 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 1990 film Franken Hooker by Frank Hennan lotter. Yes written and directed by Frank Hennan lotter and when I'm done with this This completes my reviews of Frank Hennan lotter films I have a playlist on my channel if you want to see the other ones all three of the basket case films brain damage Bad biology and now Franken Hooker now one of the things that occurred to me after I Completed watching Franken Hooker and I was doing my notes for this was that it really dawned on me This is kind of like an epiphany that I had the movie basket case by Hennan lotter Created two trilogies basically now both those trilogies being obviously the basket case trilogies of basket case 1 2 and 3 But then also basket case Brain damage and Franken Hooker, which are the New York trilogy and it's just mainly because they're set in the same City and they're focused on kind of these the seedy looking city now I don't have any you know information from Frank Hennan lotter saying that the The three films that are not basket case, you know basket case brain damage and Franken Hooker are An actual trilogy, but I think it's actually been referred to as like the New York trilogy or something like that The other thing that I realized is it all five of the movies are in the same universe Basically, or at least could be in the same universe We know after watching brain damage that basket case and brain damage are certainly in the same universe So that covers the first three the three basket case movies and brain damage And then I would assume if that's the case why wouldn't Franken Hooker also be because the other thing being in basket case brain damage and Franken Hooker They're they all go to a motel that looks very similar And I think that's supposed to be the same motel in the same place kind of tying everything together So that's just the thought up front now. Let's talk more about Franken Hooker specifically Obviously written and directed by Frank Hennan lotter Like I said, he's done brain damage basket case all three of those films bad biology and then Documentaries Herschel Gordon Lewis the godfather of Gore chasing Banksy and boiled angels the trial of Mike Diana Do Robert Martin was also a writer on Franken Hooker Now he was also a writer in the script for basket case three the progeny That's the only other thing that he worked with Hennan lotter on James Lawrence Is Jeffrey in this and I loved him as Jeffrey in this his Jersey accent is so thick and so funny And his acting is great in this. I love his acting. It's it's Bad it's not like bad, but it's like fun and it's funny So I think that kind of mix kind of carries a lot of the film because if you think about the actual script of it The actual story of it. This is disturbing stuff If you just read the script you'd be like this is really messed up and this is really disturbing But it's presented in a way that's actually light and funny and fun Which is weird and that's that has a lot to do with the acting and how that's done The way it's filmed which is a typical Hennan lotter thing He makes things kind of cartoonish and happy and upbeat and then the music is another thing The music is very light and happy and upbeat so it keeps something that would otherwise be very disgusting and Disturbing and makes it just fun and funny. So that's Hennan lotter in a nutshell So James Lawrence who plays Jeffrey had bit parts in street trash, which I still need to do a review for Robo cop 3 The Irishman, yes, the Irishman on Netflix and he was also in the jerky boys movie So I just thought that was interesting now Patty Mullen who played Elizabeth aka Franken Hooker in this Did nothing after this film like this was kind of it I don't know if it was a situation where she just didn't want to do acting anymore or this kind of Ended that for her. I don't know because of the role. Who knows So the cost for this film apparently was one point five million dollars and ended up making just a bit over 205,000 so Big loss on profits there. No profits really just a loss, but you know, it's a cult classic now So I'm sure Hennan lotter doesn't Doesn't regret making the film Rightfully so So in order to save money Hennan lotter called in a favor from a guy who was a friend of his who had done pyrotechnics before because a Lot of the one point five million dollars was going to be taken up by the pyrotechnics So he figured how do we cut this down? How do we get it cheaper and allocate that money elsewhere? So he got a favor from someone to do the pyrotechnics in this now. This is a quote reportedly From the guy when he set up the pyrotechnics. Don't worry. It's maybe safe. I Would not recommend going this route. I understand this was a different time. This was the 80s and everything Safety is important. I would not recommend going this route But it adds to the story of this film being made Release ended up getting delayed due to the fact that they were having a difficulty getting an R rating now This is also a this is said and by Hennan lotter This is said what happened with MPAA is that they called and left a message with I think the secretary of the production company and Said congratulations. You're the first film rated s s for shit Which if that is the case, that's unbelievably unprofessional by the MPAA but also It's a story. It might not be true. I don't