The third installment of Hammer Horror Productions' Frankenstein series, Evil of Frankenstein sees the titular doctor (Peter Cushing) and his student Hans travel to the town of Karlstadt, a place the doctor has been to before until the townspeople banished him from the district for his previous attempt at creating a monster, which is believed killed. The two reach Frankenstein's old home, hoping to sell some of his property to make more money to delve into their research but tragically find the chateau both vandalised and ransacked.
- Frankenstein: Won't they ever leave me alone?
Left without an option, the two travel to town, utilising the carnival taking place there to hide their presence. There, Frankenstein sees the burgomeister and the chief of police celebrating the day and, to his great resentment, also sees that the burgomeister is one of the thieves that stole his property when he recognises the Frankenstein signatory ring on the man's finger. His outrage leads him and Hans to be recognised and they flee, encountering a master magician and hypnotist Zoltan along the way. The two run into a young woman they had inadvertently helped earlier and she leads them into a cave where they find the monster frozen in a block of ice. Frankenstein endeavours to revive him but once again faces another complication to his plans when he discovers that the monster's senses have been dulled by both the damage and its time encased in ice, and he enlists Zoltan to help.
Then things take another turn for the worse when the process has the monster answer only to Zoltan, and the egocentric magician proves to be an ambitious, greedy opponent.
Followed by Frankenstein Created Woman in 1967.
Tropes associated with this movie:
- Anti-Villain: Frankenstein is less the villain even here than in the first two films. He doesn't kill anyone nor does he direct his monster to commit murder. In fact, some of his scenes even present him as the hero.
- Big Bad: Zoltan
- Continuity Snarl: Perhaps the most infamous one in the series. The flashback events of the movie regarding the monster's creation depict Frankenstein's earlier escapades in Karlstadt to be his origin story, rather than the events that occurred in The Curse of Frankenstein.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The burgomeister stole much of Frankenstein's personal property after the doctor was exiled from the town.
- Disney Villain Death: The monster is depicted falling to its doom in the flashbacks after being shot.
- Downer Ending: Hans mourns for Frankenstein when his beloved mentor is believed killed in the laboratory explosion at the end of the film.Hans: They beat him after all.
- Drunk On Power: After realising due to his hypnotism that he is the only one who can control the monster, Zoltan goes increasingly insane, ordering the monster to steal gold, punish the burgomeister and the chief police, and murder Frankenstein.
- Gone Horribly Right: Frankenstein's plan to use Zoltan's hypnotism to bring the monster back to full mental consciousness works, but there's one problem. It answers only to Zoltan now.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: When Zoltan sends the monster to punish the burgomeister and the chief of police, he did not take the time to tell it how to punish them. Therefore, he is visibly horrified when it comes back after killing them.
- Even more befitting of this trope, the policeman the monster killed wasn't even the chief.
- Idiot Ball:
- Zoltan tells the monster to punish the burgomeister and the chief of police but he never bothers to direct the monster to stop short of killing them.
- The monster develops a taste for alcohol, drinking straight from the bottle without looking. In the climax, it accidentally poisons itself by drinking chloroform.
- In Love with Your Carnage: The burgomeister's wife watches Frankenstein confront her husband and defy the police in an aroused manner. The doctor notices this as he makes his escape via sliding down a Bedsheet Ladder.Frankenstein: Good night.
- Karmic Death: Towards the end, Frankenstein figures out what Zoltan has been up to and evicts him from the chateau. Zoltan quickly breaks back in, using the monster and orders it to murder its creator using a broken bar. The two men vie for control of the monster, Frankenstein using its fear of fire against it while Zoltan spitefully demands it kill Frankenstein. The monster itself resolves the conflict by stabbing Zoltan in the chest with the broken bar.
- Kill It with Fire: The monster 's second death. And presumably Frankenstein.
- Mirror Character: Frankenstein and Zoltan are determined people in their own right, one wanting to prove himself as a genius in the field of science and the other as a world-renowned magician. Both were also at separate points banished from Karlstadt for breaking the town's laws.
- Mythology Gag: After Curse was distributed by Warner Brothers and Revenge by Columbia, this one was distributed by Universal. Because of this, Hammer had free licence to borrow elements from the the 1931 classic, which is why the monster resembles the Karloff version so much and why the method Frankenstein uses to give it life differs from a mixture of chemicals to using lightning from a storm.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A priest destroys Frankenstein's laboratory in the prologue, setting the doctor's experiments back and the events of the film in motion.
- Only Sane Man: Hans has to be this at times in order to rein Frankenstein in.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Frankenstein and Hans wear domino masks in town while attending the carnival. After Frankenstein raises his voice upon seeing that the burgomeister robbed him, he is recognised by the chief of police.
- Pet the Dog: In a rare moment of humanity for the character in general, during the climax, a trapped Frankenstein yells at Hans and the girl to save themselves from the burning chateau.
- Too Dumb to Live: While the reasons for his anger are justifiable, Frankenstein forgets that he is supposed to be in hiding when he accuses the burgomeister of being a thief. This leads him to be recognised by the chief of police, who remembers arresting Frankenstein years ago.
