Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

This was the last of Hammer’s Frankenstein films, a return to the original franchise and star Peter Cushing following 1970’s ill-advised re-boot with Ralph Bates as the eponymous corpse-botherer. Given how tired and slapdash Monster from Hell feels, it’s probably best they stopped here.

Cushing is reliably charismatic, his Baron now hiding out as in-house medic to a psychiatric hospital, but the sluggish plot involving a young protégé (the woeful Shane Briant) and a traumatised, mute, patient-cum-assistant (Madeline Smith) is pure bunkum. And when Frankenstein does inevitably get the sewing kit out and start fiddling with the inmates, his creation – resultant of the hands of a craftsman, the brain of a nutty professor and the rest of what seems like a Neanderthal they must have had locked-up for a very, very long time – is way too absurd to prompt pathos or chills. There’s some creaky charm to it all, but precious little else to recommend. [Chris Fyvie]