know but I thought that was worth throwing out there now Frankenhooker Elizabeth When she's Frankenstein'd up has purple nipples now initially They were supposed to also pan down and show purple pubic hair now They had problems with the dyeing of hair so they ended up kind of cutting that out So I thought that was interesting and then this is very interesting I didn't know this and this is insane to me kind of Bill Murray liked this film and he publicly had kind of endorsed Frankenhooker Bill Murray, man. You should watch it because Bill Murray. That's crazy All right, so here we go sorry for the pause there I'm just trying to figure out this film is crazy by the way It's the best way that I put it to people is it's absurd, but it's a lot of fun Now you got to love how hen and a lotter likes just jumping right into things like weird things And that's easily seen in this film with the start of it where it's Jeffrey sitting in I believe it's a kitchen at the table and he's doing things with this Brain with an eyeball in a purple liquid and as we see throughout the film purple is a reoccurring color And that's kind of like this rejuvenating slash Lick it's like a rejuvenating liquid But also it kind of just like keeps cells alive I guess is how that's supposed to be because that's where he puts all the body parts is in a you know meat freezer filled with this stuff But it's typical hen and a lotter to start with something really crazy and then just keep going from there Which it obviously does so Elizabeth saying that Jeff Jeffrey being a doctor as a hobby Like it's kind of like a normal thing is really wacky the fact that she was talking to the friend and saying oh, yeah And he stapled my stomach for me because she was concerned about gaining weight And they were just like oh he could do that. He didn't know he's a doctor He's oh, well, you know, he's a doctor is a hobby. He actually works for the electric company I guess it's just such a weird thing to just look kind of off-handedly Dismiss as normal, but you know that's hen a lot of films for you Elizabeth being so dumb that she runs herself over with the remote control lawnmower is kind of ridiculous and over the top But then again, you know, there's a lot of idiocy with characters within this film You have to assume that everyone is stupid in hen and lotter films for the most part and if you do You can just go on with the film You pretty much know what to expect because of the title. That's another thing Franken Hooker I mean it obviously is a play on the old Frankenstein story very obviously. That's very very very obvious and You kind of know that there's going to be a hooker aspect now You might not necessarily know that he's going to blow up hookers with supercrack and then use their body parts to resurrect his girlfriend But hey, you see it coming as things are playing out The way the news this this was a small thing that I noticed watching this time around the way that knew the news in this movie covered Elizabeth's lawnmower accident was Really weird like they had a lot of puns in it And it was like they were making fun of the whole situation now I don't know if that was a little bit of hen and lotter kind of poking fun at the way media covers things and Kind of like salacious things like that are What they lead with this kind of entertainment for people I think maybe that that was kind of the point he was trying to make but it was just weird the way they covered it But funny, you know it adds I Love the cartoonish design of the garage lab at the garage lab that reveal the first reveal of it is a lot of fun for me And this is what I'm talking about with you know Hen and a lot are doing things in a cartoonish way to keep it like light and Fluffy to a degree, you know So if a lot of the stuff was like normal sized in the lab It would just look kind of more normal real-life lab type thing But the fact that he has like these coils and he even takes in the select massive spark plug Like he just makes everything big so it's just like over the top it like I'm saying it's cartoonish and that kind of Adds to this really, you know fun light concept So based on the concept art that Jeffrey shows Elizabeth Jeffrey shows Elizabeth's head It's obvious that his reconstruction of her is really driven by hormones And I'm talking about when he's having the dinner with her and he's showing her the pictures of these kind of Mock-up concepts of what her new body will look like and it's all like women from porno mags with her head on them So it's obvious that it's very sexually driven. It's not necessarily that he misses her It's that he misses her body like everything is very Obviously, it's super the male's gaze in this but it's super hyper-sexualized from the prostitution to the way that Jeffrey approaches and thinks about Elizabeth, you know, it's all sexual and it seems that he kind of looks at You know the ability to build her body as a way to Reconstruct her the way he wants her and not the way that she actually was now to a degree I think she liked it at first when she was resurrected because she was much skinnier until she starts to realize These are not my body parts and things don't necessarily match and then it just doesn't feel right, obviously so I think that partially it gets to the point of the amount of control that sometimes Men like to have with women in