In 1999, The Blair Witch Project hit theaters. For those of you who might be too young to remember, that movie not only became a smash hit on its own but ushered in dozens of imitators. Shot in eight days and produced for only a few thousand dollars, The Blair Witch Project showed horror filmmakers that an effective horror movie could be made for little money if produced like a “found footage” documentary. While The Blair Witch Project is far from the best horror film ever made, it is arguably the most influential of the last two decades.
It is now fourteen years later, yet there are some horror filmmakers who haven’t learned any new tricks since The Blair Witch Project. And that’s why we’re still getting Blair Witch retreads in 2013 with a movie like The Frankenstein Theory.
Professor John Venkenheim (Kris Lemche) has been ridiculed by everyone — even his girlfriend — for his belief that Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is based on a true story and his certainty that the Creature is still alive somewhere in northern Canada. He hires a documentary crew led by Vicky (Heather Stephens) to follow him to the edge of the Arctic in order to find the beast. The crew is skeptical, but as they journey closer to their destination they realize that Venkenheim has been on to something all along.
Now take a look at the picture of the Creature on the DVD case (or just at the top of this article). Take a long look at it. This is the most you will see of this creature, because when you finally do get to see the Creature in this movie you will only see it in glimpses (and on top of that, it won’t look much like the Creature on the box). I’m not sure how or why anyone would think it would be a good idea to make a Frankenstein movie without showing much of the Frankenstein Creature and thinking it wouldn’t ultimately disappoint the audience. It’s the equivalent of buying a box of cereal to get the toy inside when you were a kid and upon opening discovering that the toy is 1/5 the size of the picture on the box.
That is just the tip of the garbage pile when it comes to this movie. Since the characters have minimal contact with the creatures, all the “scares” come from completely unrelated incidents, like a meth addict pulling a gun on the crew or Vicky almost hitting a large, angry African-American man with her car. Toward the end they also begin to hear the Creature’s screeches off-camera, which are hysterical because somehow a creature that was built out of human body parts sounds like a cross between Chewbacca and a tyrannosaurus rex.
Then there is Venkenheim’s laughable explanation of how the Creature managed to survive for almost 200 years — apparently one of his ancestors combined the Creature’s DNA with that of long-lived animals like turtles and birds. Never mind that this wasn’t scientifically possible in 1818 because DNA wasn’t discovered yet (though Venkenheim gives a half-assed explanation about how DNA was actually discovered by his ancestor and just happened to be left out of the history books). Or the hilarity of their guide, played by Timothy V. Murphy, doing a monologue about a past experience that is virtually ripped beat-by-beat from Quint’s famous U.S.S. Indianapolis speech in Jaws. But I don’t think anything is as bad as Venkenheim trying to communicate with the Creature in English when the Creature in Shelley’s novel probably never learned a word of English.
What was effective and, in hindsight, somewhat charming in The Blair Witch Project 15 years ago — handheld camera, amateurish acting, lack of music, rough editing — is old and tired here. Sadly, the actors actually aren’t amateurs, and I suspect they just weren’t given much direction or much of a script to work with. The DVD cover says this movie is “From the Creators of The Last Exorcism,” but frankly that’s misleading — Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland (who wrote The Last Exorcism) are two of the executive producers of The Frankenstein Theory. But neither first-time director/co-writer Andrew Weiner nor his co-writer Vlady Pildysh have any connection to that popular horror movie. Those expecting a movie of similar quality will be thoroughly disappointed.
On the other hand, The Frankenstein Theory isn’t insulting like the sheer vapidity of other found footage films like The Devil Inside, but it’s just terribly boring and thoroughly devoid of any scares. It’s actually mostly sad, because a movie about finding out that Frankenstein was based on fact has a huge amount of potential.
The Disc
No features at all — I guess all the money was spent on the fancy hologram slipcase cover.
Movie Rating: Can we be done with these found footage horror films already? (2/10)
Disc Rating: With no features and little reason to re-watch the movie you really shouldn’t buy it (0.5/10)
The Frankenstein Theory is now available on VOD and will be released on DVD on March 26.
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