Frankenstein: Legend of Terror (Standard Edition) [Blu-ray]

"Don't tell me you believe in monsters?" asks the balding police inspector investigating a series of grisly supernatural murders, in this surprisingly adult Gothic Japanese animated feature based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818.

Produced by Toei Animation and directed by Yugo Serikawa (THE LITTLE PRINCE & THE EIGHT-HEADED DRAGON, CYBORG 009), the film opens on images of a ruined graveyard and a castle lab with gruesome animal heads and bone saws - and never lets up from there, as Dr. Frankenstein (voiced by Nachi Nozawa), his wife and daughter are followed by the tormented creature (voiced by Hosei Komatsu), who is barely able to mutter his own name (he's known as just "Franken" in the film).

The hulking, shambling "Franken" ultimately emerges as a pitiable and despairing figure on par with Boris Karloff's incarnation from the 1930s (and watch for the scene where he staggers into a church and compares the wound on his hand to the stigmata on the crucified Jesus!).

Newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative by Deaf Crocodile, this excellent and too-long overlooked Gothic gem takes its place as one of the finest Japanese animated horror and sci-fi films from the 1980s.

In Japanese w/ English subtitles.