THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN arrives in 4K!

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Review by John Larkin

I first encountered THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN one crisp autumn night many years ago on Turner Classic Movies. I was struck by how refined it felt for a horror film. The lush production design, candlelit sets, and painterly compositions immediately pulled me in. It wasn’t just an old monster movie; it was something elegant and hypnotic. Over the years it has become inseparable from the Halloween season for me, the cinematic equivalent of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE at Christmas, a film I revisit every October as a comforting ritual. The atmosphere it creates perfectly captures what I love about spooky season. It feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket as the crisp autumn air drifts through an open window, carrying the scent of burning leaves, while you sip something hot from a porcelain mug in a quiet, wood-clad room.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN occupies a unique space in horror history. It was the film that launched Hammer’s gothic cycle and introduced audiences to one of cinema’s most enduring partnerships, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein is not a tortured idealist. He is brilliant, aristocratic, and completely devoid of conscience. There is a chilling precision in how he manipulates everyone around him, whether colleagues, lovers, or servants. His Frankenstein is not haunted by what he has created but exhilarated by his own superiority. Lee, as the monster, plays a role unlike most of his later performances. Far from the aristocratic and distinguished intellectual types he became known for, here he is a haggard creation of madness, a mismatched ghoul born in a lab and an extension of Frankenstein’s own psychopathy.

That sense of moral rot only deepened as Cushing reprised the role in later films like THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN, FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, and FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED. In the latter, there’s a scene that remains one of the most disturbing in Hammer’s entire canon. Frankenstein rapes a woman, and afterward, with cold detachment, tells her he wants two boiled eggs for breakfast the next morning. The scene is brief and understated, yet it reveals everything about this character’s pathology. Cushing plays him not as a madman but as a man who has rationalized away every boundary of decency.

In 1957, this kind of portrayal was groundbreaking. Under Terence Fisher’s direction and Jack Asher’s sumptuous cinematography, Hammer reinvented gothic horror with color, sensuality, and psychological edge. The film’s palette of deep reds and greens, its ornate period detail, and James Bernard’s thunderous score all conspire to create a world that feels both decadent and doomed.

When Warner Archive released the Blu-ray in 2020, it was already a revelation. The 4K UHD release, however, feels like the final word. The new restoration brings out remarkable depth and texture. Shadows are denser, the laboratory scenes gleam with eerie vibrancy, and flesh tones are balanced in a way that finally does justice to Asher’s lighting. The HDR treatment adds nuance to every flicker of candlelight and splash of blood. Bernard’s score, presented in clean mono, resonates with renewed vitality.

There is another personal layer to this film that amuses only my family and me. The young actor who plays “Young Victor” (credited as Melvyn Hayes) looks uncannily like one of our Italian cousins. Despite being British, he somehow embodies the same facial expressions and mannerisms that run through my mother’s side of the family. Whenever I show my siblings and relatives THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN we can’t help laughing at how bizarre the resemblance is. It’s become this strange, running joke that adds an extra layer of unintentional comedy to the movie every time we watch it.

What makes THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN endure is its balance of artistry and depravity. It’s a film that looks like high art but feels like a descent into moral darkness. Beneath its refined surface lies something unsettlingly human. Ambition without empathy, intellect without soul. For me, that blend of class and corruption is exactly what defines the spirit of Hammer horror.

Every fall, as the air turns cool and the days shorten, I return to this film. It’s more than nostalgia. It’s a reminder that horror, when done with taste and conviction, can be as beautiful as it is terrifying. The new 4K release only deepens that truth. Hammer’s masterpiece has never looked more alive, or more wickedly elegant.