I honestly thought I'd hate this movie. I realize that's a weird way to start a review, but I felt I should let you know where I was coming from before we dig in to the meat of the movie. This is the first time Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey team up to recreate horror's greatest monsters in their artsy, free-loving hippie aesthetic, and though they failed to make a compelling movie with their second attempt Blood for Dracula, their first go around here is actually a very enjoyable riff on the Frankenstein story.

Baron Frankenstein lives in a castle in Europe with his wife and two children. They lead a relatively dull and domesticated life together, but separated they all have secrets. The wife is an adulteress, the children are into voyeurism, and the Baron is constructing the perfect pair of Serbian zombies. He experiments with tons of naked men with their junks taped over, looking for the perfect body and brain for his new breed of mankind. Nicholas, the farmhand, convinces another one of his buddies, Sacha, to join him at a whorehouse before going off to join the monastery, and Sacha unwillingly agrees. Meanwhile, Frankenstein and his assistant Otto are searching for the head of a man who would screw anything, and head toward the bordello to find such a man. Nicholas and Sacha arrive at the bordello full of ugly, fat girls and due to strange circumstances involving a lizard jumping on a man's ass, Frankenstein and Otto see Sacha and are certain his head would be perfect for the body of his monster. On their way back from the whorehouse, Nicholas is knocked out and Sacha has his head ripped from his body by a giant pair of scissors. Nicholas wakes up to find his friend's headless corpse lying next to him, and goes to tell Madam Frankenstein that he is leaving the property, but she asks him to stay and work in the house as a servant and pays him with a roll in the hay.

In the lab below, Frankenstein puts the finishing touches on his female monster and decides to open the stitches running down her belly so he can play with her organs. He orgasms while he touches her liver and spleen, then climbs on top of her (with his hand still deep in her guts) and humps her. When he is finished, he turns to Otto and says: "To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder". Later, he brings the woman and the man with Sacha's head to life and invites them to dinner with his family. Nicholas, who is serving dinner, recognizes his friend, but says nothing until later in the madame's bedroom. She tells him to mind his own business, but decides to go rescue his friend. But first, he has sex with Frankenstein's wife (and apparently she is also his sister, because he calls her that a few times). Frankenstein watches his sister/wife suck Nicholas's armpit for a while and then leaves them alone.

Afterwards, Nicholas hooks up with the kids and they help him get into the lab. He watches Frankenstein try and get his male and female to mate but by having the head, much less the brain, of Sacha who wanted to be a monk, Frankenstein finds out quickly that his male has no interest in sex. He leaves, frustrated and feeling like a failure. Nicholas jumps down into the lab to rescue both of them, but the Sacha monster just wants to die. Frankenstein arrives then and commands Sacha to knock Nicholas out. He plans to replace the head with Nicholas's head, but in the meantime he gives Sacha to his wife/sister as a thank you gift for telling him that Nicholas was planning to ruin everything. Madame Frankenstein tries to rape Sacha, but he decided to crush her to death instead. Meanwhile, Otto doesn't think its fair that everyone gets to have sex with the creations, so he takes the girl, licks her scarred stomach and shoves his hand inside her guts like Frankenstein did, but ends up killing her instead of pleasing her. Frankenstein arrives and finds his perfect woman dead, then kills Otto for destroying her with his dirty hands. Sacha shows up, cuts Frankenstein's hand off and runs him through with a harpoon. Nicholas wants to be untied from where they placed him, but Sacha will not bring him down because he doesn't want Nicholas to bring him any help, then he disembowels himself and drops dead on the floor letting his guts empty onto the ground. Nicholas thinks he is saved when the kids show up, but they grab scalpels and continue on with his father's experiments. The end!

I was extremely surprised by this movie. I'm not a big fan of Andy Warhol. I think his work is pretentious and dull, but here I think most of the credit should be given to Morrisey for directing a solid Hammer-horror style film. The sex does not get in the way like it did in Blood for Dracula and there is certainly more content here to be entertained by. The story is rich and engrossing, the characters are outlandish and b-movie perfect, and the setting is on-the-money. If you see one classical horror film with Andy Warhol's name on it, then make it this one.

- Jose Prendes