Soon after the opening title screen of Jess Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price, Vampyros Lesbos) has just gifted his monster (Fernando Bilbao, Mr. Hercules Against Karate) with the ability to speak. This is neither here nor there, because the hulking creature rarely talks in the film, and why should he when there is so much flagellation and fornication to get to?
Not to mention, Dr. F barely gets to enjoy his giant scientific leap for madmankind, as he is attacked and killed, because being “torn to pieces” is hardly survivable. Enter his daughter, Vera (Beatriz Savón, Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror) to avenge his death. Those responsible are the bug-eyed Cagliostro (Howard Vernon, Zombie Lake), a supernatural being with a pubic thatch of a goatee, and his sidekick (Anne Libert, A Virgin Among the Living Dead), a chirping bird-woman who wears nothing but green feathers and metal talons. Like Hitler before him, Cagliostro wishes to establish a new race; using Dr. Frankenstein’s secret rejuvenation recipe, he begins by creating the “perfect being” from body parts of various women he’s had murdered.
Erotic Rites entertains both because of and despite its limitations — or rather, those of Franco. For starters, the film is not always in focus. For another, the spray-paint job on the monster is inconsistently applied and, depending on the angle and scene, appears to be either blue, green, silver or gray. No matter — with science-class skeletons, access to a castle and the buy-in of his regular players (including muse Lina Romay), Franco appears to be having a ball, in a “let’s put on a show” fashion befitting of Andy Hardy. Chock-full of Franco’s trademark full-frontal nudity, the ensuing production is colorful as a comic book — one that would give Dr. Fredric Wertham a coronary he’d never forget or an erection he’d never acknowledge. —Rod Lott