Surprise! It's a "Halloween Classics" double feature. You didn't think I'd let you down on All Hallows Eve did you? Throw on a lab coat because this isn't just a Zach post series double feature either. No no, it's an effin Boris Karloff double feature. Oh hell yes, and not just that, tonight I present you with a Frankenstein double feature. It's a Halloween Miracle. That's right, it's time for me to narrowly escape from a burning lighthouse and learn how to awkwardly speak so that I can tell you what I think of 1935's "Bride of Frankenstein."
Ignoring the dumb introduction that has Lord Byron, Percy and Mary Shelly hanging out on a stormy night talking about how awesome "Frankenstein" was, yes seriously, this movie takes place immediately after the first film. That is, with the monster escaping from the burning lighthouse and Frankenstein and his Frankenbride trying to recover from the previous film's ending. Frankenstein wants to put the whole ordeal behind him, but another exile from his school, Dr. Pretorius, shows up out of the blue and wants him to get back to the grave robbing and electric life giving he did before. Frankenstein wants nothing to with it, until Pretorius mentions that he's created his own life (very lame life I might add), and then even resorts to kidnapping the Frankenbride to get his way. See Dr. Pretorius, for some unfathomable reason, wants to create a mate for the monster, so that the two of them can truly become God. Creating one life isn't enough, he wants to create an entire race that can itself "be fruitful and multiply," the first commandment given by God to his creations.
In the meantime the monster travels around the wilderness and gets into crazy antics. These involve him trying his best to make friends with people who only want to scream their heads off and run away. He's soon captured by a posse, only to immediately escape, which involves some of my favorite shots in the film. Seeing Boris Karloff in his monster makeup rip doors off their hinges and push dudes around is so damn entertaining, you just don't know. He also runs into a blind man that befriends him and teaches him how to talk ... along with how to drink and smoke ... ah the essentials of any education. Eventually the monster runs into Dr. Pretorius who bends him into his servant with the promise of a friend, and uses him to finally coerce Frankenstein into making the monster bride.
These crazy antics that the monster gets up to are definitely my favorite part, and luckily make up most of the movie. This time it's far more about the monster than that douchy Frankenstein, and it's all so much better for it. Karloff's performance here is great, he expands on his earlier work, and has more time and space to develop his sympathetic monster from the original film, and it really does work. All the monster wants is what we all want ultimately: to be happy and to have friends ... to live in peace ... to be loved. The monster isn't allowed that unfortunately, his entire life is about being tortured, repulsed, chased, and used. It's a sad life, and he's easy sympathize with, especially considering that he was forced into being by a father that is also repulsed by him. My favorite part of Karloff's performance might actually be his sad little whimpers and grunts when he approaches the blind man's cabin, he may be hideous, but really he's just a big dumb scared animal, that only wants someone to see him and not fucking scream and try to shoot him in the face for once.
Speaking of the blind man that welcomes the monster in and befriends him, this is such a good scene, possibly my favorite. I love the way it ends, part of the posse bomb in and scream "What's wrong with you old man? Can't you see this is an evil monster?" Aha I know what you did there, you just summed up a huge underlying theme, way to go. This "misunderstood monster" theme was something I felt like they touched on in the original, but basically ruined it with one stupid scene (Which I talked about just a few hours ago). Here, thankfully, they really flesh it out (Hey, at least I didn't say "super charged it") and run with it. If you focus on a mindless maniacal psychotic killer with no feelings who goes from victim to victim for no reason, then you have a boring movie. When you have a monster that's hunted for murders it committed by mistake, or out of self defense, and in light of its terrifying hideousness? Then you're onto something.
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| Just close your eyes and think of the queen. |
Okay, so if you couldn't tell yet, I really liked this movie. Sure it has a rocky start, but as a whole it's a lot more interesting than the first. I mean having more screen time for Karloff is an automatic improvement, and that's despite me usually being adverse to showing too much of a monster in a "monster movie." I feel this monster is such a tragic character that focusing on him is the best course of action. But even without the more Karloff, you have the whole dynamic of the monster's bride, which makes for a lab scene even better than the original. I think this is because the lab scene here is the climax of the movie, whereas the original one just got things going. As always, Jack Pierce's design of the bride is great, quite simple though, so not as much of a spectacular feat as, say, his mummy makeup, but it is nonetheless iconic. I mean here we have another original creation by Jack Pierce that has become a staple of our collective imagination, which is two for two now at least.
All in all, I think "Bride of Frankenstein" is superior to the original in about every way. Even having Frankenstein as a reluctant participant made him feel a little less like the bipolar "now I'm crazy now I'm not" douch from the original. And really, it has Boris Karloff dressed up as a frankenstein smoking a fucking cigar and drinking wine, what more could you want from a movie? Happy Halloween.
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