Eddie, a Vietnam vet who has lost his arms and legs, is restored by DNA expert Dr. Stein. But the results turn monstrous when a rival for Eddie?s fiancée gives him the wrong medication.
Wanna Sit Slack-Jawed with Boredom? Then This Is For You!
Gary F. Taylor | Biloxi, MS USA | 12/03/2003
(1 out of 5 stars)
"When her boyfriend Eddie Turner (Joe DeSue) returns from Vietnam without arms and legs, Dr. Winnifred Walker (Ivory Stone) appeals to former teacher and Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Stein (John Hart) for help--and Dr. Stein, who has been fiddling with DNA, accomodates them by growing some new arms and legs. Unfortunately, the experiment goes awry, and Eddie suddenly develops a square afro, takes to wearing ankle boots, and sneaks out at night... and one of his first victims is an ugly white woman with a really bad hair-do and bad taste in pink nighties.On the surface, BLACKENSTEIN would seem everything a cult-movie fan could ever wish. And it is true, there are about six "howlers" per minute in this film--actors who can't act, ridiculous dialogue, bad cinematography, awful special effects, extremely silly make-up, you name it, this flick has it. Trouble is, BLACKENSTEIN is also incredibly, unspeakably dull. In fact, it is so dull that after about ten minutes its dullness overpowers the giggle factor and you are left to sit in slack-jawed exhaustion. The DVD offers nothing in the way of extras and the print is bad to boot--not that it makes any difference where this film is concerned. If you have to buy a gift for some you don't much like, this would be a perfect choice. Otherwise, steer clear.GFT, Amazon reviewer"
Movies like this one killed the blackexplotion movement
John D. Page | usa | 04/25/2006
(1 out of 5 stars)
"in the 70's black actor and film makers found a voice in the film world. with movies like "shaft","super fly", and "coffy" movies with black stars and directors were big hits. then the blackexplotion films got hit with low grade movies like this one and it helped kill the market. blackenstein is one of the worst made films of the whole era and features the worst acting,writing, and directing ever seen. but if you like to watch bad movies and laugh you may find some thing good here,otherwise stay away!!!"
Awful incoherent mess of a film
Zuran | england | 05/08/2000
(1 out of 5 stars)
"This is a terrible blaxploitation feature with a virtually incoherent last half hour. The film has clearly been subject to extensive production re-editing with scenes re-ordered, other scenes missing, and bits of some scenes stuck onto others. There are also numerous censor cuts - all shots of the severed arm of the orderly have been excised and all of the intestine-ripping scenes have been shortened. Once the monster starts escaping and killing people (why is never explained) the film becomes a complete structural mess - can anyone enlighten us as to what happened in the editing room ? And the music is just totally inappropriate all of the way through."
A Movie With Everything You Could Want--As Long As It Isn't
David R. Moffatt | Eveleth, MN USA | 05/23/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Want to recreate a night of ultra late-night 1970s TV in your very own home? Just slip in a copy of "Blackenstein" and you'll feel as if you're tripping back to that groovy time when you crashed on the couch in your parents' basement rec room and really got into some midnight movie or other. "Blackenstein" has it all--including a flawlessly scratched and grainy print transferred right onto the DVD.
You want bad acting? You got it. Factual/continuity/technical errors? Yep. Plot holes that an 18-wheeler could be driven through? Sure. REALLY bad dialogue ("since the doctor won the Nobel Peace Prize for medicine....")? It abounds. Scenes in which someone appears to have forgotten the camera running and, for no apparent reason, decided to include the resulting footage in the film? You bet. You name it--if it can be done wrong, it was done wrong in this movie.
And for all that, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, because I was laughing my head off most of the way through. "Blackenstein" is ALMOST, but not quite, what the Wayans Brothers would have made as a student film. Seen as a bad joke, it's one of the best guilty pleasures ever put on cinema. If you're expecting a legitimate monster movie, however....just forget it.
Some things are truly so bad they're good, and "Blackenstein" fits the bill as well as any other cinematic oopsie I've ever seen. And it's short enough at 87 minutes that if it does leave a bad taste in your mouth, you'll still have time to put in a "real" movie and possibly salvage your evening."
To stop this mutha takes one bad brutha...
cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 09/13/2006
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Back in the early 1970s someone (producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, I believe) got the bright idea to mix the genres of blaxploitation and horror, the result being the film Blacula (1972), which did well enough commercially to warrant a sequel titled Scream Blacula Scream (1973). Neither film was particularly favored by critics, but audiences enjoyed them, as they soon developed cult followings. This prompted others to try their hand at the newly formed hybrid genre, including producer Frank R. Saletri with his release of Blackenstein (1973), which he also wrote. Directed by William A. Levey (Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman, Skatetown, U.S.A.), the film stars John Hart ("The Lone Ranger", "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans") and Ivory Stone, in her only silver screen appearance. Also appearing is Joe De Sue, Roosevelt Jackson (China Heat), Andrea King (The Lemon Drop Kid), and a list of others really not worth mentioning (after watching the film last night I'm betting those that were mentioned probably wish they weren't).
