seems to use the silly concept to convey any deeper meaning. You’d think a movie where a man murders women, specifically women who have been made to become sex workers due to poverty and drug addiction, in order to build his vision of an ideal female form, literally reducing women into objects to be used and discarded at the whim of men, would have something to say. It doesn’t really, unless you count that ending as trying to say something, and more’s the pity. Henenlotter pushing for something beyond the surface level satire and gallows humor would have really pushed this film beyond ‘mildly obscure popcorn flick’ into ‘cult gem’ status.

       Which in the final analysis is how I would have to recommend Frankenhooker. Good enough for a movie night with friends, especially if the beer is flowing, but not funny enough, dark enough, or compelling enough to warrant a return visit. For a similar concept done better (in my opinion, at least), I’d go for Marathon alum Bride of Re-animator, which I believe came out the same year as Frankenhooker. Or any of the hundreds of other Frankenstein-inspired movies that have come out, I guess. Either way, even if Frankenhooker isn’t a must-see movie like Bill Murray claimed, it’s not bad, and you didn’t even have to pay me to say that.

       I wouldn’t mind some money though.