THE RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN (1972)

 
 Thanks to director Jess Franco what we get here is one of the most insane interpretations of the classic Universal monster ever put on film.  It's like Franco took a few elements from FRANKENSTEIN, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, a few other movies, including his own, and some classic literature and mixed them all up into a jazz-infused monster mash. 
 The plot is kind of all over the place and inconsequential to the series of bizarre images on display or maybe it's just complete nonsense, depending on your point of view, but I dig it regardless of that just for it's insane anarchistic feel.  It all starts out with Dr. Frankenstein building his creature(who in this film is painted silver which goes unexplained, as does pretty much everything else that happens) with the help of Morpho(Franco himself as an Igor stand-in).  Dr. Frank is killed off in the first 5 minutes but don't worry cuz he keeps getting rejuvenated over and over again just to spout ridiculous inane lines about life and death and the evil of Cagliostro(an evil madman who uses the power of magnetism to control an army of the undead played by Howard Vernon with a sweet goat-tee).  In addition to Cagliostro's skull-faced(rubber-masked) minions he has a strange-sounding, feather-handed, bird-woman helper named Melissa who is either a cannibal or a vampire or maybe both.  Also Frankenstein's daughter shows up and they force her to make a bride for the monster.  This ends up with heads being chopped off and girls being kept in cages.  The oddest scene, in a film that's made-up of oddball scenes, is probably where we get to watch a topless Frankenstein monster whip a couple who are surrounded by poisonous spikes. 
 This is probably one of the weirdest films in the Francoverse and for that I give it extra-mind-warping credit.  Nothing really makes much sense but I do find it entertaining in it's own way. 
 There's a couple of different versions of this movie.  In some we get Lina Romay(her first film role ever) as a strange gypsy woman who doesn't interact with any of the main characters and was obviously shot at a completely different time.  There's also a version with a few scenes(including the poison spikes bit) re-shot but full of nudity without Lina, which seems weird since Lina was so into getting naked.  AKA THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF FRANKENSTEIN & THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

Weirdos!: