Since its publication 200 years ago, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has influenced vast swathes of popular culture. Adaptations have starred cinema legends from Boris Karloff to Robert De Niro – and even Alvin and the Chipmunks. From tales of science gone mad (Jurassic Park) to stories of understanding the other (ET, The Hulk, Arrival), traces of the story and its themes have spread across our media. With Frankenstein Re-membered, video artist and film historian Chris Gerrard collects these diverse fragments from the birth of cinema until the present day and in the tradition of Victor Frankenstein himself, attempts to stitch them back together into an adaptation of the original Shelley novel.
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.
To Stay Alive: A Method (2016)
Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.
Les Charlots en folie (2024)
Documentary on Les Charlots, known as The Crazy Boys in the English-speaking world, a group of French musicians, singers, comedians and film actors who were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021)
An exploration of the cinematic history of the folk horror, from its beginnings in the UK in the late sixties; through its proliferation on British television in the seventies and its many manifestations, culturally specific, in other countries; to its resurgence in the last decade.
Visions of Europe (2004)
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius (1976)
Mad scientist Mehendri Solon is building a body from spare parts to house the disembodied brain of the evil Time Lord Morbius. He fancies the Doctor's head as the final piece...
What Is to Be Done? A Journey from Prague to Ceský Krumlov, or How I Formed a New Government (1996)
Quite a few years have passed since November 1989. Czechoslovakia has been divided up and, in the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus’s right-wing government is in power. Karel Vachek follows on from his film New Hyperion, thus continuing his series of comprehensive film documentaries in which he maps out Czech society and its real and imagined elites in his own unique way.
The Devil's Backbone (2001)
Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.
Cannes : Palmes, scandales et tapis rouge (2022)
How could the Cannes Film Festival become the biggest cinema event in the world? For 75 years, Cannes has succeeded in this prodigy of placing cinema, its sometimes paltry splendors but also its requirements of great modern art, at the center of everything, as if, for ten days in May, nothing was more important than it. This film tells how Cannes has become the largest film festival in the world by opening up to cinematic modernity while never forgetting that cinema remains a performing art, a popular art.
Room 999 (2023)
In 1982, Wim Wenders asked 16 of his fellow directors to speak on the future of cinema, resulting in the film Room 666. Now, 40 years later, in Cannes, director Lubna Playoust asks Wim Wenders himself and a new generation of filmmakers (James Gray, Rebecca Zlotowski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Nadav Lapid, Asghar Farhadi, Alice Rohrwacher and more) the same question: “is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”
Bohemia Docta or the Labyrinth of the World and the Lust-House of the Heart (A Divine Comedy) (2000)
A labyrinthine portrait of Czech culture on the brink of a new millennium. Egon Bondy prophesies a capitalist inferno, Jim Čert admits to collaborating with the secret police, Jaroslav Foglar can’t find a bottle-opener, and Ivan Diviš makes observations about his own funeral. This is the Czech Republic in the late 90s, as detailed in Karel Vachek’s documentary.
Poor Things (2023)
Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
Young Victor Frankenstein returns from medical school with a depraved taste for beautiful women and fiendish experiments.
The 'Frankenstein' Files: How Hollywood Made a Monster (2002)
The history of Frankenstein's journey from novel to stage to screen to icon.
Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965)
During WWII, Germans obtain the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster and transport it to Japan to prevent it being seized by the Allies. Kept in a Hiroshima laboratory, it is seeming lost when the United States destroys the city with the atomic bomb. Years later a wild boy is discovered wandering the streets of the city alone, born of the immortal heart.
Frankenstein 1970 (1958)
The baron's grandson rents the family castle to a TV crew to fund his atomic revival of the family monster.
Terror of Frankenstein (1977)
Victor Frankenstein's search for the secret of life leads to the creation of a monster that consumes his life and family.
Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter (1972)
Dr. Frankenstein and her assistant, Dr. Yanco, are going to bring one of their experiments to life in Santo Vs. Frankenstein's Daughter. She intends to use a monster named Ursus to do her evil bidding. Using a youth serum to retain their vitality, the doctors set their sights upon none other than El Santo. They need his super human blood to regenerate a stronger youth serum. They kidnap Santo's goddaughter, Norma and lure him into Dr. Frankenstein's lab where he is captured and enslaved. Will Santo make it out alive?