I am up for comedy, satire, and spoofs, but if you are looking for any or all of those I recommend staying far away from "Frankenstein General Hospital." The plot is an unholy combination of the original Shelley story, the brilliant "Young Frankenstein," and any episode of "The Three Stooges."
There really isn't enough material for a feature film, but conceptually the film follows the misadventures of Dr. Bob Frankenstein, who is doing secret bodily assemblage with his faithful assistant Iggy under the clever alias of Dr. Bob Frankenheimer. Half of the film is in color and half is in black and white, a not-so-clever gag that is explained very early on: it gets annoying very quickly. There are political machinations in the hospital where the chief of staff, Dr. Reutger, loses control with the help of an incompetent staff and inept script. The hospital's psychiatrist, Dr. Alice Singleton is mostly a visual accessory (she was, in fact, the 1986 Playboy "Playmate of the Year,") is quite naughty and, naturally, contributes to Dr. Reutger's ultimate downfall.
Ultimately Alice falls for the monster as only he knows how to make her "feel like a woman." When the monster takes her to his lair they share a jar of "extra hot pickles," apparently resulting in a scorched esophagus for the monster, who quenches his thirst with a new serum of some sort (which gets its own entirely too-long subplot) that causes the monster to instantly become urbane.
If all this leads you to believe that the film will end in a duel with a sword versus a whip, and alternately an IV stand, you'd be right. The film ends predictably, but don't rush off when the credits start! If you do you will miss the fabulous epilogue, and you wouldn't want to do that, not given the remarkable quality of this film where every single minute is a minute of pure bliss. Or not.
The one puzzler for me was this: what on earth was Ben Stein (as Dr. Who) doing in this abomination? I think Ben's a great, smart, and savvy guy, but on this issue, I am going to have to part ways with him, and wonder what his agent was telling him about this project.
Think about this: "Frankenstein General Hospital" is so terrible that it hasn't been released on DVD. Maybe there's hope for civilization yet.
