A low-budget B-movie/Universal Monsters "homage" (read: actual B-movie) released in 2005, directed, written by, and starring William Winckler. A group of scientists (G. Larry Butler, Alison Lees-Taylor, and Rich Knight) bring Frankenstein's monster (Larry Furbish) back from the dead so he can serve as a tool of war. This "war" involves sending him to kill their previous experiment - a fishman (Corey Marshall) that's lurking a Los Angeles beach, has gone berserk and started killing people. A sleazy porn photographer (Winckler), along with his wife (Dezzie Rae Ascalon) and a guy named Percy (Gary Canavello) encounter the fishman and are held hostage in the mad scientists' mansion when they try to escape. Throw in visions of Dr. Frankenstein's ghost, a werewolf, cameos by Lloyd Kaufman and Ron Jeremy, and you'd better get yourself some drinks ready!
This film provides examples of
- Aborted Arc:
- G. Larry Butler casually mentions that they can just bring Salisbury and Mimi back to life the same way they did Frankenstein. This is never brought up again or explored further; the other scientists die before it even can be.
- One of the FBI agents investigating the mansion makes a mysterious phonecall where he is implied to be a Jihadist terrorist. There is no point to this, because he immediately gets killed by Frankenstein and forgotten about.
- Affectionate Parody: The movie is supposed to be an homage to B-movies, and it does so by being one.
- Author Appeal: B-movie monsters, random boobs and stripteases, B-actor cameos? It's a Winckler movie!
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Winckler and the model's photoshoot and the strip club scene seem to be done exclusively so the film can have two seconds of nipples for each scene.
- Back from the Dead: Frankenstein's monster is resurrected by scientists to fight the Fishman. For reasons.
- Black Dude Dies First:
- The first person on the heroes' side to die is a black porn model.
- The first member of the scientists's posse to die is their Latina maid.
- Averted by Percy, who despite being such a flaming gay stereotype compared to Bill and Dezzie Rae you'd think is being set up to die, actually lives.
- Bloodless Carnage: None of the "fights" between Frankenstein and the Fishman have any actual violence. The only time blood is seen in the movie is when the Fishman slices people up, and even there it's obviously chocolate syrup.
- Camp Gay: Percy is every single offensive gay stereotype rolled into one at once."I think I just wet my pan-ties!"
- Captain Ersatz: Despite obviously being based on The Wolfman and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Frankenstein obviously being there, the werewolf and the fishman are never referred to as such.
- Casting Gag: The transformed werewolf is played by Butch Patrick, who played a werewolf on The Munsters.
- Clueless Aesop: Being made in 2005, there's some vague commentary and allusions to the then-hot War on Terror, but the movie doesn't really commit to it.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The whole movie is shot in black and white.
- Deus ex Machina: Bill is cornered, all the scientists are dead, and he "saves the day" by having the ghost of Dr. Frankenstein show up and force choke the monster to death.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: The total kill count at the end of the movie is all three scientists, their maid, a random werewolf, Frankenstein's monster himself, the Fishman, Bill's boss, two porn models and two surfers. i.e. Literally everybody except Bill, Dezzie Rae, and Percy.
- Gainax Ending: The movie ends with the ghosts of Frankenstein's monster and the fishman continuing to battle each other on the beach while G. Larry Butler's ghost watches. How did they become ghosts? Why do they have to keep fighting despite the fact that they already killed each other? Why does Larry become a ghost and not the other scientists? Too bad, roll credits.
- Identical Stranger: Bizarrely zigzagged. Frankenstein's monster lusts after Dezzie Rae because she reminds him of the Bride of Frankenstein, but the actors playing them blatantly look nothing alike.
- I See Dead People: G. Larry Butler is visited by Dr. Frankenstein's ghost throughout the movie. Bill and Percy are both confused as to why he's talking to himself. This is probably supposed to give him an existential crisis over having played God by resurrecting his creation... but at the end of the movie Bill is able to see the ghost too, and it's never explained how or why.
- Kudzu Plot: The movie is only 90 minutes long, but so much happens, so little of it has any context or clear relevance, and aside from the fishman getting killed, virtually nothing in the film ends up actually being resolved or going anywhere.
- Male Gaze: The photoshoot. Bill is a sleazy porn photographer. Winckler is a horndog director. You fill in the rest.
- Nepotism: William Winckler's wife is in the movie.
- Production Throwback: Bill's office has posters from Winckler's previous movie, The Double D Avenger.
- Random Events Plot: The story of the movie is ostensibly about Frankenstein being brought back from the dead to fight a fishman, and yet it also manages to involve strip clubs, werewolf attacks, surfer dudes, porn magazines, an extremely irrelevant nightmare sequence, and Force Ghosts.
- Sacrificial Lion: Salisbury is the first member of the main cast (Bill's trio and the scientists) to bite the dust.
- Scars Are Forever: Salisbury (one of the scientists) has scars all over his face because of their last encounter with the fishman.
- Too Dumb to Live: Bill's boss ignores his warnings about a sea monster on the beach. Bill goes missing. His boss goes down to figure out why. Fucking guess.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The British model that accompanies Bill's boss to the beach, and the two surfer dudes.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The fishman is eventually killed by just being stabbed through the chest. They went through all the trouble of resurrecting Frankenstein for THAT?!
- Wolf Man: The werewolf at the start of the movie is bipedal and turns back into a human after being killed.
