#50 - Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Moderately Trashy
Directed by: James Whale. Written by: William Hurlbut.

Plot: After miraculously surviving being killed in a burning windmill, Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) gets back to work, teaming up with another demented guy (Ernest Thesiger) to create a female companion for the monster, who also survived death in the aforementioned windmill.

Review: This movie is a total classic and a bit of a cliché. It’s on basically every top-horror-flick-list (number 13 on IMDb at the time of this writing) and has been talked about by basically everyone. That applies to a lot of the other films I’ve reviewed so far, however the difference is I can’t really think of anything to write about this one, but don’t feel confident enough to remove it. This list once contained one hundred movies, but I kept removing stuff whenever I didn’t feel like writing about it (also, so I wouldn’t have to start so early, thus giving me more time to write about the things I did feel like reviewing...).

So I’ll just sit here and talk about the numerous possible drug innuendos of this movie. First of all, Ernest Thesiger had a bunch of really tiny people living in jars at his house. As in they got small.

Secondly, that hermit was pretty sketchy. I’m reasonably sure he was going to try to sell his cancer pot to the monster. The monster, being a sensible man and rationally afraid of inhaling more carbon than absolutely necessary, declined in the only way he knew how - he freaked the fuck out. But the “hermit” kept on pushing. “This is not bad - this is good!” Asshole.

Great, that took up some space. Back to seriousness. This movie is extremely well made. It ventures into the realm of silly once too often (I don’t mind humour in my horror - a touch of dark comedy can often make things that much more horrific - but silliness can be extremely irritating. Don’t believe me, try re-reading the last paragraph) but it is generally nice to look at. Very gothic. Gotta love it.

Also, Elsa Lancaster is the fuckin shit. I swear to God. I’ve said it many times before and will no doubt say it again and again and again, but she is really cool in this. It takes a lot to make that hair look good, and she does. Awesome.

And, you know, it’s pretty spooky, but I don’t really like what they did with the monster. In the first one, you know, he was like this really pathetic dude, but in this one he was just kind of annoying.

Whatever. Still pretty good.

Favourite Part: The climactic scene with the bride and everything. Freakin sah-weeet.

Other versions: The Bride - made in the eighties. Apparently has Sting in it.

Sequels: Follows Frankenstein. Followed by Son of ~, Ghost of ~, ~ meets the Wolf Man, House of ~, House of Dracula.

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