This was to be the first episode of a Dean Koontz-written series which, unfortunately, never was made and instead became a series of novels. Having owned a copy of the novel, I think it was a pity the series never happened. AS scripted, it's more a police procedural than a horror story, with tendrils of horror. This time, Frankenstein is called Helios and he's still searching for the perfect creature but now has a network of his creations, some living almost normal lives but still tied to him. The arrival in New Orleans of his original creation, now called Deucalion, and a series of gruesome murders bring together the creature and the police detective investigating. The tone is dark but compelling, the characters equally so. Helios is handsome, cold, and prepared to sacrifice even the wife he loves (and created) when she proves imperfect.The acting is good, the premise intriguing. Unfortunately, it stops just when things gets really interesting and the promise of answers to questions in the form of the next movie never materializes. It's too bad the series never was made because if it held to the precepts of the pilot and the novel, it would've been great.This movie was viewed as a rental DVD and no remuneration was involved in the writing of this review.

Let me get this straight to begin with: FRANKENSTEIN is a horrible reinterpretation of the classic Mary Shelley novel, which attempts to modernise the story in a pre-flooding New Orleans. Everything about this production screams cliché: there's a murky, depressing visual style that constantly uses David Fincher's SE7EN as its source material (isn't that so late '90s?) and a storyline that ends up going absolutely nowhere. The reason? This was the ill-conceived pilot of a television series that was never made, so don't go in expecting any kind of plot resolution or tying up of loose ends.The tired story sees a couple of lame detectives (Parker Posey and Adam Goldberg, possibly the most uninteresting cops I've seen in any movie) going after a killer leaving a string of bizarre deaths in his wake. Along the way, they come across Vincent Perez as a strangely scarred and hooded figure, and there are no prizes for guessing who he's supposed to be. There's also some pointless stuff involving ruthless scientist Victor Helios, played by Thomas Kretschmann. He's Frankenstein, but despite taking up a great deal of screen time he never actually gets involved in the main storyline.Yeah, the film really is that muddled and disjointed: the detectives never catch up with Frankenstein, and we never even learn how he's still alive in the modern day. Talk about a con. Instead, the thrust of the plot eventually turns out to involve Michael Madsen, playing a fellow detective with a few secrets of his own. But there's really nothing to keep you watching: no interesting set-pieces, no special effects to speak of, no drama, no tension, not one bit of suspense. Director Marcus Nispel's work feels adrift and aimless outside of his preferred genre (remakes), and Dean Koontz wisely took his name off the thing. You can hardly blame him.

I've never been all that impressed with Dean Koontz' stuff (good plots and characters, but pretty flat prose, dialog, and descriptive passages), so I wasn't expecting much from this, especially given that Koontz withdrew from the project before its completion and the result was "based on" his ideas for the modern day Frankenstein. Still for a TV movie, this is pretty strong stuff, and tries to accomplish some ambitious goals with some success. It seems to try a little too hard in many places, crossing the line between "heated" and "overheated" quite often, which can be hard to avoid given its subject matter (Frankenstein) and it's cinematic inspiration ("Se7en"). I've always had a soft spot for Parker Posey, and it was nice to see her stretch out in a leading role. She doesn't quite have enough "gravitas" to carry the movie, although she is engaging and sympathetic enough to have me rooting for her most of the time, and the guy who plays her partner is adequate to some pretty standard role requirements. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty good for a TV movie too...although I'm afraid that Michael Madsen is becoming hopelessly typecast and is developing a bad habit of phoning his roles in. I'll grant you that even Madsen-by-the-numbers is still pretty good, but he's in danger of becoming a cliché of himself. I'm not sorry I spent the time to see it, there were some nice shots and a nice punchy wrap up that left the viewer sort of wishing that there could be a follow up. (That may have happened in the Koontz novels, but I'm not interested enough in Koontz to find out). Not a bad effort. Worth catching for free on cable if you get the chance on a dull night.

This is one hell of a movie. The suspense, the eeriness and the overall darkness of this film are enough in themselves to encourage a fan or horror / fantasy to buy / rent it. Add to that the amazing acting from (at least to me) all but one unknown actor and it just keeps getting better.It doesn't rely on biog budget special F/X and to be honest I thing they would have ruined it.If it were not for the very end of the film I would never have guessed it was a pilot movie for a series (that looks as though it will never get made). I have yet to read the Deam Koontz book upon which this is based and by all accounts I am glad I hadn't.The ending is so open that I beg someone, anyone to make at least sequel if not the mini series...........