Castle Frankenstein, Transylvania

Where There's a Will, There's a Secret Laboratory

With the exception of an early sequence in Frederick's medical school classroom, the film is set in Transylvania.

When someone dies, they usually leave their relatives a little something to remember them by. Maybe some money to their children or a lifetime supply of Purina to the beloved family dog (unless they decide to be buried with the dog; that's a special breed of crazy). Whatever the deceased leaves behind, it's typically not a scary Transylvanian castle. But the dead person's name usually isn't Frankenstein either. Also, the will is usually read before the person is decomposed, but we're getting off track here.

When Frederick Frankenstein inherits the family castle, he has to travel to Transylvania. There aren't any sweet transvestites or vampires in this Transylvania, but there are werewolves and monsters. The howling on the hayride is believed to be a werewolf, or maybe it's just a normal wolf. Hard to tell when Igor's explanation is;

IGOR: There. There wolf. There castle.

The castle is definitely worth the price of admission. It's a huge, scary place. With treacherous stairs, secret passes behind ze bookcase, and eerie violin music coming from who knows where. It's also probably really drafty. We hope gramps left behind some money to pay the utilities.

The electric bill is huge no matter what, because of the secret laboratory in the basement filled with elaborate electrical devices. The lab belonged to Victor, of course, and when Frederick first stumbles upon it, he pays it proper reverence;

FREDERICK: So this is where it all happened.

The slow pan over the lab is a big money shot in the movie, because all the crackling lab equipment is from the original Frankenstein movie. Mel Brooks employed Kenneth Strickfaden, who worked on the original flick, and just happened to have all that stuff still lying around in his garage. Speaking of lying around, the film reused some classic Universal Studios sets, too for that uber-authentic feel.