For this month’s installment of “TV Terrors” we revisit USA Network’s “Frankenstein,” which was produced by Lions Gate Films and originally aired on October 10, 2004.
After “The X-Files” (originally) came to an end, other genre properties popped up in an effort to fill the hole it left behind. One of them was the USA Network’s “Frankenstein.”
This TV movie wasn’t so much about Frankenstein as it was an attempt at a murky cop procedural that so happens to involve undead monsters and mutants lurking in Louisiana.
From executive producer Martin Scorsese, “Frankenstein” originally aired as a means of setting the stage for an elaborate horror thriller with a monster-of-the-week approach, following two cynical detectives on the hunt for the mythical mad doctor.
Engineered by famed author Dean Koontz, the movie was a twist on the Mary Shelly story for a more contemporary setting that, at the very least, was being tailored for a series of television movies. But after creative differences with USA Network, Koontz stepped away, ultimately disowning the series, and the studio was left to—well—give us… this.
Officers O’Conner and Sloane are two over worked detectives that are tracking a serial killer through Louisiana. After discovering the killer has been stealing organs, they come across Deucalion. Deucalion is also on the hunt but explains that the “serial killers” are actually monsters that have either gone mad or are searching for their creator. Said creator is the aristocratic Victor Helios, who created a slew of monsters and undead beings that he abandoned; and Deucalion is desperate to track him down. Against their better judgment, O’Conner and Sloane go on the hunt for the serial killer while Deucalion follows, offering help and a lot of important exposition.
The only interesting idea that arises from this concept is that Helios seemed to have created and abandoned a lot of genetic creations and attempts to build his vision of the perfect human. So the fact that every week we’re never quite sure who could be a monster hiding within Louisiana is a great hook; there’s also the inevitable ironic question as to whether or not Helios himself is a monster of his own making. Alas, it’s all badly mismanaged, with Vincent Perez’s Deucalion doing nothing but moping around trying to make sense of the set up for the pilot.
The writers often tend to confuse convoluted with elaborate, laying the ground work for an often confused, nonsensical premise that wouldn’t have worked for a weekly basis. It’s also one that, when you get right down to it, has no use for its two protagonists at all. The pair of detectives is shoehorned into this whole premise and, rather than working to fix this whole scenario a la Mulder and Scully, they pretty much play spectators the entire time. As a mini Dazed and Confused reunion, Adam Goldberg and Parker Posey star with (pre-Platinum Dunes) Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th) directing behind the camera. Goldberg plays Sloane, the wise cracking, cynical partner to Posey’s O’Conner.
Nispel’s murky, incoherent direction tends to clash with whatever mood the producers are working toward. The movie can never decide if it’s a crime thriller, a Gothic horror film, or twisted Lovecraftian body horror. This inherent tonal confusion leaves “Frankenstein” to feel aimless, like they’re blatantly testing their footing for the potential TV series.
There’s also the reliance on worn out tropes, including the mismatched partners, O’Conner’s obvious attraction to Deucalion, and the potential that O’Conner’s autistic sibling might have some kind of supernatural abilities she isn’t quite aware of yet. We know it’s there because Deucalion can sense it! The pilot movie even ends on a massive cliffhanger, which I assume would have been an entry way for the show to continue if it had made it to series. I don’t know how different the show would have been, but the movie is confident enough in its own premise to leave us hanging and presume to titillate us enough to want a series.
I think with major retooling “Frankenstein” could have been much more than what amounted to a lackluster, and painfully dull proof of concept TV movie. Adam Goldberg and Parker Posey are so much better than “Frankenstein” adaptation, despite working well together. It was so disastrous that even Executive Producer Martin Scorsese eventually asked to exit from the series’ development. Author Dean Koontz did, however, take his original planned concept for the series and transform it into a series of well received novels.
For one reason or another, the movie never actually led to the Gothic tinted horror cop procedural it was propped up as, and was basically just tossed off into obscurity by USA Network for many years. Despite the names behind “Frankenstein,” this is a TV movie best left to languish among the myriad forgettable Frankenstein adaptations.
“Frankenstein” can currently be streamed for free on both Tubi and Freevee.
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