Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein was produced in 1935 by Universal Pictures. A follow-up to James Whale's previous horror classic Frankenstein (1931), the movie opens immediately following the conclusion of its preceding film. As a gathered mob rejoices over the apparent death of The Monster, its creator, Henry Frankenstein, collapses and appears to be near-death. As he's whisked away to his castle, an old man and his wife remain by the incident site after the crowd disperses. Insisting that he'll only feel at peace once he sees the Monster's corpse for himself, he lowers himself into the pit where it fell. There, he finds the Monster- but far from dead. It kills the old man, and his wife waiting above, before stealing away into the forest.

Meanwhile, Henry recovers, and is anxious to put the incident behind him. Days before his plan to elope with his fiancée Elizabeth, he's approached by his former mentor, Dr. Pretorius. He tries to convince Henry to partner with him and continue his work, believing that together they can unlock the secrets of life and immortality. He's turned down at first, but returns later in the film with new leverage- the Monster, who he captured in the forest following several months on the run. When even this revelation fails to shake Henry's resolve, Pretorius orders the Monster to kidnap Elizabeth. In light of this, Henry finally agrees to work with Pretorius, and together they recreate Henry's original experiment and construct a new Monster, intended as a mate for the original. When the Monster first approaches the Bride, she shrieks in terror and recoils from him. Enraged and dejected, the Monster goes on a rampage, destroying the laboratory and killing everyone present- save for Henry and Elizabeth, who the Monster permits to escape.

The central theme of the film is technology and the consequences that ensue when humanity tries to meddle with nature. We see this most potently with the Monster- assembled from the parts of various human corpses, animated with electricity, having but the most rudimentary of mental faculty. Originally hailed as a triumph of life over death, it's ultimately seen as an abomination and a horror once it becomes apparent that the Monster (which acts more out of fear and loneliness than anything else) cannot be controlled. The film also deals heavily with Christian imagery, particularly with the image of the Monster as a Resurrected figure. Allusions to Christ's Passion, shots of the Monster in cruciform poses, and other references make stark comparisons to the Gospel. The story draws its distinctions, however, by pointing out that the creature was made by Man, and is thus deficient and incapable of ever replicating the grace that Man received from God.

While for the most part this use of Christian imagery solidly reinforced the themes of the film, I felt it was a bit distracting. Mainly, I felt the film kept trying to start a theological reflection that it simply wasn't prepared to follow through on. Indeed, whatever deeper implications the Monster-As-Resurrected-Figure brought with him were dampened by a near-complete lack of self-determination on the Monsters part. The events of the story largely happen to him, rather than being driven by him, and even his noble self-sacrifice at the end comes too little and too late. This relegates the Monster to a set-piece, a MacGuffin, but not a true actor in the story- which unfortunately serves as a cop-out from fully exploring the ramifications of having a Modern Prometheus in the world. But then again, the film was only 75 minutes long.