The Frankenstein Theory

2013
4.3| 1h27m| NR| en
Details

From the makers of The Last Exorcism comes a boldly original vision of horror. What if the most chilling novel of all time was actually based on a true account of a horrific experiment gone awry? When he is suspended from his university job for his outlandish ideas, Professor John Venkenheim leads a documentary film crew to the rim of the Arctic Circle in a desperate effort to vindicate his academic reputation. His theory: Mary Shelley's ghastly story, "Frankenstein," is, in fact, a work of non-fiction disguised as fantasy. In the vast, frozen wilderness, Venkenheim and his team search for the legendary monster, a creature mired in mystery and drenched in blood. What they find is an unspeakable truth more terrifying than any fiction...a nightmare from which there is no waking.

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Reviews

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
pesic-1 I laughed when 'Frankenstein's monster' finally made its appearance. I also vomited several times due to the shaky camera, which is conveniently pointing away from the monster most of the time, I guess because they didn't want to show the lame monster before the very end. I can't believe they decided to show it, considering it was so unimpressive and silly.The film fails to generate real tension, it suffers from the common problem with found footage, which is characters that bicker constantly, and it also fails to generate likable characters. We don't like any of them, and we don't even hate any of them. When they start to drop like flies, it makes no difference to us. Of course, Found footage does function largely as a kind of simulation of events, which means that you are not meant to care about protagonists, and instead enjoy the ride, being 'one of the crew'. Still, the film should not leave you totally indifferent, and this film never made me care. Also, as a simulation it is quite unimpressive. Many opportunities to make it really scary and suspenseful were lost, and there is too much padding.Two lousy stars.
jalna35-52-850660 Just watched The Frankenstein Theory (2013) with hope and enthusiasm, for both to be dashed sadly to the ground or maybe I should say snow. Our heroes, the descendant of Frankenstein or as he claims should be Venkenheim, a guide and a film team go to Canada to search for the Frankenstein monster in the Artic hoping to prove its existence. The filming is good the acting is not bad but the story line and script is weak and the err umm monster when we did see him was ....... What????? My sons when they were young could have made better creature costumes and today they definitely can. This film is in the Blair Witch genre and if you like that type of film you will be happy enough to watch this. But... be warned if you want a reasonable storyline, and some decent characters this is not for you. Its not scary even with all the lights out. Sorry
Bill Larrabee OK right from the get go I have to say I was biased by an issue that plagues a lot of media nowadays - the worship of youth, and the unreal way in which it is portrayed so often. In this movie we have a bunch of twenty-something kids masquerading as adults, one of whom we are supposed to believe is a college professor with a PhD. We really need to stop pandering to 'young adults' who wanna pretend they're actually adults, but that's an entirely different rant. Problem is, this pseudo- real world of the kids who made this flick runs thru the fabric of the whole movie. But I soldiered on, and did my best to suspend my "this is really stupid" reflex. I probably should have listened to that first reflex, because the movie never really took off. It's a pseudo- documentary style, but the script is pretty weak and formulaic, and there are no solid actors in the bunch; no one with on screen charisma to draw you in. The scares are few, and not very scary, honestly. I'm not sure how I keep getting drawn into these independent, handi-cam shot, "found footage" films that all end up looking like a college art project (and maybe are.) I guess I keep hoping to stumble across some gem that will be original, not stupid, and genuinely spooky, like "The Blair Witch Project" or "Paranormal Activity," but I guess I'll have to keep looking, because this wasn't it.
slymold I have researched the novel and taught Frankenstein at the university level for a number of years. I have also read the novel at least fifteen times, so I regard this film as an intertextual work rather than a stand-alone work, and that probably makes a huge difference. As far as I know, no successful film adaptations of the novel exists. Kenneth Branagh's "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" is interesting, but ultimately it is a howler of a B movie thanks largely to Branagh's decision to make Victor Frankenstein a wholly admirable character. "The Frankenstein Theory" illuminates the novel just as much, or more, than Branagh's film.The film is a sequel to the novel. At the end of the novel, the "creature" jumps off a ship near the North Pole and bounds over the ice, having promised that he will build a funeral pyre and kill himself in the Arctic wastes. But does he? That's the question that drives the story of the film.The writer/director obviously knew the novel as well as its biographical background. Jonathan reflects the monomaniacal determination of Victor Frankenstein. His backstory--expulsion from Oxford--also refers to the biography of Mary Shelley's husband, Percy. References to Percy Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and to Mozart's Requiem--a commissioned work that ultimately became the composer's own requiem--create some clever textual layering. Percy Shelley presaged his own death, as does Jonathan and his crew in the act of documenting their pursuit of their own killer. Some of the tension of the frame story of the novel is captured, too: Victor Frankenstein has been rescued by Robert Walton, a captain with a hired crew bound for the North Pole (which had not yet been discovered). The film crew in "The Frankestein Theory" are analogous to Walton's nearly mutinous crew.The premise of documentation is also meaningful in relation to the novel. Like many works of Gothic fiction, the novel is presented as an epistolary narrative--a documentation of "true" events. It is composed of some letters by Walton and a transcript of the story that Victor Frankenstein tells to Walton. At least one previous IMDb reviewer claimed that this entire film is a rip-off of "The Blair Witch Project," and, while I see the similarity, I think this misses the point. "The Blair Witch Project" and many other contemporary horror films (e.g., "The Ring" and "Paranormal Activity") foreground the act of documentation--a conceit they owe to Gothic literature. This film is the only one I know that actually acknowledges and plays knowingly with that debt.Let's not stop there. "The Frankenstein Theory" plays with a couple other visual genres as well--the mockumentary (especially "The Incident at Loch Ness") and reality television shows based on wilderness survival. It also offers a delightful homage to "Jaws." The guide, Carl, played by an uncanny double for Viggo Mortensen, delivers a comic drunken story that parallels the terrific sailor's tale spun by Anthony Quinn in Spielberg's film.Finally, let's face it...the Frankenstein story has never been truly terrifying in any of its manifestations. The novel is certainly creepy, but it's mainly a novel of ideas. This film should be credited for combining brainy intertextuality, comedy, and at least a few mild thrills. It's certainly not the scariest movie I've ever seen, but that's not the point. It IS the scariest media representation of the Frankenstein myth I've seen, with the possible exception of Blade Runner--another brainy, intertextual film.