While ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN has some clever lines for the grownups (Chaney: "You don't understand! When the full moon rises, I turn into a wolf!" Costello: "You and forty million other guys.") and some effective physical comedy for the kids (the bits in the House of Horrors and the Landing), it's a singularly unambitious picture that cheapens Universal's classic monsters.
I understand why Karloff passed on the chance to reprise his role as the Monster in this feature. This movie takes Universal's monsters and makes a mockery of them, reducing any sense of pathos or horror they may once have had and mining them for cheap laughs. One can almost see the paychecks dangling offscreen whenever Chaney's Wolfman and/or Lugosi's Dracula are around, and one has to wonder what went through their minds as they enacted their climactic battle.
Nevertheless, my 6-year-old liked it, and the grownups did chuckle now and again. When you fire up ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, rest assured that you're going to get what you expect.
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