Great Film overall

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is directed by Terence Fisher and written by Bert Batt. It stars Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, Simon Ward and Freddie Jones. Music is by James Bernard and cinematography by Arthur Grant.The fifth entry in Hammer Film's Frankenstein series is one of the best. Playing as a variant on the original Frankenstein sources, story finds Cushing's Baron Victor Frankenstein as an utterly repugnant individual who is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve his medical goals. Morally and ethically bankrupt, Frankenstein blackmails young lovers Anna and Karl into helping him achieve his ultimate goal - with disastrously ghoulish results for all concerned.Steered strongly by the hands of the under valued Fisher, pic is not just hauntingly elegant as per being a Gothic mood piece, but it is filled out with macabre shocks, and even gallows humour. Some scenes are striking in their ability to gnaw away at your senses, including the infamous sexual predator scene that has divided opinions (personally I think it's great in showing how low Frankenstein has got). It builds to a terrific climax, where Freddie Jones (turning in a super emotionally driven turn as one of the better "creatures" in the series) and Frankenstein indulge in spider and fly bluster.Despair, degradation and disintegration unbound, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is high-end Hammer Horror. 8/10

One of Hammer's creative high points and their best Frankenstein film since the first two in the series. This one has Baron Frankenstein blackmailing a young couple into helping him with his experiments, namely transferring the brain of a mad scientist into a new body. The script is smart and dark. This movie is slightly closer to the original Mary Shelley novel than most other Frankenstein movies up to this point, Hammer or otherwise, because the "monster" Frankenstein creates here is intelligent and capable of speech. This allows for a very human monster and a dynamite final showdown between Frankenstein and his creation. The real monster of the story, however, is Frankenstein himself. Throughout the series he was never particularly good but the degree to which he was what we would call evil varied from film to film. Here there's no mistaking what a deplorable person he is. At one point he even commits rape, which is probably the most shocking scene Peter Cushing did for any Hammer film (Cushing objected to doing the scene but was overruled and did his job like the professional he was). Despite how evil he is you can't help but be invested in his story, thanks in no small part to Cushing's riveting performance. Terence Fisher was far and away Hammer's finest director and this is among his best, most creative work. The sets, costumes, and effects are all very good-looking. James Bernard's score is excellent. A great cast, of course, led by the inimitable Peter Cushing. Special mention goes to Freddie Jones, who plays the 'monster' and holds his own with Cushing quite well. Some of the film's darker moments won't sit well with some viewers, particularly the rape scene that was really unnecessary and added nothing to the story except to make Frankenstein even more irredeemable. Despite this, I think it's an exceptional effort from Hammer and one of their better later films.

Forced to flee town again, the Baron learns a colleague has perfected a process invaluable to his own research and brings along new helpers to do so, but a series of incidents results in the creation of a new monster that upon realizes what he has done to him sets out to avenge his death.There was a couple of good points to this one at times, making it far more watchable than expected. The main factor with this one here is the fact that despite its extreme boredom his one manages to mostly stay interesting the whole way through its incredibly strong story. This is one of the strongest in the series, mainly due to how it manages to avoid many pitfalls and keep things moving along. Here, Frankenstein branches out into other fields of research, still homing in on the freakish advance of medicine but no longer so obsessed with creating life, a great way of bringing back an old character but giving him new things to do and not settling for a hackneyed retread of the monster. The experimentations offered up are also handled well, especially with the way that the original intent of the whole thing is pretty logical and not all that unrealistic, which serves to make the irrational actions later on seem all the more normal. There's also some really good action scenes, starting with the opening where a thief breaks into an underground laboratory only to be confronted by a horrible monster carrying a severed head when the monster rips off his face revealing the hideous skeletal visage of Victor in one of the most dramatic and engaging ones in the genre. The scenes of the monster-on-the-loose out in the countryside are always fun, and this one is no exception, taking on several fun encounters here. The best, though, is the film's explosive and undeniably fun encounter at the end. With the usual house- in-flames ending coming into play again, there's a difference with the cat-and-mouse games between the two taking place amongst the flames, which makes for some really exciting sequences and is enough to make it end on a high point. The last plus here is the fact that the film has one of the usually high-standard surgery scenes in place, and this is one of the best. There isn't a whole lot here to really dislike, though there are a few flaws to it. One of the main issues to come up is the fact that the film is just way too long and drawn-out with a tendency to drag on for way too long, getting in plenty of scenes that, while they do give the film the impression that it's actually doing something and going somewhere, ultimately suffers from the lack of energy during them. It seems to go about it's own deliberate pace, never really doing anything that really offers up some excitement until the end. The fact that the monster doesn't really show up in the film at all is another problem, and the monster here is one of the weakest. There's nothing at all to fear from this creature, as it's entirely human-looking in behavior and appearance, while the scenes of it trying to persuade his wife to recognize him generate nothing but eye-rolling at the fact that this is supposed to be a monster and is acting nothing like what one should be like. The last flaw here is the rape scene, which really should've been eliminated as it stops the film dead and barely recovers. Overall, this is a fun if slightly flawed entry. Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence including graphic surgery scenes and a Rape Scene.

Hammer did 7 Frankenstein films from the late 50s to early 70s: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973) Peter Cushing played Baron Frankenstein in every one of these except "The Horror of Frankenstein" because it was a remake of the original story and they needed a much younger actor to play the role; they chose Ralph Bates (who superbly played the love-to-hate OTT satanist in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" released the same year).In any event, we all know the basic Frankenstein story: A mad scientist is obsessed with creating life from an assortment of body parts. Eventually he succeeds and his creation goes on a killing spree, although the creature is nice to kids 'cause they're innocent. Ultimately the monster must be destroyed (and the Baron usually goes with him).Ho Hum. Forgive me if this basic plot no longer trips my trigger. Thankfully, I recently saw a couple of Frankenstein flicks that stirred my interest in this age-old predictable story: This one and "Lady Frankenstein," detailed below.Hammer's "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed" was, as noted, the fifth film in their 7-film Frankenstein series. THE PLOT: Baron Frankenstein is a fugitive who goes by a different name but is intent on continuing his gruesome work. He ultimately blackmails a young couple in assisting him. They steal a patient from the local insane asylum and successfully transplant his brain into another body, curing his madness.The film is highlighted by Veronica Carlson, who looks a lot like Ursula Andress, but possibly even more beautiful (if you can imagine that).FINAL ANALYSIS: "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed" is one of the best Frankenstein flicks I've seen. It's creative, labyrinthian and full of pizazz. Being a sequel, the film retains the essential elements of the original story but is a natural progression. The REAL monster in this picture is Baron Frankenstein himself; he's no longer a basically good person obsessed with creating life from corpses. His obsession has defiled him to the point of enmity, hate, arrogance, violence, rape and murder.Another great Frankenstein film from this same period is the Italian "Lady Frankenstein," released in 1971, which starred Rosalba Neri (AKA Sara Bey) as the Baron's daughter who overtakes his work after his death. See my review for details.GRADE: A