Frankenstein (1931)

Written by John Chard on October 26, 2019

Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

We will always see debates about which of the original wave of Universal Monster movies is the most important. With Dracula being released just under a year before Frankenstein, that tends to give the vampire crowd a sense of justifiable cause for a trumpet fanfare. Perhaps the more pertinent question is which is the better movie? Surely the most hardened of Dracula fans have to bow their heads in acknowledgement that Frankenstein quite simply is superior on every level - even if it itself is not as good as its sequel...

Narrative doesn't quite follow Mary Shelley's original source material (what a brain that lady had!), but the core essence of a tragic tale holds tight. Directing was one James Whale, who here was in his directorial infancy, he himself up for debate about greatest horror genre directors, but his masterful sense of theatrical staging, and that of the terror incarnate for the era, is sublime to the point that come 100 years after its release this will still be held up as a timeless horror classic.

The thematics of the story pulse with brilliance, the advent of berserker science, the alienation and confusion flow of the creature grips and stings the heart equally. The later camp of Whale's horror ventures is mostly absent here, instead we have a dark almost miserably bleak tone, which exists right up to the end title card which brings closure after the brilliant and iconic finale has made its mark. Jack Pierce's marvelous make-up and the birth of Karloff as a genre legend seals the deal on what is without doubt one of the genre's most important films. 9/10