Army of Frankensteins (Blu-ray)
Anthony Arrigo
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Starring Jordan Farris, Christian Bellgardt, John Ferguson
Directed by Ryan Bellgardt
Distributed by Scream Factory
Some time ago, I gave a mostly favorable review to Iron Sky (2012), the unremittingly cheesy Nazi space invasion movie that featured a lot of dated humor and a nauseating amount of mediocre CGI. Perhaps I was a little too kind then, but the point I’m trying to make is there’s no discernible reason why someone should enjoy a film like “Iron Sky” and not find the same level of amusement in Army of Frankensteins (2013). They’re cousins in the same stupid universe. But I hated it.
After a failed attempt to propose to his girlfriend, Alan Jones (Jordan Farris) is beaten within an inch of his life by a street gang. Transported to the mysterious lab of Dr. Tanner Finski (John Ferguson) and his kid genius assistant Igor (Christian Bellgardt), Alan becomes the subject in a series of horrible experiments as part of the doctor’s plan to reanimate the legendary Frankenstein monster (Eric Gesecus). But all bets are off when these experiments lead to a hole being ripped in space and time, pulling an army’s worth of the infamous creatures from hundreds of parallel universes and sending them all back to the 19th century – directly into the heart of a bloody battle between the North and South!
My desire to discuss the mediocrity of this picture is so low that the above synopsis was copy/pasted straight from the press notes, whereas I’d normally have the energy to sum things up myself. It’s obvious this film was nothing more than an absurd labor of love for writer/producer/director/editor/digital effects artist Ryan Bellgardt, and with an exceedingly meager budget of just $65,000 I suppose some credit is due for accomplishing all this film does, technically speaking. By wearing so many hats, Bellgardt is allowed to indulge more freely, which might explain why the film runs a bloated 1 hour and 48 minutes. There is much going on here, arguably more than necessary. A soldier without a hand is given a cannon in its place. One of the many Frankensteins is enlisted to help the fight against slavery. Alan has a psychic link to all of the other Frankensteins. A Herbert West-style serum turns people and animals into monsters. Every single facial hair appliance is terrible and obvious. The film definitely goes for broke in terms of utterly bizarre story tangents. Unfortunately, it isn’t funny, it isn’t scary and there wasn’t a single moment during the interminable runtime where I didn’t wish I was watching something else.
Setting aside the poor computer graphics that plague much of the film, the 2.35:1 1080p picture is actually quite nice. The digital image is very clean, allowing for many finer details to be seen in clothing textures and faces. Colors look accurate with minimal grading. The CGI compositing is glaringly obvious without exception, but if you can look past such things this is a solid job.
Similarly, the English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround sound track is no slouch. Gunshots have a decent weight to them, adding some oomph to the subwoofer. Sound effects are nicely separated, allowing for battlefield skirmishes to feel a little more enveloping. Rears also come into play at opportune moments. One oddity, though, is the dialogue. Almost every spoken word sounds like bad ADR work. There is also an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo track. Subtitles are included in English.
The film’s trailer is the sole extra feature.
Special Features:
- Trailer
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Film
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Special Features
Categorized:Reviews
