The Bride Of Frankenstein - James Whale
Unedited Thoughts - This is part of my unedited thoughts series.
This story is framed as a tale within a tale – Byron is visiting the Shelleys and Mary says that the story was going to continue – then we go into the film as if the story did indeed continue. I really don’t understand why they felt the need to do this because the Shelleys and Byron do not return at the end to bookend the film.
The acting is so very bad and over the top. What is key for this story to continue is for both the Monster and Henry not to have died at the end of Frankenstein. So they just bring them back to life.
Then we meet another monster creator – Dr Pretorius who grows his monsters now he wants to create a mate for the monster. The creatures that he has created are ridiculous.
When the townsfolk realise that the Monster has survived it becomes their goal to capture him and they all work together towards this end. When they do capture him they are securing him in jail and the Burgomaster says “We can’t spend all day – come on – more important things to do.” And they leave the monster only partially secured and he obviously escapes. This is the tenor of the film
There is a pretty well played section where the monster is befriended by a blind man. But this is the entire point of Frankenstein so the re-hashing of the message from the original just films like the weak imitation that it is.
Then when they finally make the mate for the monster and it hates the Monster. So the Monster kills her and himself and Dr. Pretorius. Which kind of feels super anti-climatic.
Overall I think we should be happy that Shelley never penned this terrible sequel. This is a B grade film with terrible over acting and a half thought-out plot to go along with it. They just copy the best bits of the original and attempt to re-create them. And they fail.