relationships and not just romantic Relationships but all types of relationships. Obviously, you see Zorro in this having control over many women in the prostitution relationship that he has with them, which by the way, I love the character of Zorro. He's just ridiculous It's just another one of those characters. It's just like he's so dumb But it enhances the film because of how dumb he is Sorry, uh, Jeffrey's behavior with the body parts don't seem so crazy since he had his monologue about becoming detached from reality Yeah, if they just went into it where he's just like doing things with all these body parts and not acting like it's a Thing You would just be like what the heck is going on here? But the fact that he has his little monologue earlier saying that ever since the accident with elizabeth He's been feeling like he's growing more and more detached from reality You keep that in your mind and you see that like, oh, yes, this is him kind of spiraling spiraling out of control And that doesn't really stop There are moments here and there where he kind of breaks from it a little bit But then he gets out his little drill and drills into his own head Which by the way, that is insane to me I kind of feel like that's kind of geared as his version of drugs Because hen and lotter in a lot of his films touches on like drug usage and drug abuse, you know brain damage He does quite a bit There's a degree of it and I think in bad biology and basket case At least in the first one just being in like the cd new york and showing things like that It's it kind of gets to a little bit of that too But um, yeah, I kind of view it as you know Jeffrey drilling into his own head is his way of getting this euphoric feeling getting his head straight in a way and Feeling better because it starts to wear off at certain times and he has to redo it So it's kind of like he gets a high out of it Now the fact that he can shove a drill in his head and Not scream for pain Doesn't make sense obviously, but then again not a lot about this film really does make sense. So Once again, it's cartoonish. It's like cartoon violence, you know, like the roadrunner Hitting the coyote with an anvil like there there isn't any pain shown or anything like that You just accept it as oh that just happens and he can walk it off It's very much what what hen and lotter does with his films Uh jeffrey scoping out the prostitutes for body parts is funny But this is another one of those moments that if the music wasn't the right way and the film hadn't been set up in such a Light funny fun way. It would be really disturbing and really really creepy But because they set it up the way that they well because hen and lotter set it up the way that he did It's just kind of funny and fun so, yeah The jersey accent jeffrey has is excellent already talked about that Zorro's place when jeffrey first goes into zoro's place that place is out of control It is so over the top But once again, that's what hen and lotter does Oversexualization overboard with all these people there doing drugs and just being crazy I mean the fact that everyone's hanging out in the bathroom at zoro's place is is nuts I mean you would think these people kind of want to like spread out because there's a lot of space in there Um hanging out in the bathroom doesn't make sense, especially for zoro if it's his place I would be in a much more comfortable place if I was him. It's just weird The head drilling ends up being like a drug already talked about that. Sorry jeffrey chest jeffrey testing the supercrack on his guinea pig I think is my favorite scene of the film not because of him testing on the guinea pig But because of the way he's talking to the guinea pig when he's like putting the fumes to him Is he's talking like he's going to be talking to the prostitutes like how much money do you want? Like all those types of things it's really It's really funny the way that scene plays out and a lot of that has to do with the acting of laurence Um jeffrey the character really goodness I think the already talked about that one jeffrey tries to keep the ladies from using the supercrack probably Because there is that one little moment where he he does try and keep them from using the supercrack because he's rethinking his idea Of blowing them up and taking the parts But he does try to stop them and I think for a moment that happens because his drill effects Had worn off at that point if you remember when you would do the drill effects It would kind of make him more bold it would focus him more on this crazy idea to reconstruct elizabeth So I think that's why he kind of has that moment where he's trying to stop them from doing it But obviously they do it And the body explosions that ensue are super fun But I would argue that you should have a lot of blood in this scene when all the body parts are blowing up There's absolutely no blood. I think you should have blood flying everywhere I think that's the one thing that hen and lotter really missed with this film hen and lotter apparently signed and gave away those those uh extra boo pieces Where he has that kind of like pile of fake breasts when he's trying to to cobble together, uh, elizabeth Apparently I had read that he had uh taken those and signed a bunch of them and gave them to cast and crew When they were done filming it's kind of like little mementos. I