A researcher finds out that his ancestor was the basis for Dr. Frankenstein. He thinks the monster is still alive, and he hires a documentary crew that accompanies him to the arctic circle to track the creature down. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
The Good: This is an interesting idea for a movie, and by framing it as a documentary, there's slightly higher production value than the average found-footage film. Also, the acting (save for the main character, sadly) is well above par for this kind of movie. They actually spent some money on real actors for the side characters - the meth head and the guide both did standout jobs.
The Bad: Our hero Dr. Venkenheim veers a bit towards Gene Wilder in a supposedly serious film, and it doesn't quite work. But the main problem is this movie just doesn't deliver on it's promising premise. It's a very slow build up to an utterly underwhelming conclusion, and there's nary a startle along the way.
The Ugly: The weather. I really hope they didn't drag the entire crew up to the arctic circle, but wherever they were looked miserably cold. Oh, and I guess you see a corpse that was ripped in two. But mainly the weather.
Points Pondered
-At first I was about to give the movie a 6, but then I realized I had just watched Greystone Park and in comparison everything looks like Shakespeare. Just because a movie isn't terrible doesn't make it good.
-Christine Lakin of Step by Step fame plays the doctor's girlfriend, which I only realized after I saw her name in the credits. I would say she should be in more stuff, but a quick check of her IMDb page shows she's in about 5-10 things a year. Might be time to raise her standards.
-There's absolutely nothing in the movie you don't see coming from miles away. Halfway in and most people could give you the order in which the cast is culled.
-Be warned - the cover is much cooler than anything you see in the movie.
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