Frankenstein

Frankenstein, a movie primarily about how Doctor Henry Frankenstein deals with the fallout of his monster actually coming to life, holds up very well almost ninety years from its release.

Starting with the monster itself, we find a fantastic character. Without any lines of dialogue, the filmmakers and Boris Karloff had to use actions and emotions to display the motivations of the monster, and they did a fantastic job of it. The fear, confusion, and longing that the novel describes are evident in the monster's actions, to the point of pushing the audience to root for him.

The rest of the characters are also a bit of fun. Baron Frankenstein, played by Fred Kerr, was also a hoot. He played a no-nonsense character that functioned well in ...

Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

We will always see debates about which of the original wave of Universal Monster movies is the most important. With Dracula being released just under a year before Frankenstein, that tends to give the vampire crowd a sense of justifiable cause for a trumpet fanfare. Perhaps the more pertinent question is which is the better movie? Surely the most hardened of Dracula fans have to bow their heads in acknowledgement that Frankenstein quite simply is superior on every level - even if it itself is not as good as its sequel...

Narrative doesn't quite follow Mary Shelley's original source material (what a brain that lady had!), but the core essence of a tragic tale holds tight...

Not a totally faithful adaptation of the Mary Shelley book, still extremely important for not just horror movies, but movies as a whole. I thought about coming at this review from the perspective of what 1931's Frankenstein meant for the future of cinema, and how it was still essentially in its infancy and doing anything even close to what Frankenstein did, changing the culture forever and remaining in the zeitgeist even now, almost a hundred years later, is a monumental achievement and should be viewed as such. But that's never really been my jam. Frankenstein might have been great for the time, I don't know, I wasn't there, but I personally only ever found it to be okay. Re-watching it this Halloween was, I think the fourth time I'v...

Very well made monster movie featuring fine performances all around, even Boris Karloff as the Monster even though he only grunts throughout. Some good set pieces and just an all around entertaining flick. 4.25/5

Iconic Gothic horror tragedy

This Universal classic from 1931 was based on the 1927 play by Peggy Webling rather than Mary Shelleys 1818 novel. For those interested in versions fairly faithful to the book, I suggest Kenneth Branagh's 1994 version with De Niro as the creature or the 2004 version with Luke Goss as the monster, the latter of which runs almost 3 hours.

Of course, the gist of Shelleys story is here and this is the movie that set the standard for the proverbial "mad" scientist with a hunchbacked assistant. While Im not a fan of B&W movies, it works here to give the illusion of a Bavarian village back in the day. Speaking of which, the director said the story takes place in an "alternate universe," which explains th...

In this version, it's not "Victor" but "Henry Frankenstein" (Colin Clive) who is convinced that medical science is obstructing his visionary plans to create the very essence of life itself! Frustrated, he retreats to an eerie tower where, with the help of his loyal servant "Fritz" (Dwight Frye) and a few Burke and Hare types, he manages to reconstruct a corpse - complete with the appropriated brain of a criminal (they have distinctly different frontal lobes, you know...!) and is awaiting a thunderstorm to provide him with the the bolt of lightning he needs to kickstart his creation. Meantime, his love "Elizabeth" (Mae Clarke) and her pals "Moritz" (John Boles) and "Dr. Waldman" (Edward van Sloan) are determined to thwart what they see as hi...