thought that was a funny little thing to tell The typical frankenstein's monster creation scene is present in this with along with the theme of the creation not turning out as intended That always happens with these frankenstein type stories Now obviously in this situation it doesn't turn out like intended because the prostitute body parts kind of overtake Um, elizabeth's brain and then that's why and I don't know if people notice this when she's first resurrected The only things she can say are things that prostitutes have already said within the film So I think it you know most people just view it as oh, it's just funny She's saying all these things that prostitutes say But notice that everything she said has already been said by a prostitute in the film And I thought that was interesting to kind of have that level of detail and stick to it Uh elizabeth only or I literally just said that I'm sorry guys. I'm a little messed up on my focus today I guess elizabeth is like a battery holding all the electricity from that storm because You know when she has sex with the guy and it's smoking and then he explodes She's holding his head and you know, she's giving off electricity Which the only way I can explain it is she's holding it in Until she does sexual things and then it releases it and has very bad effects on people around it Spike telling elizabeth to slow up on the pretzels when she go when as the frankenhooker goes to zoros elizabeth's anger because prior to the lawnmower accident the real elizabeth was talking about being concerned with her weight So that is a little bit of a moment where I think the actual elizabeth shows Or comes through Because she's eating those pretzels and then spike is like slow down Something to something alluding to shield gain weight. So just a just my thought on it The crazy street preacher in this real quick. He shows up a few times towards the end of this That is lile from basket case two. I love that dude's acting He did such a great job in basket case two. Uh, he's one of my favorite parts of that of that film You can check that review out on my channel Zoro was making the women sell their parts Obviously as the pimp So it's only fitting that he's attacked by those parts he was selling at the end of the film Oh the irony. So I like how the film ends that way not just because it's you know Zoro getting his at the end and it's ironic But also because It's hen and lotter taking some things and making really weird looking things kind of like a belial type character from the basket case films So all for it Some final thoughts on this film jeffrey gets a taste of his own medicine in the end obviously and deservedly so Because after zoro got his jeffrey gets his because jeffrey when he was creating elizabeth his new Version of elizabeth he was so focused on making her like super hot and sexy and You know the perfect physical body for him that it's just so funny when he gets his at the end and you know elizabeth gave him basically the body that he was looking for with her And so he can just stand there and look at himself in the mirror and then enjoy himself that way I like that ending to it So like basket case and brain damage this film revels in the seedy underbelly of new york That's one of the things I really like about the films is that they just Are so dark and seedy and Scummy, you know and it's just an interesting setting for things And it's the same thing with like the film maniac same thing I really dig it. So Those are all my thoughts on franken Hooker It is a fun film and obviously this is one of those films that I have to review two different ways So as a film in general out of five stars with half stars in play, um, I mean, I'm gonna give it Two and a half stars. I guess as it's just a straight up film Because there are problems and it's not like the most serious and plot holes and all that stuff But at the at the same time it's fun and a lot of stuff well executed now As far as so bad, it's good films out of five stars with half stars in play Um, I give it three and a half. I'm gonna give it three and a half It's not my favorite of the hen and lotters. I think maybe brain damages at at this moment I don't remember what I what I gave that on my review because it's been a while It's been over a year. I think since I did brain damage Or it may be about a year. It feels like it's been a long time. But anyway, but yes Let's talk in the comments about brain about frank and hooker Actually, we can talk about all hen and lotter in the comments, but specifically frank and hooker for this one But go crazy if you want to Do me a quick favor though hit that subscribe button If you like this review video or any videos I have ever done because that is the best way to repay me And I 100 appreciate it when people do that for me It gives me a very big sense of gratitude and I see all of you people who are subscribing I literally get an email and it tells me who it is That has subscribed and I look at you guys. I I actually look at the picture you have And feel grateful for you subscribing. So I appreciate that Also, if you are going to subscribe, make sure you hit the notification bell And that way you know anytime that I'm putting up a new video Whether it's a movie review and unboxing or doing a live stream But regardless, thanks for checking this out and until next time Keep it brutal