The Frankenstein Theory

2013
4.3| 1h27m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 01 March 2013 Released
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Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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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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Director

Andrew Weiner

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The Frankenstein Theory Audience Reviews

Mjeteconer Just perfect...
Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
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.
By-TorX-1 The Frankenstein Theory does something rather impressive: it finds a new angle with which to address Mary Shelley's classic and oft cinematically told tale. However, don't get excited as the execution of the film completely negates this initial originality, to dismal effect. If the film had just simply told the story of a group of investigators trying to track down a real Frankenstein's monster, then this film would have worked, but the creatives unfortunately opt for the found footage approach (and why not? The Blair Witch Project only established the dubious subgenre 14 years earlier - it's still hip!), and kill the concept stone dead (to the extent that even a lightning bolt couldn't revive it). Suffice to say, there is a lot of characters endlessly talking to the shaky camera, druggy yokel witnesses, and some off-camera howls and is-it-or-isn't-it Frankenstein's Monster activity, until an ultimate (SPOILER!!!!) "Oh, it IS Frankenstein's Monster!" revelation at the very last minute. Consequently, a great idea becomes a thoroughly moribund filmic experience (if you think that the cover image of said monster will ever be realized on screen, then prepare to be very, very disappointed), and the neat move of presenting Shelley's tale as a 'true story' becomes both boring and uninspiring, and that is a shame given the overall premise.
Nat Qu First of all, let me say straight away that I was compelled to write this review after reading a few long 10 star reviews for this movie. Sorry, but I can't explain the existence of these reviews in any way other than the filmmakers' friends and other interested parties singing praise without any substance. I was not profoundly disgusted by this movie, but there is simply no way on earth that anyone would objectively give it 10 stars. Praising this plot because it apparently connects to where the novel leaves it? Are you even serious?The good sides of this movie is the actors being reasonably professional (not to be confused with a very limited effort at character development), the video quality and the scenery. "B" for the effort to go all the way to some cabin in the coldness. You can see that the filmmakers had the money to spend on stuff such as good clothes, renting the snowmobiles, and as I said, the camera-work was professional (no shaky "hidden footage" bs). On the other hand, there are absolutely no special effects. The entire volume of "blood" in the movie probably was recreated with one tiny package of sriracha sauce with a highly questionable result. I sighed when they find "blood traces" that looked like someone had a paper cut.There was so much to do potentially in terms of the plot. Just a few ideas that crossed my mind while watching: 1) discover that it was actually a real bear, while building the tension around the guy's obsession with the Frankenstein theory; 2) discover that it is a Frankenstein monster with an objective, say, to pull body parts from the victims in order to "replenish" his constitution; 3) have the monster actually respond in some fashion to the guy's efforts to connect to him. But hey, let's just leave it with a big guy who apparently feels the need to dress like a human, but will avoid the humanity at any cost and kill any person who encounters him. And btw, would also have a completely irrational idea to first mess up with the people in the cabin by stealing their snowmobiles. What. Why. I didn't give this movie one star because the scenery was nice, the actors gave it a good try, so it's not "awful" per se, but two stars fit it nicely.Also, what the hell? I watched it because it was recommended as similar to the "Dyatlov Pass Incident". DPI is quite an interesting movie, but I found no similarities. Again, gotta be the filmmakers' friends desperately trying to spread the word to get people to watch this rather sad effort.What lesson do we learn? I don't regret the time I spent watching, but I regret the money filmmakers wasted on this without having a good story to tell, when the money could be spent on so many useful causes.
Martin Hitchings First thing to say is that I was attracted to this movie by the premise; that Frankenstein's monster is real! The idea of tracking down old Frankie in modern day times and what it meant was fascinating to me, however the delivery was somewhat of a disappointment.In fairness, I cannot criticise the acting, it was pretty good (especially Murphy's character) though I would say that our protagonist played by Chris Lemche, I personally felt was a little young for the watcher to take him seriously as a university professor. I also felt the cinematography was very good.My final point is that there was a lot of potential for the story that to my mind, wasn't even thought about; at the end of the day you could replace Frankenstein with any 'mythical' monster and it would have worked just as well. In that respect, I find the movie quite disappointing.A lot of reviews have scored this movie a lower than I think it deserves, there are (by far) much worse movies out there and whilst this one doesn't set the world on fire, I can think of worse ways of spending 87 minutes!
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.