Flesh for Frankenstein - 1973

 (Googles current popular artists)  I mean, I haven't heard of any of these guys, so this goes back a little bit, but what if Banksy officially endorsed and produced a relatively low budget, X rated version of fuckin' The Creature from the Black Lagoon?  What if Taylor Swift put out a 3D Video Nasty version of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde?  Wouldn't the world be better?

Andy Warhol did not have much to do with this movie which is alternatively titled Andy Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein, but still man, this was a bit of a controversial move I have to imagine.  I guess Rob Zombie is maybe the modern version of this, but the music was not a far cry from the cinema, so it does not compare.

Flesh for Frankenstein was a Italian, American and German co-production for a super underground film that got rated NC-17 and X, got on the Video Nasty list, and also helped launch Udo Kier's career.  I'd seen this one before, perhaps over 10 or even 15 years ago, as this is on many lists of "most disturbing" and "most cult" movies.  I didn't remember anything on this rewatch.

This movie is minimally going for satire, and I think its also an early example of meta, self aware, excess for the sake of excess type thing.  I wanted to look up early self aware movies, and just on the initial screen the things they cite are not far and away far off from this things 1973 date.  This certainly has a comedy of extremes, satirical leaning to it, there isn't a ton of outright humor but there is certainly an air of "having fun with the material", a wink and a nod.

There's plenty of nudity and some surgery scenes, there's a scene where Udo Kier has sex with a dead body, but overall this is pretty tame.  I think if anything it is the oddness of tone and the way this film almost feels like a comedy that makes the disturbing parts stand out.  Part of you really wants this movie to pick a lane, and from modern aspects I think it did, its just we were not ready for THIS lane yet.  But in that way this is super ahead of it's time.

There's an aspect of moral panic to some of these for sure - not that the content is not disturbing, but this could be seen as a little bit more of a skew towards moral censorship certainly.  There's homosexual content in here as well, and there's a bit ol' dick that you can see for a little while. 

While this movie is popular mainly because of the big name attached to the front of it, this is a fun and self-aware, strange and somewhat boundary pushing film.  It also succeeds because of the name in front, lets face it that something with a big name will bring in a bigger audience, and we may have this film to thank for bringing cult movies a bit more into the spotlight.  4 stars.

Nasty Meter:  2/10

Argument for or against Video Nasty:  very mildly For.