Monday, October 08, 2007

Bride of Frankenstein

**** (1935)

"She's alive- alive!"

This funny and touching sequel to Frankenstein (1931) picks up where the other leaves off, with a bit of revisionist tinkering. The evil Dr. Pretorius cajoles and blackmails the ambivalently-remorseful, convalescing Dr. Frankenstein into resuming his gruesome experiements. The creature, who survived the windmill fire, is captured and escapes, finds and loses a friend (learning some English in the process), and hides out in the very crypt where Dr. P is searching for some raw materials. Dr. P and the creature bond in their shared goal of creating a female "friend" for the creature, a monster bride. Dr. F. and Dr. P succeed in creating the Bride, but the outcome is not at all what they, or the creature, had hoped.

I enjoyed Bride of Frankenstein a bit more than Frankenstein. I liked the humorous supporting characters and other comic touches throughout the movie. Doctor Pretorius gives us a more typical- well, madder- mad scientist than Dr. Frankenstein. The appearance and reactions of the Bride are thoroughly iconic. And to top it all off, at least one person really said "laBORatory." Mmmm, laBORatory.

Bride of Frankenstein is a charming (though not especially scary) entry in the "classic horror" subgenre.

6 comments:

DKC said...

Go AC! How many are you up to now? You and Anas are making the ladies look good!

AC said...

Thank you DCD! I think I'm at about six total (AKA 3/4 of what Johnny Sweatpants watched in ONE DAY). If I didn't have a job I'd do better, I swear!

DKC said...

Ditto - if I didn't have a job AND two kids I would be kicking ass!

AC said...

Seriously? Then I think however many movies you watch should be multiplied by some factor toward the total count. Fair's fair.

DKC said...

I'm down with that. Love the "fight the power" avatar!

Octopunk said...

Yeah, but contending with the crazy crap in your life while you're dedicating it as best you can to watching and writing about horror movies is such a part of this affair. I now find myself sort of enjoying that wistful feeling when I realize it's 10 pm and I'm just starting to watch my first horror movie of the day.

Great review AC! I think this is a better movie than the first one, too.

Malevolent

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