Classic Horror 

 

Frankenstein (1931) 

Doctor Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) creates a living "creature" (Boris Karloff) from corpses.  When the creature is mistreated and abandoned by its creator, it breaks free, and death and panic follow.

Quick Review: If you haven't seen Frankenstein, go see it now if for no other reason than it is such an important piece of modern culture.  Later copies and imitations in film, cartoons, and sitcoms portray "The Monster" as a zombie-like murderer.  But in the original film, The Monster is an innocent, a child learning how to act.  Yes, it ends up killing, but in self-defense and ignorance.  It is beaten and burned, chained, and kept in darkness.  There is nothing wrong with The Monster, only with men.

Frankenstein is used by many as a statement against science going "too far," but it is far from that.  Yes, the characters, particularly the self-righteous Dr. Waldman, speak about the evils of unnatural, un-godly science, but the film shows the opposite.  The conservative Waldman is wrong, both about what science can do, and about how to interpret it.  He preaches a class system where criminals have evil brains and no man can do what religion has relegated to God, but the innocent and living Monster prove both his positions incorrect.  There is nothing wrong with Doctor Frankenstein's great experiment.  The fault is in how the monster is cared for.  The lesson is that new, bold steps in science are what makes us human and worthwhile, and our failure to act responsibly with the results of our science is what makes us fools.

It was followed by Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945).

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