Title: Part 5
Author: Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Date of First Publication: 1991
Place of Publication: The Ultimate Frankenstein
Type: Short Story
Characters: No Character
Themes: ANDROID; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER
Critical Summary: Samantha Grant is a young Hollywood starlet, desperate for a part in a big movie. To catch the eye of famous Hollywood producers, she regularly visits a plastic surgeon named Dr. Morely. One such producer, named Edward Styles, invites her to his home for drinks and discussion, presumably in a group setting at a dinner party. She wears a dress rented from one of Los Angeles’ finest design houses that lost her a few weeks of grocery money and a ring and bracelet that doubles as a self-defense weapon, created by a jewelry designer who specializes in such things. She purposely shows off her thirty-five hundred dollar plastic surgery augmentations and her blue contacts. She has had tens of thousands of dollars of plastic surgery. She has recreated practically every part of her body with eye lifts, nose jobs, lip jobs, everything. But it’s all for the part. Edward is a multi-millionaire with dinnerware that costs more than Samantha Grant’s rented Mercedes. She means to get the part by any means necessary, including sleeping with the producer. At this point in the evening Samantha realizes that there are no other guests: she is there alone. This does not faze her, she expected to sleep with him to get the part after all, and goes about trying to seduce him according to her carefully thought out plan. However, during dinner, Edward turns the conversation prematurely to her acting skills and background. After a strange beginning to the conversation, Samantha is ready to leave, but Edward turns the conversation to his new movie, a sequel to his great work Stardreamers. This catches Samantha’s attention and makes her decide to stay, on the chance that the producer might be trying to introduce an acting deal. As they debate over the merits of movie sequels, Samantha slowly begins to realize that she has been drugged. Edward tells her that the drink was drugged with methoprominol.
Edward drags Samantha into the living room where he shows her his previous victims. They all worked in Hollywood and Samantha believes Edward murdered all of them. Samantha, horrified and scared, asks Edward why he has come to Hollywood and Edward responds that it is the best place to fit in. Edward murdered those people, and then became all those people, and he simply moved his brain, his consciousness, from body to body. And now, he plans to take control of Samantha’s body as well. When Samantha asks Edward how he found her, the producer responds that they know someone in common. Then, Doctor Morely walks in with his scalpel and begins to cut Samantha apart while she is still alive. And that is where the story ends.
This story has clear Frankenstein undertones. Doctor Morely is a very sick, insane, mad individual who met his match in Edward. They are Victor and Igor, destroying people and using their likenesses in their sick games, cobbling together a monster. The monster simply happens to be Edward. Samantha is merely one of their hapless, unsuspecting victims.
Administrative Notes: Grace Glasgow, CSUF