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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wanna Sit Slack-Jawed with Boredom? Then This Is For You!, December 3, 2003
When her boyfriend Eddie Turner (Joe DeSue) returns from Vietnam without arms and legs, Dr. Winnifred Walker (Ivory Stone) appeals to former teacher and Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Stein (John Hart) for help--and Dr. Stein, who has been fiddling with DNA, accomodates them by growing some new arms and legs. Unfortunately, the experiment goes awry, and Eddie suddenly develops a square afro, takes to wearing ankle boots, and sneaks out at night... and one of his first victims is an ugly white woman with a really bad hair-do and bad taste in pink nighties. On the surface, BLACKENSTEIN would seem everything a cult-movie fan could ever wish. And it is true, there are about six "howlers" per minute in this film--actors who can't act, ridiculous dialogue, bad cinematography, awful special effects, extremely silly make-up, you name it, this flick has it. Trouble is, BLACKENSTEIN is also incredibly, unspeakably dull. In fact, it is so dull that after about ten minutes its dullness overpowers the giggle factor and you are left to sit in slack-jawed exhaustion. The DVD offers nothing in the way of extras and the print is bad to boot--not that it makes any difference where this film is concerned. If you have to buy a gift for some you don't much like, this would be a perfect choice. Otherwise, steer clear. GFT, Amazon reviewer
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful incoherent mess of a film, May 8, 2000
This review is from: Blackenstein [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This is a terrible blaxploitation feature with a virtually incoherent last half hour. The film has clearly been subject to extensive production re-editing with scenes re-ordered, other scenes missing, and bits of some scenes stuck onto others. There are also numerous censor cuts - all shots of the severed arm of the orderly have been excised and all of the intestine-ripping scenes have been shortened. Once the monster starts escaping and killing people (why is never explained) the film becomes a complete structural mess - can anyone enlighten us as to what happened in the editing room ? And the music is just totally inappropriate all of the way through.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Movie With Everything You Could Want--As Long As It Isn't Good, May 22, 2007
Want to recreate a night of ultra late-night 1970s TV in your very own home? Just slip in a copy of "Blackenstein" and you'll feel as if you're tripping back to that groovy time when you crashed on the couch in your parents' basement rec room and really got into some midnight movie or other. "Blackenstein" has it all--including a flawlessly scratched and grainy print transferred right onto the DVD.
You want bad acting? You got it. Factual/continuity/technical errors? Yep. Plot holes that an 18-wheeler could be driven through? Sure. REALLY bad dialogue ("since the doctor won the Nobel Peace Prize for medicine....")? It abounds. Scenes in which someone appears to have forgotten the camera running and, for no apparent reason, decided to include the resulting footage in the film? You bet. You name it--if it can be done wrong, it was done wrong in this movie.
And for all that, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, because I was laughing my head off most of the way through. "Blackenstein" is ALMOST, but not quite, what the Wayans Brothers would have made as a student film. Seen as a bad joke, it's one of the best guilty pleasures ever put on cinema. If you're expecting a legitimate monster movie, however....just forget it.
Some things are truly so bad they're good, and "Blackenstein" fits the bill as well as any other cinematic oopsie I've ever seen. And it's short enough at 87 minutes that if it does leave a bad taste in your mouth, you'll still have time to put in a "real" movie and possibly salvage your evening.
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