Bride of Frankenstein

‘Bride of Frankenstein’ may rank as the first sequel to a horror film. It literally picks up right where ‘Frankenstein’ left off, and adds a little extra element. It starts off with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester, who also plays the monster’s mate) talking about the story. I think they do this to let the audience know: “This is just a story, folks!” Colin Clive returns as Henry Frankenstein, and Boris Karloff as the Monster. The parents of the little girl drowned by the monster search the ruins of the burnt-out windmill for his remains. Of course, being a sequel, the monster is alive. He kills them and then goes hunting for Henry.

This is where the story takes a bit of a different turn. The monster begins to actually develop a personality; he’s not merely a killing machine. He meets Dr Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), and together they blackmail Henry into creating a “friend” for the monster; the so-called “bride”. This all gives the film a lot more dynamism than the first one. In the first movie, the monster was sometimes sympathetic. In this sequel, as the monster becomes a fully developed character, he becomes even more sympathetic. Granted, his violent acts are hard to overlook, but you can still understand them within the context of the story.

Then, there is the famous scene with the “bride”: her hair, his hiss, and her scream after gaining the monster’s attention. Then the finale comes where the monster sends Henry and his wife to safety, and destroys everyone else, once he realizes that his Bride will never see him as anything other than a brute. From the viewpoint of the movie, his act is actually quite noble.