Horror Fest V Day Two: Point of Terror and Frankenhooker

Mercifully, I only subjected the Horror Fest audience to twenty minutes of Point of Terror, this year's "Trappening," which consisted of two very long Peter Carpenter performances, some awkward make-outs, and the tin-foil walls of The Lobster House. After revealing to them that the film was even less horror-based than previous "Trappenings" - The Happening, Hillbillys in a Haunted House, and Matango - we all agreed it was time to dive back into the filmography of Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) and close out the night with his 1990 uber-parody Frankenhooker.


If Basket Case and Brain Damage are Henenlotter's commentary on New York in the 1980s, then Frankenhooker kicks the door down in 1990 as a no-holds-barred satire of all things pre-Giuliani: consumerism, body image, prostitution, drug use, and science-gone-awry, all delivered with an "aw shucks" attitude from star James Lorinz (who, by the way, had a small part in Friday night's Street Trash).

Jeffrey Franken (Lorinz) is a med-school outcast ala Herbert West: when we meet him, he's experimenting with a brain he's transplanted an eyeball into, all the while his girlfriend and her family are barbecuing outside. He's something of an inventor, so he put together a remote-controlled super-lawnmower for his future father-in-law. Of course, things have to go wrong, so his girlfriend Elizabeth (who is constantly warned to "watch your figure") ends up on the wrong end of those mower blades, and he can only save the head, foot, and assorted random body parts.

Franken gets the great idea to put her back together using other - ideal - body parts, and while drilling his brain for ideas (a picture I'll be sharing later), he decides that the best bet is to go with hookers, since nobody's going to miss them. When Franken realizes all hookers are addicted to crack (thanks to their pimp, Zorro, who brands a "Z" on their arms), Franken creates a Super-Crack that causes them to explode. To say that things go wrong when he finally has enough parts to recreate Elizabeth is an understatement, but that's why you want to watch Frankenhooker, right?

Look, there's not much subtlety to be found in Frankenhooker (if the title didn't give you that impression in the first place): one of the two songs you can easily hear in the film has the title "Never Say No" and advocates giving in to the pleasures of drugs and sex, a flagrant refutation of Reagan-era politics. When Franken drives from New Jersey to New York, Times Square is populated with nothing but Pimps, Prostitutes, Johns, Trannies and Tourists. It's a hyper-exaggerated version of the New York City that Basket Case occurs in, Henenlotter isn't looking to win you over with subtext; everything is out front and center, from the women literally used as objects to the mutant vagina-dentata near the end.

That said, Lorinz and Patty Mullen (who plays Elizabeth before and after the experiment) are so game to play it straight in this nutty world that you go along for the ride, and even if all of the pieces don't quite fit together (unlike in, say, Pieces!), Frankenhooker is certainly worth checking out if you enjoy Henenlotter's other films or enjoy your horror to be a little twisted and a lot Un-PC.