Bride of Frankenstein, Review 2

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is a horror/parody directed by James Whale. The movie opens with the lynching of Frankenstein's Monster, played by Boris Karloff, being publicly executed. Having survived the execution, the monster has a complete change of personality from his role in the original movie. He has transformed from a murderous living corpse to a misunderstood living corpse seeking friendship. When it is learned the monster has lived, Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) pays a visit to Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) in the night with a new goal in mind. Together, they are to create something new: the monster's mate.

This was a fantastic movie that made very good use of the technology available at the time of its creation. The black and white film accents the shadowy aspects of the film incredibly, where Whale shows us only what he wants us to see, when he wants us to see it. Karloff played the monster very well, from his simple murmurs and moans to the scene where he begins learning English, and even to the end of the movie where he speaks the movie's most memorable line just before devastating the castle in which he and his not-so-beloved were created.

Whale seemed to be delivering a couple messages to us throughout the film. For one thing, he told us that people are not to be judged by the surface of their skin. The monster was seeking friendship more than anything else, and the only individual capable, outside of his creators, of such friendship was the blind man. This tells us that the monster was capable of forming friendships, regardless of his hideous surface. This also shows us that the real monster of the film was not a creation of Dr. Frankenstein, but instead mankind itself. While the monster is out seeking friendship, a murderous mob of men is just a few steps behind him.

The other message this film showcased is that it is not our place to play God. Notice that all things controlled by men, that should have been controlled by nature, turned into complete failures. The creation of the monster wasn't exactly successful because he was designed to live among the citizens as another normal being. In actuality, he became an outcast of society that spent the movie seeking friendship. The creation of the bride had two failures. Starting with the obvious one, she died about five minutes later. The second failure was that she was designed to be a mate for the monster. In other words, man was creating an arranged marriage for her in an attempt to control love. This failed because she was horrified by the monster, just as everyone else was. Finally, when the monster destroyed the castle, he took Dr. Pretorius with him, meaning he was taking away the final link to Dr. Frankenstein's desires of resurrection.

Overall, this was a great movie to see for the first time, even if it was 70 years past its creation.