Frankenhooker

Shapiro Glickenhaus. Director Frank Henenlotter; Producer Edgar Ievins; Screenplay Robert Martin, Frank Henenlotter; Camera Robert M. Baldwin; Editor Kevin Tent; Music Joe Renzetti

James Lorinz
Patty Mullen
Charlotte Helmkamp
Shirley Stoler
Louise Lasser
Jospeh Gonzalez

Frankenhooker is a grisly, grotesque horror comedy recommended only for the stout of heart and strong of stomach.

James Lorinz plays Jeffrey Franken, a New Jersey Gas & Electric worker who aspires to be a mad scientist. There isn't much left of his pretty girlfriend Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) after her fatal run-in with a remote-control lawn mower. But Franken has preserved her head in his garage laboratory. All he needs is a new body to make the package complete. Jeffrey drives across the river to Times Square to find streetwalkers more than willing to sell (or at least rent) their bodies.

Even by genre standards, Frankenhooker often is offensive in its repeated reliance on murdering, dismembering and humiliating women for laughs. Lorinz has some inspired moments of self-absorbed craziness as Jeffrey, and Mullen reveals a fine talent for physical comedy when Elizabeth returns as the lumbering, mind-blown Frankenhooker.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1990. Running time: 90 MIN.

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