Hmm . . . I Quite Liked This

Which was surprising to me, because given its reputation, I had put off seeing this film for a long time. I expected something more on the level of the artistic and technical incompetence of, say, Dr. Chopper (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469899/) or Insaniac (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304197/), although I held out hope that it would at least have some of the entertaining wackiness of Ed Wood's films.

Instead, I'd file Jess James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter under "very solid potboiler". I thought everything worked about it--even if it wasn't extraordinary on any level. The genre-mashing worked much better than I expected it to, I found the story engaging, the performances were good to me, etc. It's obviously low-budget, but I don't hold that against any film. I thought William Beaudine rose well above his budget here. I also thought it worked a bit better as a western, which Beaudine must have thought, too, as that's primarily the mode the films stays in.

Also, re all the comments on Frankenstein's daughter really being his granddaughter--while it's true, given her comments, that she's apparently the granddaughter of the Frankenstein from the Mary Shelley story, she's also a Frankenstein's daughter--she wouldn't be a Frankenstein if her father wasn't a Frankenstein.

Anyway, I'm off to check out Billy the Kid versus Dracula and some of William Beaudine's other films.


Is everyone in this house a total nutzoid or is it just me?