Millenium Entertainment - FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN on Blu-ray

When I heard the title FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, I immediately thought it sounded like something Michael Weldon would have talked about in his Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. So of course I had to go and check to see if I was right. Sure enough, Weldon did indeed cover it in his invaluable book and he went so far as to call it an "offbeat entry" in the Hammer Dr. Frankenstein series. The rest of his review/summary is quite nice so I won't spoil it, please just go and grab your Psychotronic and read for yourself. All that being said, I'd never seen this particular film. Like a lot of kids my age, I came to Peter Cushing via the STAR WARS highway and hearing of George Lucas' fandom for Hammer films led me to first investigate them. To see the breadth of what Cushing accomplished and how he entertained with those films almost makes me pissed at Lucas for giving him so little to do in his films. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that Peter Cushing is a badass and I can't recommend highly enough that everyone dig into his Hammer output as soon as possible if they haven't already. For all the freaking out people do about Benedict Cumberbatch these days, he can't hold a candle to Cushing in his prime (don't ask me where that random comparison came from, I have no idea).
So there's really few things more murderously infuriating than entitled, taunting rich dudes. This movie has some good ones. Also entangled in this story are perhaps one of the early examples of the modern "switch movie". This film is of course much darker than something like 18 AGAIN, VICE VERSA or LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, so the comparison is a loose one at best. Nonetheless, given my own personal fascination with such films, I found this intertwining of Frankenstein-ian conventions and body swapping to be quite entertaining. The Blu-ray looks quite nice too.

Special features included on this Blu-ray Collector's edition include two episodes of the WORLD OF HAMMER series, one on the making of CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and a second episode, ‘Hammer Stars: Peter Cushing’ which gives a nice overview of his quite epic career.
Also here is a new documentary called HAMMER GLAMOUR featuring actresses Caroline Munro(who I have such a crush on), Martine Beswick  and Madeleine Smith. I'm less familiar with Beswick and Smith, but I'll be sure to check out some of their films after seeing this doc.

Lastly there's a commentary track by actors Morris and Derek Fowlds, moderated by UK critic/Hammer expert Jonathan Rigby in which they recall tons of details from the making of FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN. It's an affectionate look back and one with a good amount of humor contained therein as well as much information for the hardcore or even newbie Hammer film fan.