This is a movie that I watched when I was studying the book in class. It was interesting to come back to it.

“Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein (1931) is a seminal horror film that follows the brilliant but obsessed scientist Henry Frankenstein as he creates a living monster from exhumed human body parts. When the creature escapes and accidentally kills a young girl, the local village erupts in a frantic manhunt to destroy it.”

This was a movie that builds on everything that we think of when we hear the name Frankenstein, from every image of the monster in popular media to the children’s movie Igor.

For this story, I have three thoughts

Firstly, the names. In the movie, the mad scientist is Henry Frankenstein, and his friend is named Victor, which is why? Like, I can understand if they didn’t like the name, but giving that name to another character is just confusing. I will admit that when I first was watching the movie, I was confused because both of the people I am referring to looked a little bit similar. Which did not help. Another note: even though this movie introduces the idea of Frankenstein having an assistant, his name here is Fritz, not Igor.

Secondly, as I mentioned above, this movie is where we get a lot of the things we think of when we get to other adaptations, which is different because Dr Frankenstein in the book was so secretive that he would never have an assistant. He also doesn’t tell anyone, so no one would call him mad. Also, the look of the monster. In many depictions, Frankenstein’s monster is green, with a square head and bolts in his neck. This all came from this movie; apparently, this is because the creators designed him as what he would look like after he was created. By this I mean his head is square, and the bolts were the best way to introduce the electricity. It is interesting that this look is the main image.

Thirdly, the monster and the abnormal brain. In this movie, the reason that the monster murders people is that he has a villain’s brain. Now, on the one hand, this is interesting; there have been many years of study of the brain in the belief that you can tell a criminal’s brain from a good person’s brain. This is shown from the class held before Fritz steals the brain from the same room. But my main problem is this movie blames the monster’s actions on him having the wrong brain. This feels like a bit of a cop out. Because in the book the monster only becomes evil because of how he was treated.  Maybe this is why Frankenstein survives the end of the movie and gets to live happily ever after. As if he doesn’t need to be punished for what he created.

Thank you for joining me in this Halloween season, and until next week.

Happy reading to all, and to all, a good night.