
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor’s original sin is not the creation of life but the casting off of his creation, an articulate, intelligent and compassionate being whose fundamental humanity he denies. In Hammer’s Curse of Frankenstein he is simply psychotic, descending into increasingly unhinged behavior in his obsessive desire to feed his ambition. This is a very lurid reconfiguration of the novel that’s far more interested in murder and cruelty than the philosophical underpinnings of the original story.
But that approach works, largely thanks to Peter Cushing. If he treats the Dracula movies like Shakespeare, here he leans into the pulpiness of the material, bringing exactly the right “refined and lovable sideburn-toting psychopath” energy while showing flashes of a deeper cruelty. It’s really his movie, and he turns it into a success
