Frankenhooker (Frank Henenlotter, 1990)

A classic tale of love, loss, the hubris of man, and exploding prostitutes.

From the perverted genius that brought us Basket Case and Brain Damage, Frankenhooker is a riotous horror comedy about a Frankenstein-like creation made of, you guessed it, body parts of various sex workers.

Frankenhooker’s riotously cheesy, absurdist tone is established early on. When we meet our would-be doctor, Jeffrey Franken, he’s busy conducting some kind of experiment on a sentient brain with an eye — at his girlfriend Elizabeth’s parents’ kitchen table.

Elizabeth explains that Jeffrey is a self-styled bioelectrical engineer. Whatever that means. In reality, he’s a blue-collar power company worker who has been thrown out of multiple medical school for… reasons.

Moments later — in case the brain in a jar next to the ketchup was too subtle — the film’s first hilariously over-the-top death occurs. Elizabeth is mown down (literally) in the middle of a backyard birthday party by an automatic lawnmower that Jeffrey had rigged up.

As much as a tragedy as Elizabeth’s death is for Jeffrey, Henenlotter’s direction provides ample levity to the scene, and the film maintains this tone throughout. Horrific things happen, but this is peak sleazoid cinema, so death and destruction are treated as exaggerated entertainment.

It is to Frankenhooker’s credit, then, that it flawlessly balances the other side of that coin… It is Elizabeth’s death that drives Jeffrey to do what he does out of love. And the film is successful in conveying that and letting the audience believe in it (as amusing as poor Elizabeth’s death was).

The movie is a deceptively simple tale of two halves following this setup. Once Jeffrey determines that he needs to kill a lady of the night in order to resurrect his beloved through DIY science, he sets about trying to find the perfect body to which he can attach Elizabeth’s preserved head.

Courtesy of musclebound pimp Zorro, Jeffrey assembles a hoard of potential bodies and sets about trying to choose between them. Unfortunately, the lethal crack he had prepared for the “winner” is found and consumed by all the girls — who subsequently explode, scattering perfectly good arms, legs, and tits all over the place.

It is a ridiculously over-the-top scene — and one of the film’s most memorable.

Body parts acquired, Jeffrey can finally bring his beloved Elizabeth back to life. Except all the crack whore blood now pumping through her reanimated veins causes her to go on a rampage through New York repeatedly asking any man who’ll give her the time of day: “Want a date? Got any money?”

Her received memories take her directly to the dead hookers’ old stomping ground, where Zorro is mourning the loss of his bitches and vowing revenge on that weird Jersey boy (Jeffrey) if he ever catches sight of him again. Naturally, all three characters’ paths collide, resulting in a brilliantly ludicrous climax.

Frankenhooker is an utterly bonkers movie experience. It’s a big dumb camp horror comedy that is a whole lot of fun. Outrageous yet strangely moving.