1990 was a strange time. There were not one, but two amazing low-budget bastardizations of the Frankenstein story directed by cult masters. The second is the altogether strange and thoroughly underseen Frankenstein Unbound which does the Frankenstein story so much justice, I consider it to be closest in spirit to the original novel. Roger Corman’s directorial swan song, Unbound has a spirit and ambition altogether missed in modern B-movies.

The first, however, is Frank Henenlotter’s black comedy Frankenhooker. James Lorinz stars as Jeffrey Franken, a student medical student whose girlfriend dies by a freak lawnmower accident. In extreme distress, Lorinz goes around chopping up prostitutes to recreate a facsimile of his girlfriend the best he can. Except, she’s now a hooker. Upon realizing that Franken is broke and doesn’t want to hire her, she knocks him out and immediately sets out to work the streets.

Frankenhooker exists on a wavelength altogether belonging to the campy goremeister, and rarely seen outside a Troma movie. Everything about this movie is so wrong on so many levels, yet it gleefully ignores even the dark comic roots and heads straight for the slapstick. Horror be damned, this is one of the more gleefully and cheerfully movies to revel in gore and sexuality.

Frankenhooker airs on Showtime (prime!) at 1:30am the morning of August 6.