Frankenhooker

FRANKENHOOKER-1990-In NJ an overweight girl named Elizabeth (former Penthouse Playmate Patty Mullen) is killed by an electric mower. Her fiance' Jeffery (James Lorinz) who works for the electric company and dabbles in science experiments becomes obsessed with trying to recreate her. He keeps her severed head in a vat of boiling chemicals and at night puts the head on the table and has dinner with it (and reads it poetry) in his garage/lab in the house where he lives with his mother (Louise Lasser). When he gets tense he uses an electric drill on his brain. Like in THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, Jeffery needs a new body for his beloved so he hires some hookers (with a cliche pimp named Zorro) to find a bod that will fit Elizabeth. But when they ingest some crack like drug Jeffery has brought along they all explode and there are bloody body parts everywhere. Jeffery takes all the body parts back to his lab and stitches them together for a new body and brings it to life with electricity (and a serum that only works on women). What he gets is a scarred white faced hooker/zombie who escapes and hits the street. Her first customer/victim is a short bald comical white guy who explodes (and his decapitated head talks). Jeff eventually brings Elizabeth back to life but she doesn't like it. Zorro follows Jeffery home and decapitates him but the left over hooker parts kill Zorro. Somehow Elizabeth manages to save Jeffery by putting his head on a woman's body. He's not happy about that. Zacherley (the voice Aylmer in the director's BRAIN DAMAGE) appears briefly as a TV weatherman and Shirley Stoler from THE HONEYMOON KILLERS, is a bartender.

This is another bizarre unique horror outing from director Frank Henenlotter (BASKETCASE). It's gory but very clever and funny and you'll never see a better “hookers exploding while using crack” scene anywhere!

Thanks for reading!

HenenHorror

BRAIN DAMAGE-1988-This is the kind of "forgotten" Frank Henenlotter film made between his first two BASKET CASE movies and the incredible FRANKENHOOKER.

It tells the story of "Aylmer", an ancient symbiotic slug like parasite that eats brains to survive. It also secretes a euphoric drug into it's host body that creates an LSD like high. It latches on to Brian (Rick Hearst), an anemic dullard who lives with his brother (Gordon MacDonald). An old couple had been keeping Alymer prisoner in their apartment by feeding him only animal brains to keep him weak but he escapes to find more tasty human grey matter. He talks too! One highlight is him in a sink singing "Aylmer's Song" while Brian rolls on the floor in agony. Aylmer's voice is provided (un-credited) by the one and only Zacherley, the NYC based TV horror host of the '60's (He recently turned 90!).

BD is well made despite it's low budget and there's lots of bloody deaths (in a junkyard, a toilet stall, a club called Hell) and clever dialogue. The funniest scene though takes place in a subway car where BASKETCASE's Kevin Van Hentenryck makes an appearance!

In addition to writing and directing Henenlotter (who should have made more films) co-produced and co-edited this wonderful insanity!

Thanks for reading!

Strangely, lead actor Hearst went on to become a soap opera star......