Ladies and gentlemen the last time I reviewed a Frankenstein movie was two years ago and ever since then i've been dying to cover one of the sequels and so today i'm finally taking the plunge and taking a look at the first Frankenstein sequel. This is one that like alot of these much older horror films I haven't seen but im very much a where of certain things from the film and so join me as I review 1935's "Bride Of Frankenstein" enjoy.
The plot of the film is Frankenstein's monster is still alive and so is Henry Frankenstein and while Henry wants nothing to do with the monster he himself created an old friend by the name of Doctor Pretorius wants Henry to help him in a scheme one which involves giving the monster a bride. In my opinion the plot of this film isn't as good as the first film but it is still a very engaging plot and the story is very well handled in my opinion.
Starring in the film is Boris Karloff as The Monster , Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Valerie Hobson as Elizabeth Frankenstein. Also starring in the film is Ernest Thesiger as Doctor Pretorius , Elsa Lanchester as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and The Monster's Bride , Gavin Gordon as Lord Byron , Douglas Walton as Percy Bysshe Shelley , Una O'Connor as Minnie and E. E. Clive as The Burgomaster.
In my opinion the acting in this film is honestly really good with all of the actors giving truly great performances. I honestly feel that it was hard for the actors to top the work that they did in the first film but they honestly come really close with this film and while the script does let the actors down a little bit since the actors aren't really given much to do for large portions of the film when they are given something to do however that's when you get to see some truly good acting or at least that's what I think anyways.
As you can all no doubt tell from the title this film features the only film appearance of The Monster's Bride. While this character would appear in some form or another over the years this is the only one in the original Universal Pictures line of monster films in which she appears and despite her name being in the title she only appears for less then a few minuets near the end of the film as such I find it remarkable that the character made as much of an impact as she did considering she's not in the film for that long.
To me this film is as much a tragedy as it is either a romance or a horror film because we see all throughout the film The Monster getting terrorised even when he's actually doing more good then other people in the film. This makes me think if the whole message behind the Frankenstein's monster character is "don't judge a book by it's cover" because we see people judging The Monster just by his appearance and yet we the audience see The Monster is actually a pretty friendly person who just wants to be liked by someone.
Adding to what I just said there's a really great sequence in this movie where The Monster meets a blind man and the two becomes friends.This to me is a great sequence because we get to see The Monster be truly happy and while of course it does come crashing down when some hunters that The Monster fought earlier recognise him that to me makes the sequence all the more heartbreaking because The Monster is never going to have what he truly wants which is a friend and nothing more.
I do like that they made The Monster speak actual words in this film since to me The Monster is a mentally disabled child. As such it makes alot of sense that the character would start to speak full sentences which oddly makes the film more heartbreaking considering almost everyone that the Monster runs into wants to see him dead and i'm shocked i've never seen the Frankenstein the way that i'm seeing him now because in hindsight it really does make sense.
I know that i've already talked about The Monster's Bride but I have to talk about her again just due to how engraved in pop culture she is. I would have liked it if this film appeared in the film more then what she does just because it would have been nice to see how she is with The Monster and this way we can get a glimpse of what her personality is like which would hopefully make us like her and plus it'd be interesting to see what the villagers would have thought of her would that have accepted her or would they treat her exactly how they treat The Monster there's a whole world of ideas that could have been done with this character and sadly the film does none of them.
For some reason this film opens up with a scene featuring Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley which as far as I can tell is only there just so the film can show flashbacks of the ending of the first Universal Pictures Frankenstein film. Since the characters in that opening aren't revisited at any point in the film and so I have to wonder why did the film makers bother to include that opening since it adds nothing to the film and is honestly quite pointless in my opinion.
This film is one hour and fourteen minuets and fifty four seconds long and so lets round that up to one hour and fifteen minuets shall we. I honestly had no idea that this film was that short since I always assumed that it was at least an hour and a half long if not a little bit longer then that and so to find out that it's not even and hour and twenty minuets long was for me quite shocking even more so when you take into account all of the story that they somehow manage to fit into this. Which is a another issue that I have with the film since the film is so short plot points that would come naturally in a longer film here feel rushed.
Overall while I cannot say that this film is better then Frankenstein I can say that it more then matches up to the high standards set by that film. Yes this film does have alot of issues all of which i've talked about this review but for me this is a case where the good out weigh the bad and as such I do feel that this film is must watch for any horror fan and with all of that in mind this film gets a 7 out of 10 from me. All of the images that I got for this review were gathered from either Google Images who I have no choice but to recommend that you use if you want images from this film or the official monster fandom wiki page and so we end this review as we always do with our true goddess Elvira wishing us all some very unpleasant dreams.
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