As the film begins we see an African American woman named Dr. Winifred Walker (Stone) arriving in California by plane, renting a car, and driving to a large house in the hills owned by her former teacher named Dr. Stein (Hart), who, as we learn later, has recently won the Nobel prize for solving the human genetic code, no less. Oh brother...anyway, seems Winifred's boyfriend, one Eddie Turner (De Sue), has recently returned from service overseas sans his arms and legs (he had an unfortunate incident with a landmine), and Winifred's hoping Dr. Stein can make him whole again. Stein agrees to help, and has Eddie transferred to his home, which actually doubles as a pseudo research facility where the doctor performs his wacky experimental testing (Dr, Stein has a whole lot of electrical gizmos whose only purpose seems to be in creating electricity arcs). As Winifred and Dr. Stein surgically graft some limbs on Eddie (which isn't shown) and begin juicing him up with DNA injections, Malcolm (Jackson), Stein's monosyllabic assistant, falls hard for Winifred, but she turns him out (she's in love with Eddie), to which Malcolm decides to tinker with Eddie's injection formula, enough so to turn him into a hulking, hideous, homicidal brute complete with his very own uni-brow who wears Beetle boots. While Winifred and Dr. Stein try to figure out the cause of Eddie's de-evolution (Dr. Stein's solution is to up the injection dosage), monster Eddie begins sneaking out at night, at first taking revenge on those who wronged him (like the idiotic, sadistic orderly at the VA hospital), but eventually killing anyone (or anything) that comes across his path. This, of course, draws the attention of the authorities, eventually leading up to a confrontational sequence hardly worth sticking around for...
First off I must say I wasn't expecting much coming into this film as I was resigned to it being a novelty at best. Problem was, once the novelty wore off, about a third of the way in, it turned into something akin to Chinese water torture, but, being the tenacious movie viewer I am, I plowed ever forward...hey, I figure if I could sit through Jerry Warren's abysmal Frankenstein Island (1981), I could sit through anything (I won't kid you, as Blackenstein did put that notion to the test). What Blackenstein lacked in competency, it made up for in an overall sense of suck. You know, I've always admired those renegade filmmakers who don't constrain themselves in terms of such antiquated ideas like a coherent plot, something which others would consider a fundamental aspect of a feature. To be fair, there is something of a plot here, all of about ten minutes worth (the movie runs about 87 minutes). I guess one doesn't need a lengthy plot when one has something like 982 establishing shots. For those not familiar, an establishing shot is one which gives the viewer an idea where parts of a movie are taking place, an example being if a film is set in California, we might see a character flying into a Los Angeles airport. For some reason director Levey decided it was necessary to show endless exterior shots of Dr. Stein's house, even though it had been established numerous times previously that's where we were at...I guessing this was an effort to pad out the running time, but it could have been a result of lousy direction. Regardless, if this were the only problem with the movie, I could have let it slide, but there was so much more...the continuity was out of whack (there were many sequences that were supposed to take place at night, except it was obviously shot during the daytime, and vice versa), the pacing was disjointed, due primarily to awkward cut away shots, the film was poorly lit, and the fact whomever placed the music within the film had little idea how to do so appropriately. There were a number of times some ominous piece of music would start playing, even though the scene didn't call for it...there was also a good dose of soul music included, which didn't really fit in all that well (at least the music chosen), but I half expected that given the blaxploitation elements of the feature. As far as the actors go, there were two types here...those who've had a viable career in the past, but have found themselves stuck appearing in films like this, and those who've never appeared in a film prior (or since) this feature (the actor who played Eddie had the personality of a two by four). There was some blood and unnecessary gore (monster Eddie seemed to enjoy pulling peoples faux spaghetti guts from their mutilated corpses), along with a bit of welcomed nekkidness (there's one decent topless scene). As I said, there's not much of a story, but that's okay because the film is padded out with stupid crapola like a crummy comic (sadly monster Eddie never catches up to this guy) performing in a sleazy nightclub (his material is most definitely rank), followed by an African American woman belting out a soulful tune. I'm sure if we spoke to the makers of this film today they'd probably make the claim Blackenstein was intended as a parody, but I'll call it what it is, a soulless, craptastic piece of flotsam, one created with the hopes of cashing in on the Blacula films, and failing miserably. I'm going to give this two stars rather than one for the following reasons...
1. It gave me the opportunity to see Frankenstein's monster with an afro. 2. The topless girl outside the nightclub. 3. It was good for a few laughs. 4. The DVD artwork is entertaining. 5. Despite the film's overall dismalness, it was still better than Frankenstein Island.
The picture, presented in fullscreen, on this Xenon Pictures DVD release, comes across okay, and the audio is clear (there was no mention of the actual format of the latter). There are chapter stops, but not much in the way of extras except preview trailers of other Xenon DVD releases including Dolemite: The Human Tornado (1976), Durdy Game (2002), Fubar (2002), Tar (1997), Tupac Shakur: Before I Wake (2001), and Welcome to Death Row (2001).
