Six Reviews of Films Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Frankenstein (1994) 2 Stars

It’s painful to have so many people that I greatly admire all associated with such a steaming pile of crap. These include Robert DeNiro, Helena Bonham Carter, John Cleese, Kenneth Branagh, and, worst of all, Mary Shelley. When you are working with one of the greatest novels ever written, you are setting the bar pretty high for yourself. Branagh has successfully bounded similarly high set bars before, deftly bringing Shakespeare to the screen. But he slammed right into it this time. Oof. That must have hurt.

There’s an appalling double-standard surrounding modern cinematic interpretations of classic literature. While Shakespeare is usually edited (Branagh’s Hamlet is a notable exception) even in theatrical productions, this is always a matter of cutting out some portions of the play. Never changing it. It wouldn’t occur to Branagh or anyone else to change the ending of Hamlet to suit modern cinematic expectations and formula, but he and others have no problem doing this to Frankenstein.

He admittedly changed the story much less the now iconic 1931 version. DeNiro is fantastic as the monster, playing him as the complex character Shelley created, not as the lumbering oaf forever etched into our collective conscience by Boris Karloff. But this just makes the failed effort even more disappointing. A few minor changes through the course of the film serve to condense the action. Justine is lynched for young William’s murder, rather than tried and executed as she is in the novel. I can accept this. She dies for a murder she did not commit, that’s the gist of it. The film just makes it happen more expeditiously. But Branagh goes on to make far more significant changes that would have Mary Shelley spinning in her grave, if Branagh has not himself dug her up for his own sick experiments, which I wouldn’t put past him. He had no problem desecrating her art. Why would he hesitate at doing the same to her corpse?

Worse than any of this, however, is the incomparably awful musical score. It’s absolute torture, the over-the-top melodramatic orchestral accompaniment to the story, suggesting, nay, stating outright, that the audience is too dim to pick up on what emotion they should be feeling and needs to be hit over the head with booming kettle drums and violin crescendos in order to grasp that something important is happening on the screen. I’ll be expanding on this in another blog post, but suffice to say: it’s unbearable.

Branagh may have had lofty ambitions about bringing this extraordinary story to life on the screen, but he created a monster.


Frankenstein (1931) 4 Stars

I have a confession to make: I wrote my earlier essays on Frankenstein, including a denunciation of this famous film version, before I ever saw the film. So I had considerable bias going into it, having already gone on record as hating it. I was not disappointed, which is to say, it sucked, as expected. What I found so repulsive, as described in the earlier essay, was its complete departure from the book for the sake of satisfying Hollywood formula. And, now that I have seen the film, I stand by my outrage at the changing of the story. I didn’t hate it as much as the 1994 version, though that was more loyal to the novel. But this earlier abomination is only slightly less abominable, and done so on a lower budget, and I had, as described, such low expectations that I could not possibly be disappointed as I was with the more recent version. Here’s a recommendation: don’t see either one of these pieces of shit. Read the book.

Frankenthumb 8 Stars

Frankenthumb directly parodies the iconic 1931 version of Frankenstein, and it’s hilarious from beginning to end. It’s much better than any “serious” Frankenstein movie I’ve seen thus far, and that’s pretty high praise considering that every single character is played by someone’s thumb. There are a whole series of these thumb movies, including The Godthumb, Thumbtanic, and many others. I imagine that they get less funny the more you watch, as the novelty of all the characters being played by anthropomorphic digits starts to wear off. But this was the first one I saw, and it was immensely entertaining. Two thumbs up.
(As if you didn’t see that coming.)

Dr Hackenstein 3 Stars

I never got a chance to finish watching this. Or rather, I never had a chance to make a conscious decision to not finish watching it, but that’s probably what would have happened, if I had not started to watch it a day or so before Netflix stopped making it available to stream online, then found it unavailable when I went to resume the torture a few days later. There was no way in hell I was going to have them mail me the disk to finish it. It, like most movies inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is just dreadful. At least it isn’t even pretending to be serious. But unlike Frankenthumb and Young Frankenstein, it isn’t funny either. The only positive thing that can be said about it: hot naked babes, and no shortage of ‘em. And it was still godawful. The mind boggles.


Gothic 3 Stars

I’m obsessed with Mary Shelley and am currently reading her biography while working on a screenplay about her life, and I fell asleep during this. Imagine what it will do to a normal person. Someday, the events that took place at Lord Byron’s castle on the night Mary conceived of Frankenstein will be dramatized much better than this. That will happen some time after I finish writing the screenplay and find a producer willing to take on the project. That might take a while. In the meantime, if you still haven’t read the book, you’re missing out. You may have gathered that I’m rather fond of it.


Young Frankenstein 8.5 Stars

I’ve been watching a lot of Frankenstein inspired films lately. I’m a little bit obsessed. (see http://andyrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2010/03/eight-essays-on-mary-shelleys.html ). Interestingly, the parodies are mostly great and the “serious” films are terrible. This one is a classic, of course. Certainly the best Frankenstein film I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen more than most people. Netflix made a special Frankenstein category for me and everything. This is my current indicator as to whether I’m starting to get too obsessed with something. I promise: no more Frankenstein blogs for a while. I’m going to let Mary Shelley rest in peace.